Rebel of the Sands (Rebel of the Sands, #1)(68)

And it was true, right down to our accents and blue eyes. I couldn’t tell him it wasn’t. We were both Demdji; we weren’t made for lies.

“I want to be alone with her.” He raised his voice so Naguib could hear him.

“Like hell.” Shazad was unraveled on the carriage floor. But with those two words I knew she still had some fight in her.

“Couldn’t have said it better.” Jin was struggling back to his knees. Naguib’s boot connected with his side again.

“Nobody hurts them.” I shouted as Naguib raised his foot again. He stopped, his boot hovering above his brother’s ribs. He wasn’t a commander with a prisoner then. He was a son who wasn’t allowed to compete for his father’s respect at the Sultim Trials. Who couldn’t command his soldiers’ respect and heard behind his back that his rebel brother was a better man than him. And he was taking it out on Jin. “I’ll come with you. And while I’m gone, nobody hurts them.” I turned back to the pair of blue eyes, set deep in the metal face. Were mine that unsettling to look at? “We got a deal?”

His eyes smiled, but the metal mouth never moved. I wondered if he’d grown up stupidly ignorant of what he was, just like me.

“You’ve got my word: no one will hurt them while you are gone.”

He held out his hand again. It didn’t matter that I was a Djinni’s daughter; his metal glove still made my palm blister when I clasped it.

? ? ?

THEY SEARCHED ME twice before they left me alone with him, but they did it hastily. I got the feeling even the soldiers were dying to get away from their Demdji weapon. Then we were alone in the next carriage over, a large dining car. It looked almost exactly like the one I’d eaten in on the train out of Juniper City. Every motion of the train made the glasses clink like a manic chorus of bells. Noorsham sat in a bright red chair while I leaned against the door, as far away from him as I could get.

“You didn’t come back,” he said finally. “In Fahali. You didn’t come back for me.” He sounded younger than he had in front of Naguib. And for a moment, the terrifying bronze armor blurred back into the scrawny soldier boy on the floor of the prison.

“I meant to. I wanted to. I tried, but . . .” I was making excuses. A lot of excuses for a broken promise, made when I thought we were both just children of foreign men. Not a defective Demdji and a weapon of destruction. “I know,” I said finally. “I’m sorry.

“How come you were locked up?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t obey my commander’s orders.”

“The prayer house,” I realized. “You wouldn’t burn the prayer house in Dassama.” He inclined his head slowly. “How come?” I remembered his disgust at Bahi. “Don’t believe anyone holy enough to be at prayers could be a rebel?”

“I knew there wouldn’t be any Gallan inside,” he said simply.

“The Gallan.” I shook my head in confusion. “Why would . . .” Dassama hadn’t just been allied to Ahmed; it had been a major base for the Gallan army. The Sultan wasn’t trying to burn out the rebellion on behalf of the Gallan. He wasn’t using it as a testing site because it was rising in support of Ahmed. He was scouring the foreigners out of his desert. “You’re not after us. You’re after them.”

“The Sultan told me that God was angry that we’d let faithless foreign powers into the desert. He said he needed me to return our land to our people. My fire could clean out the foreign armies, the ones that would harm us, control us, and take from us what isn’t theirs.”

Who marched in with their blue uniforms and took women and guns alike from this desert.

I thought of standing in the tent with Ahmed, scared his father was coming for us. How stupid and naive. The Sultan didn’t care about a handful of rebels wanting to make a better world. He was making a new world, too. One he didn’t have to share.

Something flashed outside the window. Blue wings. A huge blue Roc. Izz circling above the train. He must’ve realized something was wrong by now.

Noorsham followed my eyes just as Izz flung himself upwards, darting over the top of the train and out of sight.

“You’re from Sazi,” I said, drawing Noorsham’s attention back to me. I pushed myself away from the door and started pacing, keeping his eyes on me. Just because we told the truth didn’t mean I couldn’t fool him. “I can hear it in your accent. The mines.” The pieces were starting to come together: the way the burnt city reminded me of something I couldn’t put my finger on. Two great disasters separated by the desert. “It wasn’t an accident. It was you.”

“I destroyed the mines on the day I discovered my gift.” He stood up with the same ponderous motions as a Holy Father. “The day I brought light and wrath down on the wicked.”

“And Sazi was wicked, was it?” I traced my finger down the wood of the bar. So long as I was here, my friends stayed alive. So long as I was here, I could buy us some time. I just had to keep him talking. When I glanced out the window, Izz was gone. How long would it take him to figure out we were in trouble?

“You’re from the Last County, too,” he said. “How good were people where you were from?”

He wasn’t wrong. “You’ve killed more people than anybody in the Last County ever did.”