Rebel of the Sands (5 page)

The commander planted his arms on either side of me so he could stare straight down at me. “This man, he's dangerous. He's a mercenary, and his ilk turn on a coin. There is a war going on.” Like he thought I could have lived sixteen years without noticing the Gallan soldiers in our desert. “Miraji has more enemies than you can understand. And any one of them could be paying him. If it suited his purposes, he'd slit a girl's throat wide open.
Except he'd do other things to her first, if you catch my meaning.” My mind went back to last night, to the stranger who'd stepped in front of a gun to save a kid. “If you do see him, you'd better tell your husband.”

I frowned, faking confusion. “I don't have a husband.”

“Your father, then.” He pulled away from me, straightening his cuffs with a twitch.

“Don't have one of them around, neither.” I kept playing dumb. “I could tell my uncle, though, if that'd do?”

The commander nodded, seeming satisfied that I was just duller than a bag of rocks instead of a liar. I watched him all the way to the door.

But I was never good at keeping my mouth shut. “Sir—Commander!” I called out, keeping my eyes down, like a good respectful girl in the presence of an officer. With my head down, I was staring straight into the foreigner's eyes. Something darted across his face, and for a moment I wondered if he recognized me from last night after all. “This mercenary. What's he wanted for, anyhow?”

The commander paused on the porch. “Treason.”

I raised my eyebrows at the foreigner, a question. Below the counter, he winked at me and I couldn't stop myself from smiling back. “Well, then, I'll keep an eye out for him, sir.”

I waited until I couldn't hear the commander's horse anymore before reaching down to pull the foreigner to his feet. “Treason?”

“You're a good liar.” A small smile still played over his face. “For someone who doesn't lie.”

“I've had a lot of practice.” His hand was lingering on mine, fingers against my pulse. I dropped my arm and looked up. That was when I noticed the red staining his white shirt, same as the blood on the counter.

“Turn around.” I sucked air through my teeth. The whole back of his shirt was a mess of red. “I don't mean to worry you and all,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm, “but have you noticed that you've been shot?”

“Ah.” Looking at him closer now, I could see he was clutching the counter to stay upright. “I'd almost forgotten about that.”

W
e sat on the floor behind the counter so that the foreigner could hide if someone came in. The blood was mostly dry, and his shirt was sticking to his skin. I had to cut it off him with his knife. His shoulders were broad and all hard muscles; they rose and fell with shallow breaths as I peeled away the ruined fabric. I was close enough to smell the smoke of last night's fire on him.

I'd grabbed a bottle of liquor off the shelf. The foreigner sat perfectly still as I doused a clean corner of his shirt in the spirit and wiped it across his skin. We had more liquor to spare than water.

“You shouldn't be helping me, you know,” he said after a moment. “Didn't you hear the righteous Commander Naguib? I'm dangerous.”

I snorted. “Yeah, well, so is he.” It was as much truth as I could give without telling him the Blue-Eyed Bandit owed him a favor. “Besides”—my hand darted up—“I've got the knife.” He froze, feeling the blade against his neck. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. And then he laughed.

“So you do.” When he spoke, his skin scraped across the edge of the knife like a dangerously close shave. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

“I know you won't.” I tried to make it sound like a warning as I went back to work on his shoulder. I dug the tip of the knife into his skin. His muscles bunched under my hand, but he didn't cry out.

As I tried to get under the bullet, I noticed a tattoo inked on his ribs. I traced the edge with the tips of my fingers. His muscles tensed under my hand, sending shivers all the way through my arm.

“It's a seagull.” When he spoke, the inked bird moved under my fingertips. “It was the name of the first ship I ever served on. The
Black Seagull
. It seemed like a grand idea at the time.”

“What were you doing on a ship?”

“Sailing.” I could feel the restlessness building below my fingers. He let out a long breath that seemed to make the bird fly. I pulled my hand away and felt him ease.

“I don't think the bullet tore any muscles in your shoulder,” I said, moving the knife. “Hold still.” I leaned my elbows into his sides for support. He had a tattoo of a compass across his other shoulder; it rose and fell against
me as he breathed heavily. The bullet pinged to the ground and blood started to gush freely. I pressed the ruined shirt over it quickly with one hand. “You need stitches.”

“I'll be fine.”

“Maybe, but you'll be better with stitches.”

He laughed, but it didn't sound easy. “You've had medical training, then?”

“No,” I said, pressing the rag soaked in liquor against his back harder than I needed to. I grabbed a spool of ugly yellow thread and a needle off the shelf. “But you don't grow up round these parts without seeing a few dozen people get shot.”

“I didn't think there were more than a few dozen people in this town.”

“Exactly,” I said, and though I couldn't see his face, I knew he was smiling. His fingernails dug into the floor as the needle slid into his skin. A question was building like an itch, and I had to ask. “So how did you commit treason against the Sultan when you're not even from Miraji?”

“I was born here,” he said after a moment. He knew that wasn't what I'd been asking.
What kind of treason can a mercenary possibly commit?
The question was on the tip of my tongue.

“You don't look it,” I said instead.

“Not here. In Izman.” Mention of the capital struck too close to the bone just now, when I'd been so close to getting there last night. “Though my mother was from a country called Xicha. That's where I lived most of my life.”

“What's it like there?”

He was silent, and I was sure he wasn't going to tell me.

“I don't suppose you've ever seen a rainstorm,” he said, “so you don't know that kind of heavy air that clings to your skin and gets its fingers under your clothes.” My eyes went to my own fingers against his naked back; his shoulders rose and fell as he spoke. “The air in Xicha is like that all the time. And everything is as green and alive as this country is dry and dead. The bamboo grows so fast, it might uproot houses someday. Even in the city. Like it's trying to take the ground we've built on back from us. And it's so hot, the women walk around with paper fans colorful enough to make the spirits jealous. We used to cool off by jumping in the sea fully clothed and trying not to get hit by any ships. Ships from all over the world. Albish ones with naked sea maids carved into them, and Sves ones built against the cold. And Xichian ones that looked like dragons, carved out of a single tree. Some of the trees in Xicha are taller than the towers in Izman.”

“Don't suppose you're going to tell me what you're doing here?” I asked. “If Xicha is so wonderful?”

“Don't suppose I am,” he replied, wincing as the needle went through his skin. “Don't suppose you're going to tell me what made you lie to our friend Commander Naguib Al'Oman for me?”

“Don't suppose so.” My needle paused in his skin. “Naguib Al'Oman?” They were both common names, but all the same. “He's the Sultan's son?”

“How is it you know that?” His head dipped a little, breath deepening as I pushed the last stitch in.

“Everybody knows the story of the Rebel Prince. And the other princes who competed in the Sultim trials.”

The story went that when Sultan Oman was still new to the throne, one of his prettiest wives gave him a son, Ahmed. A strong and clever boy, and even as the Sultan's harem grew and more wives gave him more sons, Ahmed was much in the favor of his father. Three years later, the same wife gave birth to a daughter, but not to an infant, to a monster half human and half Djinni, with scales instead of skin and claws instead of fingers and horns growing from its purple head. Seeing that his wife had betrayed him by lying with an immortal Djinni, the Sultan beat her until she died. The same night the monster child and Ahmed disappeared.

Fourteen years later, the time for the trials came. It was the way the Sultim, the successor to the throne, had been chosen since Miraji began. As per tradition, the twelve eldest princes were to compete for the crown.

That was just over a year ago. My mother was still alive. And when news of the trials reached Dustwalk, even men who'd tell you gambling was a sin started placing bets on which of the young princes would win the throne.

On the day of the contest, the twelve sons lined up and the whole city gathered to watch. Then a thirteenth man joined the princes. When he pulled back his hood, he was the picture of Sultan Oman as a younger man and no one could deny his claim that he was Prince Ahmed, returned. No matter what suspicions surrounded the sudden return of the prince, the law of tradition was upheld.
Prince Ahmed would compete, and the youngest of the twelve princes was expelled from the contest. That prince was named Naguib. I knew the name because when folks were betting on the Sultim trials, before the news about the Rebel Prince came, odds were that Naguib would get killed first in the trial. His prodigal brother might've saved Naguib's life by getting him expelled.

Ahmed beat the other eleven princes in the test of intelligence, a huge maze full of traps built in the palace grounds, and the test of wisdom, a riddle posed by the wisest of the Sultan's advisors. When he came to the test of strength, trial by single combat, Ahmed won every fight until only he and Prince Kadir, the firstborn of the Sultan's sons, were left standing. They fought all day, until Kadir surrendered. Instead of executing his eldest brother Ahmed spared his life. He turned his back on him to face their father, to claim the title of Sultim. Behind Ahmed's back Kadir raised his sword in a blow that would have killed his brother. At that moment Ahmed's sister, the Djinni's monster daughter, stepped from the crowd, throwing away her human disguise, and used unnatural powers inherited from her father to deflect Kadir's blade so that he missed. Furious at this intervention, the Sultan declared Kadir Sultim and ordered Ahmed's execution. But the young prince escaped into the desert with his monster sister, to raise a rebellion for his throne.
A new dawn, a new desert
.

I tied the thread and sliced off the excess with the knife.

The foreigner turned around, giving me my first view
of his bare chest. I suddenly felt like I needed to look anywhere but at him. Which was stupid, because this was the desert and I'd seen every man I'd ever known without a shirt. But this man I didn't know. And usually I didn't notice the muscles in their arms or the way their stomachs rose and fell or the tattoo of a sun over their hearts.

He was looking at me in the fast-fading sunlight. “I don't even know your name,” he said.

“I don't know yours.” I looked up, shoving dark hair off my face with my knuckles so I didn't get blood all over myself. I started to rub them on one of the rags that was still soaked with alcohol.

“Jin.” He'd given me a false name last night, though he didn't know it. I wasn't so sure he was giving me a real name now. It didn't sound like any I'd ever heard.

“You sure about that?” I pressed.

“About my name?” His mouth quirked up as he rolled his injured shoulder. It pulled the bare skin of his stomach so I could just see the edge of another tattoo pull up above his belt. Suddenly I wanted to know what it was. The thought made my neck feel hot. “Fairly sure.”

My eyes flicked up to his face. “Sure you're not lying to me?”

His grin spread. “Lying's a sin, don't you know?”

“So I've heard.”

Jin's eyes danced across my face in a way that made me restless. “You know I'd be dead without your help.”

So would I
.

But I didn't tell him that. I didn't joke that he should
call me Oman like I wanted to. Or the Blue-Eyed Bandit, or anything else I wanted to say. “It's Amani,” I said. “My name, that is. Amani Al'Hiza.”

It was damn hard to trust a boy with a smile like that. A smile that made me want to follow him straight to the places he'd told me about and made me sure I shouldn't at the same time.

“I can get you a clean shirt,” I managed. I was having a hard time keeping my eyes on his face when there was so much else of him on show. “If you can wait here.”

“The army will be back for me.” He scratched the back of his neck, inching the tattoo on his hip higher still. It looked like an animal I didn't recognize. “I should probably move on.”

“I reckon you should.” I tore my eyes away. I couldn't trust him, I reminded myself. I didn't really know this foreign boy with a strange name. No matter that we'd saved each other's lives. I'd known him all of two days. But hell, I still liked him twice as much as the men in this town I'd known my whole life. And my life was what was at stake here. One way or another. “And you should take me with you.”

“No.” Jin's answer came so quick, I knew he'd been expecting me to ask, maybe even before I'd decided to. He didn't meet my eyes as he spoke next. “You saved my life and I'm returning the favor.”

“I didn't ask you to do that.” I tried to check the desperation in my voice. “I'm just asking you to get me out.”

His eyes were fixed on mine, trapping me there. “You don't even know where I'm going.”

“I don't care.” I caught myself leaning closer, too close when there was already nothing between us. “I just need help getting anywhere that's not here. Somewhere with a train, or a decent road. Then we can call it quits and I can find my own way to Izman. There's nothing for me here, any more than there is for you.”

“And who says there's anything for you out there?”

The words stung. “There's got to be more than here.” He laughed, and for that split second, I had the advantage. I took it. “Please.” I was as close to him as I could get without touching him. “Haven't you ever wanted something so bad that it becomes more than a want? I
need
to get out of this town. I need it like I need to breathe.”

His breath came out in one hard exhale. I saw his resolve teetering. I didn't dare say another word in case I pushed it the wrong way.

Then the bells started and the moment toppled. I looked round so fast, I near split my skull on the counter.

“Isn't it a bit early for evening prayers?” Jin said what I'd been thinking.

“Those aren't prayer bells.” My heart felt like it might've stopped, but I was still breathing. Listening long enough to be sure.

“If the army—”

“It's not,” I interrupted. We didn't ring bells for the army.

“You should—”

“Shut up.” I held up a hand to silence him. To listen. And sure enough, I knew that frantic ringing, though it'd
been years since we'd heard it last. A few seconds later it was echoed by others. Bells on porches, from open windows. Iron clanging against iron. The sound sent shivers down my back. “It's a hunt.”