And the compass in Jin’s hand was pointing straight towards it.
They were outside the city. The Sultan had sent the prisoners beyond the city and put up a wall around us. We were trapped here while they were out there. Taken somewhere to be imprisoned for the rest of their lives without trial – our Sultan’s version of mercy.
We could feel the heat pouring off the wall from here. But Jin picked up a stone from the street. He bounced it up and down in his palm a few times; it made him look young, like a kid about to cause mischief. And then he chucked the stone at the wall. It didn’t bounce back towards us like it would against a regular wall, or pass through like it would normal fire. It incinerated as it hit, turning from stone to ash in the space of a heartbeat.
We would burn even faster than that if we tried to walk through.
My first thought was that the Sultan was trying to keep us from getting to the prisoners. To keep me from getting away, so he could sink his hooks into me again and drag me back to the palace. But doubt chased that thought hot on its heels. Jin said it first.
‘It doesn’t make sense.’ He pushed a hand through his hair, dislodging his sheema. I glanced around quickly, to see if there was anyone who might spot us. ‘Not if he thinks Ahmed is dead. All this … it can’t be for our benefit.’
He wasn’t wrong. In the Sultan’s mind, we were defeated. An act of war against us this large would be wasted. ‘Then who do you reckon it is for?’
We got our answer before the sun set. As we were waiting anxiously for news from the palace. For something the Sultan might say to his people about what we had all woken up to.
Izz and Maz circled above the palace in the shapes of larks, taking turns to dash back to the house and report on the comings and goings. But there was nothing much of interest. That was, until just before sunset.
Izz and Maz returned together, two sand-coloured birds crisscrossing each other frantically in the sky before they landed on the rooftop, becoming boys again as they did.
‘Invaders.’ Izz spoke first, trying to catch his breath. ‘Coming from the west.’
‘Blue-and-gold banners,’ Maz added, breathing hard, his chest rising and falling. My heart faltered. The Gallan. The Gallan were marching on the city. The desert’s all-too-familiar occupiers. Come to take our country for themselves once and for all.
That was what the wall was for. Not to keep us in. To keep them out.
The city was protected. But we were trapped.
Chapter 2
The Deathless Sultima
Once, there was a desert under siege and a Sultan without an heir to defend it.
The desert had many enemies. They came from the east and the west and the north to occupy the desert’s cities, enslave its people and steal its weapons to fight other wars in faraway lands.
The Sultan saw his desert was under siege from many a side, and that his own forces were outnumbered man to man. And so he summoned his enemies’ kings, queens and princes to his palace.
He called it a truce.
His enemies saw it as surrender.
It was neither. In truth it was a trap.
The Sultan turned soldiers made of metal and magic on his enemies, and reduced their leaders to dust.
Many of the Sultan’s enemies retreated, but the great empire spreading across the north heard the Sultan’s declaration of war against them and resolved to answer it. They were enraged by the slaughter of their king and their soldiers. And so their young impulsive prince, soon to take his father’s place, ordered his forces to march on the great desert city and destroy it.
The Sultan heard of the approaching threat, and he had no small number of sons whom he might have sent into battle to face the approaching armies. But he had no heir. His firstborn had died at the hands of the Rebel Prince, who was consumed by jealousy and sought the throne for himself.
Or so it was said by some.
There were others who said that the Rebel Prince was no traitor, but rather a hero. And those men and women cried out that the Rebel Prince should be the one to defend the desert, not any of the Sultan’s sons raised in the palace, but his true prodigal heir.
But even as the enemy’s army approached, the Rebel Prince was captured. No matter that the people cried out for him to save them, they could not save him as he was delivered to the executioner’s block. For the people of the desert knew that it did not matter if he was a rebel or a traitor or a hero, all men were only mortal in the end.
And yet, when the axe fell, some who saw it swore that he seemed to be more than a mere mortal, that they witnessed his soul leave his body in a great light and transform into a shield of fire around their city. They whispered that the Rebel Prince had answered their call for succour even in death. Just as Ashra the Blessed had answered the desert’s call in time of need thousands of years ago.
And sure enough, when the invaders arrived, they found a great barrier of fire protecting the desert city. The invaders could not attack, and the people of the desert praised the Rebel Prince for shielding them. The invaders could do nothing except surrounded the city and wait for the wall of fire to fail or for the Sultan to send a champion – a prince and heir – to lead his armies against them.
On the first day of the siege, the Sultan’s eldest surviving son, a great swordsman, came to him and asked that he might bear the honour of leading their armies in battle against the invaders at their gates. But the Sultan refused him. He did not know if this son was worthy.
On the second day, the Sultan’s second-eldest son, a great archer, came to him and asked that he might have the honour of leading men in raining arrows down on the enemies who surrounded them. But again the Sultan refused, unsure if he was worthy.
On the third day, the Sultan’s third son came. And he, too, was refused.
Days passed, then weeks, with no heir chosen to fight the enemies. The people of the city grew restless.
Finally, the Sultan, having rebuffed every one of his sons old enough to fight, declared that a new heir would be chosen by trial in battle. As had been the way of the desert since the time of the first Sultan.
The people flocked to the palace to see the trial, crowding around the steps for a glimpse of the men who each might become their ruler. The Sultan appeared before his people and told them that though he still grieved his firstborn son, he saw now that a new heir must be chosen, for the good of his country and his people.
But the Sultan had scarcely begun to speak when the people watching heard another voice.
He lies.
It was the voice of a woman. She did not shout, she whispered. But they heard her clearly all the same, as if she had spoken in their ears. Or from within their own minds.
The assembled people cast around in astonishment, looking for the woman bold enough to speak of their exalted ruler so. And as they did, they saw a thing that was scarcely to be believed. The woman who had spoken stood not at their side but before them, holding her severed head between her hands, pressed close to her heart.
Where her head should have been, her neck ended in a bloody stump.
Those who recognised her passed on the word to those who did not, and soon it swept through all the onlookers that standing before them was the Blessed Sultima. The traitor wife of their now-dead Sultim, executed by her husband’s order.
Returned from the dead.
Though her lips did not move, they all heard her speak.