Rebel of the Sands (24 page)

A
scream came instead of a gunshot.

I felt the cold metal of the gun leave my forehead. I grabbed the moment, flinging myself to one side in the sand. I ripped the sheema off my eyes as I moved. The sight that awaited me was horrifying and glorious all at once.

General Dumas was burning. Burning the way Bahi had. As he dropped to his knees I saw Noorsham behind him, one hand raised, like a Holy Father in the middle of a blessing. The Gallan soldiers turned their guns on him. Shots went off. Most bullets missed harmlessly, badly aimed in the frantic shooting. One or two hit his breastplate, leaving a dent but nothing more.

The Gallan soldier nearest me wasn't rushing, though.
He was taking his time, taking his aim. I could see the line of the shot. I could see it would be a clean hit.

His finger squeezed the trigger even as I whipped my hand up. The sand below his feet exploded, throwing him off balance. His cry drew Noorsham's attention. A second later it turned to a scream of pain as the soldier burned.

One of the Gallan turned toward me, gun already halfway up. My hands moved on instinct, like they did with a gun. Like this was as familiar as the feeling of a trigger.

A body made out of sand surged up in answer. I twitched my fingers and its arms grabbed the soldier around the neck, yanking him down to the ground.

Another sand body formed itself and surged into the fight. A soldier fired, but the bullet passed harmlessly through its chest before the sand creature was on top of him, pulling the gun away. Then another sand creature, and another, until I had half a dozen of them clawing at the soldiers as Noorsham burned them one by one. I moved like a sandstorm, like I'd seen Shazad with a blade. Except the whole desert was my weapon, my feet spinning the sand moving with me. I dodged a blade and whipped my hand up, the sand scattering into the soldier's face.

And then everything was quiet.

I looked around. In the chaos, I realized the fight had brought us into the walls of Fahali. The Gallan soldiers were gone. It was just me and Noorsham left. We were facing each other down an empty city street, cleared by
the fight. Folks had retreated inside their homes. I saw a flash of movement in one of the windows. Someone watching us.

The sun glinted off his armor. There was a dent near his heart where my last bullet had hit him. It might leave a bruise.

With the rush of the sand gone, everything went too still, too quiet.

“What now?” Noorsham asked. The lilt of his words was Last County. Everything about him ached with familiarity. Of the town I'd left. Of the desert heat that lived in my very skin. Of our eyes that looked like a clear desert sky on fire. Of the bloodline we shared, which remembered a sky without stars and an ancient war.

I could hear the sound of running feet. We weren't done here yet. Fahali was a border city. It had a large guard. Noorsham raised his hand, already starting to glow red.

“Noorsham! You don't want to do this.” My heart was still rushing. He hesitated.

“Noorsham,” a voice from above called. We both looked the same way at once. Naguib was standing over us. He stood by the city's gate. He'd extracted himself from the fight with the rebels to find his weapon. “You are not finished.”

Two dozen more Gallan soldiers burst into the street, surrounding us, guns leveled, shouting in their guttural language. I reached for the sand. Their general was dead. He couldn't give them the order to shoot. But one of them would get trigger happy soon enough.

Naguib raised his hand. A bronze ring glinted there, the same stuff that Noorsham's armor was made of. There were words marked on it. Noorsham's true name, I realized. Like Atiyah'd had her Djinni lover's true name. Like all the stories where a greedy merchant or too-proud ruler sought to control some Djinni he chanced upon in the desert. The secrets the Djinn guarded jealously but that had a way of slipping out to the women they loved.

And it was my true name, too, I realized. Our father's name.

“Burn the city.”

Noorsham's blue eyes turned back to me. I saw that we understood each other. He didn't want to kill me. He raised his hands toward me, like he wanted to embrace me or bless me or burn me. The slightest gesture scalded the air close to my face.

I knew what I needed to do. And I had one shot at it.

There was sand stuck to my hands. I shifted my fingers ever so slightly. I felt the sand answer even as the heat coming off Noorsham built, even against his will, even as he tried to hold it back. The barrels of the Gallan guns swung between me and Noorsham uncertainly. His fire was inching toward me. Toward my feet. I gathered the sand in my fingers into a bullet.

The world came into that familiar focus. Like I was a desperate girl standing in the pistol pit in Deadshot all over again.

I had one last shot.

I had good aim.

I moved in one motion, whipping my hand forward like a gunshot. The sand went with it. Not a violent, uncontrolled burst this time.

One clean bullet.

It hit Noorsham's face, sending him staggering back with a cry as the bullet burst back into dust and the heat faded.

I held my breath as Noorsham looked up. The lock on the side of the mask was loose. The force of the sand had knocked it open. I watched as Noorsham's hands came up to his face, shaking. The bronze mask that encircled his whole head came off.

He looked terribly young without it. As young as he had when he'd been just a blue-eyed, smart-mouthed boy from the shop in Dustwalk. A kid I'd figured was fragile and human and destined to die.

I'd been wrong on all counts.

“This city's not the one who ought to burn,” he said, raising his hand toward Naguib.

The heat rolled off him in one angry wave, rocking everything in its path. The Gallan guns leveled on Noorsham. I pulled both my hands up, dragging the desert with them. Shielding him from the bullets as his fire crashed toward our enemy.

Naguib screamed.

I
was born in the desert. The desert was part of me. That was all I remembered of the fight that followed. Chaos and sand and gunshots that didn't hit me. And when all my enemies were gone I slumped back against a wall, too tired to care if anyone wanted to shoot me or burn me alive.

“Amani.” My eyes flew open. Jin was standing in the gates to Fahali. His face cleared as he saw me, and he ran toward me, relief written all over him. “Thank God.”

“You don't believe in God,” I said. It came out half a croak just as he closed the last of the space between us with a kiss.

A throat cleared behind us. We tore apart.

The twins were standing a few feet away with matching crossed arms. They looked a little singed, but otherwise
no worse for wear. “Is that the congratulations we're going to get for surviving?” Maz asked. “Because I'm not sure how I feel about that.”

Izz's hair stuck up. “I know how
I
feel about it.”

“And I know how
I
feel about breaking both your noses.” Shazad shoved Izz with one hand without breaking stride. Hala trailed in her wake, golden skin smeared red with blood. I realized the fighting was done. And we were all still alive. I wanted to cry in relief. Shazad sheathed her scimitar before reaching and pulling me into a hug. I collapsed into her gratefully.

As we broke apart, I realized we had an audience. The people of Fahali were crowding around us, gathering as the dust settled. Only they weren't looking at us. Every eye in the street was fixed on Ahmed.

He was standing just outside the city gates, with three Mirajin soldiers. Prisoners, I guessed, as they waited on their knees, heads bowed, for his verdict.

He really did carry himself like a prince. I saw it now. The smiling, friendly Ahmed who'd brushed off
“your majesty”
was gone. But he wasn't some golden ruler ready to climb onto a throne either. He looked like a legendary hero fresh from battle. Like a man who could lead this country.

“What happened?” I asked, leaning on Shazad. Everything was a blur after Naguib's death.

“The Gallan soldiers who survived retreated,” Shazad answered in a low voice as we looked on. “I saw them riding north. When they report back to their king that the
Sultan tried to kill them, he won't have an alliance on his hands anymore. What was left of Naguib's army surrendered to us after he died. Everyone saw him burn.”

“And Noorsham? I lost track of him in the fighting . . .”

“Then he's gone.” Shazad's jaw tightened.

He'd gotten away. I tried to hide the relief on my face. Noorsham had killed Bahi. The boy who drunkenly serenaded her below a window and joined a rebellion for her. But he was still my brother. My brother, who had the power to destroy this whole desert if he chose to, was out there somewhere. And he knew my true name.

“I am not going to kill you.” Ahmed was speaking to the Mirajin soldiers who had surrendered, his voice loud enough for those around him to hear. “Execution without trial is what the Gallan have done here for decades. And their influence on our desert will be ending soon.” One of the three Mirajin soldiers glanced up, like he was just daring to hope he might get out of here with his life. “So I will release you on the condition that you carry a message to my father.”

A rustle went through the crowd at “my father.” If Ahmed noticed, he didn't let it show. “You will tell him Fahali is whole and it is under my protection. That I am laying claim to every city west of the middle mountains. My father cannot hold this whole country against its will without the Gallan alliance. And if he will not listen to the people's will, he will listen to mine. One way or another, I will take the throne of this nation one day. But until then, these are my people.”

Everyone's attention was on Ahmed now as his eyes traveled between the three soldiers. They might flee Miraji before going back to the Sultan with Ahmed's words. But stories had a way of traveling in the desert. The Sultan would hear that the Rebel Prince had stood in the ashes of the battle of Fahali and laid claim to half his kingdom. “And if he comes after my people, I will bring war to his doorstep.”

“A new dawn!” The cry burst out of the crowd before Ahmed had even fully finished speaking.

“A new desert!” A dozen voices called back, ragged and out of pace.

“A new dawn! A new desert!” The cry was taken up around Fahali, thousands of Mirajin voices together as one. Chanting for their prince, their hero, for all of us.

The sun was setting as we made our way out of the city and back into the Dev's Valley. When the story of this day reached the Sultan, no one would tell him we were a small rabble of tired and sorry-looking rebels. That we didn't look fit to fight the war that was coming. That half of us weren't sure if we could. He would only know that we had won and were still alive.

And tomorrow the sun would rise on the first day of a new desert.

This is a book about a girl who went from going it alone to becoming part of something bigger than herself. I'm coming to realize that also describes the journey of having your first book published.

The very first person on this book's journey was my agent, Molly Ker Hawn. I don't think I'd ever heard Amani's name out loud until she said it the first time we met, and I will always remember that as the moment this book found someone else who knew it and believed in it. Since then, she has taken this book further than I ever imagined, and I am so grateful to her and the rest of the amazing Bent Agency team for continuing to support and guide me at every step.

I am ridiculously lucky that this book found its way to my editors, Kendra Levin and Alice Swan, who were so enthusiastic about this story and so smart in guiding it where it needed to go. So thank you for everything from taking a chance on me, to edit letters with Star Wars and Chekov references and a whole section entitled “sexytimes,” to six-hour phone calls. But more than anything, thank you for being so endlessly patient with a debut author trying to figure it all out. I am very glad that this book found its home with Viking and Faber, and I'm completely indebted to the amazing teams both in the U.S. and the U.K. for all their work. A book goes through more people's hands than I ever knew, and probably even know now, and I am grateful to every single one of them.

To everyone who has acquired this book in another country, the fact that you will be translating my words into languages I can't even read blows me away. Thank you.

This book is already dedicated to my parents. If “show, don't tell” is a rule of writing, it's one my parents perfected in real life. I can't ever remember being told anything as clichéd as “We believe in you” or “We support you no matter what,” but I also can't remember ever not knowing it.

I owe a debt to every person who has kept me sane as I moved from writer to author. The ways they helped me are mostly abstract, so I
am reduced to having to thank them for the concrete things that came along with the moral support. So thank you to Rachel Rose Smith, for almond croissants, sleepovers on her floor, and just being one of the best people I know. Michella Domenici, for reading this book more than once through its changes and being an amazing sounding board and the first person to fangirl at me. Jon Andrews, for motivational pictures of Taylor Swift drawn on napkins. Amelia Hodgson, for spending an entire afternoon helping me brainstorm the middle. My little brother, Max, for putting up with me over Christmas while I tried to figure out that bomb thing, and for valiantly attempting to give me scientific advice that went over my head. Janet Hamilton-Davies, for engaging so naturally and completely with the fact that your niece had written a book in a way that only a teacher, who has spent a lifetime making sure young people around her are aware that they are capable, could. Nick Sims, for being amazingly understanding with a distracted employee trying to edit a book. Justine Caillaud, for making me
WANTED
posters and spending the last twenty-four years being creative with me. To the Sweet Sixteens, I'm only starting to understand what an amazing support network a debut group is and how much I need it. Thanks to everyone who is taking the trip into 2016 publication with me. And to all the amazing book bloggers for sharing the cover, for organizing chats, and just being so endlessly and tirelessly enthusiastic and positive about books on the internet and off. And thanks also to anyone who offered up any kind of support through this process, even if it seemed insignificant at the time—so for every time you told me I could do it when I wasn't sure, be it in the form of encouraging words, a silly text, or the gift of a notebook. Roisin Ellison, Tempe Nell, Catherine Parkes, Meredith Sykes, Olivia Bliss, Annik Vrana, Elisa Peccerillo, Anne Murphy, Sophie Cass, Heidi Heilig, Roshani Chokshi, Jessica Cluess, Harriet Reuter Hapgood, Kathryn Purdie, Stephanie Garber, Alexia Casale, and lots of other people I'm sure I'm omitting accidentally. Please pretend the music is playing me off as I scramble to remember everyone who has been there in this journey. But you know who you are, and I hope you know I am grateful.

The end of this book is about a girl finding her home and her place. And so finally, thank you to you, reader, for picking this book up and being the end of this book's journey.