Hero at the Fall

by Alwyn Hamilton

  ‘And where that does that leave us?’ I asked. ‘Nobody else knows how to read the first language here.’ Nobody else had been trained by the Holy Father down in the Last County, where old traditions and old languages had hung on better than in the northern cities. ‘We don’t stand a chance against the Sultan if we can’t find a way to disable that machine.’

  ‘So what, then? You keep me locked up here on the off chance that I’ll find something?’ Tamid retorted. ‘I hate to tell you this, but if I was going to find the words we need, I think I already would have.’ He waved around the room angrily. ‘Because believe you me, I’ve been trying.’

  He wasn’t wrong.

  ‘Fine,’ I conceded. ‘If we can get out of here, we’ll get you as close to Dustwalk as we’re able. Just talk to Leyla. Soon.’ I turned to go, but Tamid’s voice stopped me.

  ‘Amani.’ I turned back, door halfway open. He finally looked at me, a pained expression on his face, before glancing away again. ‘There’s something else.’ His eyes roved over the books strewn across his room. Like he was looking for another answer at the last moment. ‘It’s not— I have found something. Not the words you need to disable the machine, don’t get excited. But …’ Now he seemed like the one trying to pick his words carefully. ‘There are accounts, from the First War, of Djinn dying. In every single one, without fault, their death destroyed everything for miles around them. They’re made of fire. And their death … it’s like an explosion. They raze towns, battlefields, dry up rivers, split the earth itself, before vanishing into the sky to become stars. Leyla’s machine … When Fereshteh died, it trapped that power, harnessed it for the wall and the Abdals. But if you disable the machine, all that power, it won’t be contained any more …’ He trailed off uncomfortably.

  I understood what he was saying. ‘If I disable the machine and release Fereshteh’s power, you reckon there’s a chance it’ll destroy me.’ Tamid didn’t need to answer. I understood why he wouldn’t meet my eye now. No matter how complicated our history was, it didn’t mean either of us wanted to see the other dead.

  I glanced down at the destruction of Abbadon again, in the open book. I could see it clearly, all that fire from Fereshteh’s soul, unleashed from the Gamanix machine Leyla had made, burning everything in those vaults. Including me. I tried to wrap my tired mind around that. My own death. But it seemed far away right now. There were a whole lot of other things that could possibly get me killed before I risked being burned alive by Djinni fire. Right now, amid uncooperative princesses and threats of dying girls, it seemed like some remote nagging issue. ‘One problem at a time, Tamid.’ I ran my hand over my face, trying to scrub away my exhaustion. ‘Right now, there’s someone scheduled to die before me. And we’ve got to try to save her.’

  Chapter 6

  It wasn’t easy to move through the streets of Izman in the dark during curfew, with Abdals patrolling the streets. In fact, it was impossible for most people. But we weren’t most people. We were Demdji. And by the time the sky started to lighten behind the wall of fire, we had managed to make our way to the outskirts of the palace.

  We stayed hidden until the streets finally began to fill around us, until finally the square in front of the palace was busy enough to hide us in plain sight. We moved out into the open, taking our places among the people of Izman. There was an unusual restlessness to the crowd. They had gathered here just yesterday for the Sultim trials, which we’d interrupted. But today they didn’t know what they were going to see, an execution or a hostage exchange. I glanced at the faces around me as I pushed through the crowd. Something felt different today than it had for Ahmed’s execution, or Shira’s. Both of them had been accused of crimes. They’d been brought before the crowd to face what passed for justice in the Sultan’s world. This time, though, whoever appeared on that stage would be unquestionably innocent, standing there for crimes that were not her own. And I saw, in some of the grimly pressed-together mouths and downcast eyes, that I wasn’t the only one who recognised that.

  But still, the people of Izman crowded in, even as the shadows of night retreated. We had split up: Jin and I at two different vantage points with guns at our hips, Izz and Maz in the shapes of starlings, perched on a rooftop nearby, Hala at the back so she could keep everyone in view. The way we saw it, our biggest threat was the Abdals. They were the reason I hadn’t been able to save Imin. Hala’s illusions didn’t work on them. And besides, they could burn us alive if we got too close. Shooting them through their metal chests didn’t work – we had to destroy the word inscribed on their heels that gave them life. Which Leyla had helpfully covered with metal armour. I was hoping a jaguar’s claws could prise those off – Izz would take care of that. Then either Jin or I would take the shot, depending on which one of us was closer. And then, under Hala’s illusion, Maz could swoop down and pick the girl up in his talons. It wasn’t a foolproof plan, but it was better than nothing, which was what we’d had when Imin died right in front of us.

  I shifted restlessly, watching the place where Imin and Shira had both lost their lives. Finally dawn broke in earnest. All eyes were fixed on the stage now, waiting for the appearance of the girl who would die for our crimes. Minutes passed slowly as I touched the gun by my side over and over, making sure it was still there. But there was no movement from the palace. The doors didn’t swing open, there was no sign of an Abdal and a struggling girl.

  ‘Do you think the princess was sent home?’ a voice asked in the crowd behind me.

  ‘Maybe it was a bluff,’ another voice considered. But I knew that neither of those could be true. So what was the Sultan waiting for?

  I caught movement from the corner of my eye. Not on the stage, but up above us and to the side, on the palace walls. When I glanced up, there was nothing there at first, and for a moment I thought I was seeing things, a trick of the light. But something kept my eyes fixed on that point on the wall, as if I could see through stone by sheer force of will.

  And then the Sultan stepped into view, holding a girl around the waist.

  He cut an impressive figure in the dawn light, dressed in a scarlet kurti with a bright gold sheema draped around his neck: the colours of blood shed over a dawn sky. He was flanked by his Abdals, the bronze of their artificial skin glinting in the sunlight. The rush of anger and hatred and humiliation was almost too much to take. Like it might send me doubling over.

  The young girl was dressed in white nightclothes that whipped and twisted around her legs in the morning air, her dark hair falling around her shoulders in a wild tumble. She would’ve looked leached of all colour, if it wasn’t for the flash of red at her neck. For a moment I feared her throat had already been slashed and she was being brought out here to die slowly. But no, it wasn’t blood, just a bright red cloth. From far away it looked like a sheema thrown loosely around her neck as any desert girl might wear it. But there was another flash of red identical to it, tied around the crenellations of the palace walls. The same walls that Jin and I had jumped from in the chaos of Auranzeb, trusting a rope to get us to safety. But this rope wasn’t securing her.

  He wasn’t going to execute her on the stage. He was going to hang her.

  My heart started to beat frantically as I cast around, looking for the others. I couldn’t reach her up there. I desperately searched for the twins to give them a sign to forget the plan and fly to the walls of the palace. But we’d split ourselves up, scattering through the crowd that now hid the others from me.

  I was on my own. And I was too far away.

  I started to move all the same, pushing my way through the mass of gawkers, praying I might be able to get close enough to the twins to call out to them, or to Hala to tell her to draw something up in the Sultan’s mind that would stall him. Or even close enough to fire off a shot, a bullet straight between the Sultan’s eyes. To do something other than watch a girl die. But the crowd fought against me like I was trying to push my way upstream in a raging river. Around me faces s
tarted to turn upwards, noticing that something was happening high above us.

  The Sultan stepped up to the very edge of the palace walls.

  I was close enough to see that the girl was shaking and crying as she stood on the precipice. Close enough to see the Sultan turn her away from him, towards the rising sun. To see him lean over the girl and whisper something in her ear. To see the girl squeeze her eyes shut.

  But too far away to do anything.

  He pushed her.

  It was one swift, violent motion that sent her over the edge of the wall, falling fast. Her scream ripped the air open like a knife through cloth, drawing up every eye that hadn’t noticed her. Some cries from the crowd mingled with hers as the whole of the square watched helplessly as she fell. Nightclothes twisted cruelly around her flailing legs, feet frantically searching for a purchase they wouldn’t find. As she dropped, the long, colourful rope of the noose unfurled like a sheema caught in the desert wind, whipping behind her in a trail of red.

  Until there was none of it left to unfurl.

  It snapped taut. The noose around her throat pulled tight, bringing her fall to a wrenching stop.

  Her scream cut off with sickening suddenness. And I knew it was over.

  Her name was Rima. She was from a poor family that lived by the docks. Her father’s door had a sun emblazoned on it in scarlet paint, left over from the Blessed Sultima’s Uprising. That was why she had been taken. Ahmed’s sun had turned from a symbol of defiance into a target.

  She was the middle daughter of five. The Sultan could have plucked any one of them from their beds that night. But Rima was closest in age to me.

  *

  The second girl was named Ghada. We never even got a chance to save her. We never so much as saw her alive. Dawn found her body already hanging from the palace walls next to Rima’s. She’d been killed inside, where we didn’t have a hope of reaching her. The Sultan wasn’t foolish enough to repeat the same trick twice.

  On the afternoon after Ghada’s death, her father, who had rioted in the streets against the Sultan, stood in the square before the palace and denounced the rebellion that had condemned his innocent daughter. I didn’t blame him for his words. He had another daughter he needed to save.

  *

  Naima was the name of the third girl. The third one we failed to save. The third one who died for our crimes.

  No matter what we did, what we tried, we were too late. Too slow. We would have to get into the palace to save them before they died. And we didn’t have any way in with Sam gone. Hell, we hadn’t managed to get in back when he was still with us.

  ‘No living parents.’ Sara was telling me what she had learned about Naima, as she rocked Fadi in her arms. ‘But she has four brothers.’ Curtains were pulled against prying eyes, but early morning light leaked through the lattice of the window to dance anxiously across her face as she moved. There was something else she wasn’t telling me.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You don’t need to torture yourself.’ Jin interrupted Sara before she could get out with it. He was leaning against the far wall, watching me. ‘You’re not responsible for every death in this rebellion any more than Ahmed was.’

  It was good advice, the sort that Shazad might give me if she were still here. But she wasn’t. And I wasn’t Ahmed, either. I had told Tamid that I had changed, that I wasn’t someone who let folks die on my account. But there were three bodies hanging from the palace walls to prove me wrong. Maybe I hadn’t changed from that selfish Dustwalk girl as much as I’d thought. Maybe going back with Tamid really would take me right back to where I’d started. ‘I am responsible for this one, though.’

  No one contradicted me. It was the truth, after all.

  Sara’s eyes flitted between Jin and me for a moment before continuing. ‘They’re saying it was a neighbour who denounced them to the palace as allies of the Rebellion. Someone her brothers thought was a friend, who was just as much a part of the riots as they were.’

  ‘The neighbour will have sold them out to save his own family,’ Jin filled in, looking grim.

  Sara nodded gravely. ‘Naima’s brothers figured out he was responsible. He was just found beaten to death in his home.’ I felt sick to my stomach. A violent act of revenge and grief. Brothers trying to make someone pay for a dead sister since they couldn’t reach the Sultan.

  ‘This is what the Sultan wants,’ Jin said. ‘For what’s left of the Rebellion’s support in the city to turn on itself.’

  ‘Well, nice of us to make it so easy for him, then,’ I muttered.

  ‘You know,’ Hala interjected, ‘we can wallow and continue to watch people die. Or we could just fix the mistake you made and give that useless princess back to her father.’

  ‘No.’ I shook my head emphatically. ‘Even if she does turn out to be useless to us, she’s not useless to her father.’ I glanced at the closed door. Tamid was talking to Leyla again on the other side of it now. He hadn’t gotten anything useful out of her yet, but he wasn’t ready to give up. He’d returned the second day carrying one of the tomes of the Holy Books. He seemed to think he could compel her to repent with religion. She’d killed an immortal being, so I had to guess that it wasn’t going to work, but I was ready to try anything by now.

  ‘I didn’t say we should give her back alive,’ Hala said, drawing my attention sharply back to her. Her words shifted the mood in the room instantly. I searched her face for a sign that she was being sarcastic; Hala had a cruel sense of humour. But I hadn’t seen her laugh a whole lot since Imin died.

  ‘We’re not going to kill her,’ Jin said, raising his dark eyebrows at her, like he thought she wasn’t serious.

  ‘Why not?’ Hala raised her own in a mocking imitation. ‘Because she’s your sister? She’d jump at the chance to kill every single one of us. And the Sultan’s demand never said whether he wanted her returned dead or alive.’

  ‘I feel like alive was implied,’ Jin said drily. ‘That’s usually the way with hostages.’

  ‘He ought to know better,’ Hala said. ‘We’re Djinn’s children; we take things by the letter.’ She offered him a sarcastic smirk. The twins shifted where they were sitting on the windowsill, looking uneasy at being dragged into this talk of murder. ‘Besides,’ Hala added, finally breaking her staring contest with Jin, ‘I don’t think it’s your decision.’ And then she looked at me.

  I could feel Jin’s eyes on me, too. He was expecting me to say no right away, to side with him against Hala’s idea to murder his sister.

  I hesitated.

  The Sultan was trying to turn the city against us. He’d gotten away with killing three girls so far because in this story he was spinning, we were the villains. Kidnapping princesses wasn’t the sort of thing a hero did; that was the monster’s role. Heroes saved the princess. And heroes didn’t stand idly by when innocent girls were killed. The people would forget that the Sultan was the one doing the killing. All they would remember was that we were the ones who had sent them to the gallows. Killing Leyla wouldn’t get us out of the city, but it might at least stop more girls from dying in our name. Might stop the whole city turning against us before we could ever get Ahmed back to lead them.

  But what kind of monsters would we be to lay his daughter’s body on his doorstep?

  I was saved from answering when the door to Leyla’s bedroom prison opened. Tamid joined us, holding his Holy Book.

  ‘Any luck?’ I asked without much hope but grateful for the distraction all the same.

  ‘No, but …’ He hesitated, looking at his feet, like he was already dreading what he was about to say. ‘I have an idea of what might make her talk.’

  ‘If it’s death threats, don’t bother,’ Hala said. ‘She’s already made it clear she’s not afraid to die. Or at least she thinks she isn’t.’ She gave me a pointed look, like that entirely justified her whole kill the princess plan.

  ‘No,’ Tamid agreed, ‘but there’s something she is afr
aid of. One thing she values more than anything.’

  Everyone was hanging on Tamid’s words now, even as he hesitated. He knew that whatever he was about to tell us, we would use it, and it would be because of him. But instead of speaking to me, he glanced at Hala. ‘Is it true,’ he asked her, ‘what they say you did to the man who took your fingers?’

  Even I’d never dared ask Hala about that. Most of the Demdji didn’t like to talk about their lives before the Rebellion. It was difficult being what we were in an occupied country that wanted to kill us. And even without the Gallan, Demdji tended to get sold, used, killed or worse. We all knew Hala hadn’t had it easy. We all knew that her mother had sold Hala. But the rumour around camp, back when we’d had a camp, was that Hala had gotten her revenge on the man who’d cut off her fingers. That she had used her Demdji gift and torn his mind asunder. That she had driven him so deep into madness that he’d never see the light of sanity again.

  And I understood what Tamid meant. Death was one thing, but Leyla’s life without her intellect – well, that was something else. It would make her useless to her father, for one. And she’d seen madness before. Her mother had been driven mad trying to build a version of what Leyla had successfully completed. It was what made Rahim turn on his father. And Leyla had driven her brother Kadir’s wives to madness – Ayet, Mouhna and Uzma, three jealous but harmless girls in the harem whom she had put through her machine as sacrificial test subjects before using the full force of the machine to harness a Djinni’s energy.