‘There’s only one man who gets to call me that,’ I said. ‘And you’re not near as good-looking as him.’
Malik’s temper snapped faster than I expected. The gun that had stayed so arrogantly by his side was out and in his hand in the space of a breath, pressing to my forehead in the next. Behind me I felt Imin shift forward, like he might try to do something. I held up a hand, palm flat, hoping he would take the hint and not get us both killed. From the corner of my eye I saw him go still. The women from the prison were watching the scene unfold with huge terrified eyes. One of them had started crying silently.
It would’ve been nice if the bite of an iron barrel next to my skin was unfamiliar. But this was far from the first time I’d been threatened like this. ‘You’ve got a smart mouth on you, anyone ever tell you that?’ That wasn’t a first, either. But telling him that didn’t seem all that smart.
‘Malik.’ The soldier who’d spoken stepped forward, looking like his patience was wearing thin. ‘The Sultan will want her alive.’
‘The Sultan is not my master.’ Malik’s face had turned savage. He pushed the gun harder against my skull. I could feel the barrel of the pistol pressing between my eyes. My heart quickened instinctively, but I fought down that fear. I wasn’t going to die today.
‘You just cost me twenty fouza,’ I sighed. ‘I made a bet I could make it out of this city without anybody threatening to kill me, and thanks to you, I’ve just lost.’
Malik wasn’t smart enough to be worried that someone with a pistol between her eyes was talking back instead of crying and cowering. ‘Well’ – he pulled back the hammer on the pistol – ‘lucky for you, you’re not going to be alive long enough to pay up.’
‘Malik!’ The soldier stepped forward again, his irritation falling away now. Seemed they had only just figured out they were dealing with an unstable man. By some unseen signal from their captain the weapons were shifting, away from the women behind me, towards Malik.
‘Any last words, Bandit? Maybe you’d like to beg for your life?’
‘Or …’ A voice seemed to float out of midair by Malik’s ear. ‘Maybe you would?’
Malik tensed visibly, in that way men did when they were in danger. It was a stance I’d become intimately familiar with in the past half a year. A thin bead of blood ran down his throat, even though it seemed like there was nothing around him but air.
The tension in my shoulders finally eased. The trouble with having invisible backup was that you never knew exactly where she was.
The air shimmered as the illusion cast by Delila dropped, leaving Shazad standing where there’d been nothing a moment before. Her dark hair was tightly braided to her head like a crown, a white sheema hung loose around her neck, and her simple desert clothes looked expensive. She was everything that Malik hated and she had him helpless. She looked dangerous, and not just because one of her blades was pressed to Malik’s throat, but because she looked like her deepest wish was to get to use it.
Finally, and far too late, fear dawned slowly across his face.
‘If I were you,’ I said, ‘now’d be the time I’d drop that gun and start reaching for the sky.’
Chapter 6
I was so close to Malik, I could see his face vacillating between despair and desparate action. He chose the second one. But I was faster than his stupid brain could work. I dropped to my knees a second before the gun went off, the bullet burying itself harmlessly in the wall behind me. Malik hit the ground next to me a second later, a new red necklace from Shazad’s sword gracing his throat.
But we weren’t done yet.
‘That took you long enough,’ I said to Shazad, rising to my feet as I whipped my hands up. On the other side of the walls of Saramotai, the desert surged in answer. After using nothing but a handful of sand down in the prison, the power of having the whole desert at my fingertips was almost intoxicating.
‘I see you managed not to get yourself shot this time.’ Shazad whirled to face the remaining soldiers as I did the same. ‘You still owe me those twenty fouza, though.’
‘Double or nothing?’ I offered over my shoulder as we met back to back.
The captain was already giving orders to the confused soldiers, recovering awfully quick considering a new enemy had just appeared out of thin air.
‘Delila!’ Shazad called an order of her own. ‘Drop our cover.’
The illusion lifted like a curtain before a show. Suddenly half the Sultan’s men who’d been standing a moment earlier were crumpled on the ground, and our rebels were in their place, weapons drawn. Behind them was Delila, face still round with innocence, her purple hair that came from not being wholly human falling into wide, frightened-looking eyes. She dropped her hands, shaking with effort and nerves. She was scared but that wasn’t stopping her.
‘Navid!’ From behind me, Imin spotted him instantly among the crowd of rebels.
A tall, desert-built man, Navid was one of our recruits from Fahali. We hadn’t been trying to recruit people there, but after the battle it was hard to stop them joining up. Navid was one of the best. He was tough as anybody would need to be to survive this war we were fighting. And as earnest as you needed to be to think we stood a chance. He was hard not to like. But it still surprised me that Imin loved him.
Navid’s eyes went wide with relief as he spotted Imin, recognising his beloved no matter the shape. It was a moment of distraction, his defence lowering in his relief that Imin was alive. I saw it, and so did the soldier on his right.
The desert poured over the edge of the walls of Saramotai, cascading around the carving of Princess Hawa, knocking soldiers off their feet. I wrenched my arm up, flinging a burst of sand towards the soldier who would’ve killed Navid, knocking him down, and startling Navid’s attention back away from Imin.
‘Watch your back, Navid!’
I was already turning away. The sand turned into a hurricane around me. I swung one arm down, crashing sand across a soldier’s face as he lunged for Delila, pushing him away from her. A shout came from behind me. I spun in time to see a soldier lunging for me, sword up. I started to gather the sand into a blade in my hand but I was too slow. And I didn’t need to. Steel screamed against steel. Shazad’s blade landed a breath away from my throat, kissing the soldier’s weapon. The blood that would’ve been all over his sword pulsed noisily through my ears. In one move that was too quick for me to see, he was on the ground.
‘You ought to take your own advice.’ Shazad tossed me a spare gun.
‘Why would I need to watch my back when you’ve got it?’ I caught the pistol a moment too late to shoot. Instead I slammed the handle straight into the face of the nearest soldier, the blow cracking up my arm, blood from his nose spurting across my hand.
The fight would be short and bloody. There were already more soldiers on the ground than standing. I fired. And now there was one more. I turned, already looking for my next target.
I didn’t see exactly what happened next. Only splintered moments.
Another gun at the edge of my vision as I raised my own weapon. Exhaustion making me sluggish. Making my mind slow to understand what I was seeing.
That the gun wasn’t pointed at me.
It was pointed at Samira. And the soldier already had a finger on the trigger.
Everything happened then in the same second.
Ranaa moved, swinging herself in front of Samira.
His gun went off. So did mine.
His bullet tore through green khalat and skin mercilessly.
One split second and it was over. The fighting was done as quick as it had started. In the silence all I heard was Samira screaming Ranaa’s name as the little Demdji’s heart pumped out her blood onto the street, the tiny sun in her hand dying with her.
Chapter 7
Ahmed was waiting for us at the entrance to camp.
That wasn’t a good sign.