Rebel of the Sands (Rebel of the Sands, #1)(69)

Noorsham spread his hands and the tightly woven chain mail caught the light. “I was chosen for greater things. This is my purpose.”

I recoiled. Greater things. It sounded too close to things I’d said to Tamid about leaving Dustwalk. About there being another life out there. One that wasn’t so small and pointless and short. The things I’d thought in the rebel camp. I could share an accent with someone who killed so gleefully, but I wasn’t willing to share my words. “What’d they do to you, anyhow, the wicked folks of Sazi?”

For a second, even made of metal, he looked human. “Do you remember seven years ago, when the Gallan army came through?” His fingers tapped out a rhythm on the bar as he walked toward me.

“The Gallan army came through more than once,” I said. I didn’t dare move away from him.

“Don’t you pretend you don’t remember.” His accent stumbled, and I heard the Last County thicker than ever. His tongue righted itself again. “This time was different.”

“I remember,” I admitted, even though I didn’t want to. It was a drought year. The restlessness went bone deep, and there were more of the foreigners in their blue uniforms than usual. “My mama and I hid under the house for a whole day. She tried to make me think it was a game. But I was old enough to understand some of why.”

Noorsham nodded. “My sister Rabia was old enough, too,” he said. “And then when the army was gone, folks up on the mountain got together and tossed stones at her and all the other girls for lying with foreign men. Until they were lying dead. And my mama let them.”

I had nothing to say to that.

“For years I waited for God to punish them. I prayed. I’d never figured the punishment would come from me.” His words reminded me of the Holy Father’s voice blistering through the masses on prayer days. I even used to hear the wild religious fervor on Tamid’s tongue sometimes.

“I’d been out of the mines for a while. I was too sick to work. I tried to go, but my mama wouldn’t let me and I didn’t have any fight in me. When I came back all the other men were looking at me sideways. They kept asking after Suha, my other sister. By lunchtime one of them got drunk enough to tell me. While I’d been sick, we’d run low on money. And my mama had been afraid of starving to death, so she sold Suha as a whore to the men in the mine. The same ones who’d killed Rabia for lying with foreigners. And as I found out, I felt it all rush out of me, a light sent from a higher power, destroying them and leaving me whole.”

Like hell.

Noorsham stopped pacing, a foot away from me. The unchangeable features of his bronze mask were calm. But one single bronze fist was clenched tightly in anger. I felt the anger with him. For the folks in Dustwalk who had hanged my mother. Who had hanged Dalala. Who would’ve let someone like Fazim or my uncle have me.

“After that, Prince Naguib found me. I had been huddled on the mountain, awaiting my next order from God, and he came. And he took me to our exalted Sultan, who explained to me that my fire was a gift. That it would kill the sinful and spare the worthy.”

“Fire doesn’t know good from evil any more than a bullet does.” I couldn’t stop myself.

He tilted his head, like a puzzled bird. “You’re still alive,” he said.

“That ought to be proof enough.” I leaned back against the bar, hiding my shaking hands as I gripped the edge. “And I reckon you know it, too. Why else did they have you all chained up in Fahali? How come they’ve got you all trussed up in your armor now? I reckon you know as well as I do, being from the Last County, we put bronze in with the iron to make Buraqi obedient.” The Gallan army that was hunting for the rebel camp was stationed in Dassama. They had meant to burn that, too. Only Noorsham wouldn’t. So they had taken him back to Izman and they had made him bronze armor. “Seems like he thinks you need to be made to obey, too. You want to know what I think? Naguib’s afraid of you.” And I couldn’t blame him. “He’s just using you. You’re a common weapon.”

Noorsham’s fingers twitched. “You sound real sure of yourself.”

“Because I’m right.” I grasped for something to say, some truth I could give him. There was no point telling him he was a Demdji, not a weapon of God. Or that he was fighting for the wrong side. He could say the same to me. He believed in the Sultan; I believed in the Rebel Prince. Jin had told me once there was no arguing against belief. It was a foreign language to logic. And Djinni’s daughter or not, I reckoned he could still burn me alive if he decided I was on the other side.

I needed to get out of here. I shoved myself off from the bar and paced to the window. I could still see Izz, flying high above. The window came open with a tug, letting cool air in.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m hot.” I said, pulling my sheema free from my neck. I released my red sheema, stolen off a clothesline in Sazi, letting it whip out into the sand like a bloody flag. I prayed Izz would see it and understand.

“Is this a trick?” He sounded so young again.

“You don’t have to let them use you.” My voice took on a desperate note as I turned back to face him. “Prince Ahmed, if he were Sultan, he could expel the Gallan, too. Without killing so many people. He has people like us on his side, too. Only he doesn’t use us to raze cities. We’re not weapons; we’re soldiers.”