Hero at the Fall

by Alwyn Hamilton

  Those who could fight or who were able-bodied enough to be trained, Shazad allowed to come with us. The too old or too young, Ahmed asked to stay behind, not to give their lives for him, promising to fight for them.

  And then there were the stories that Ahmed was invincible. That he had been resurrected by the hands of the Djinn and could not be defeated. I felt my hand drift to Zaahir’s knife without meaning to as I started to hear this repeated.

  By the time we reached Tiamat, we were three times as many as we’d been when we’d left the mountains. We weren’t just a rabble. We were an army.

  At midday, we stood on the slope that overlooked the bay of Tiamat. Shazad’s arms were crossed over her chest, surveying the city like she could take it apart brick by brick. Tiamat had walls, but we could walk through those easily. We had Delila, if we needed to hide. And we had the twins if we needed a way over the walls.

  ‘There’s not a chance the emir hasn’t heard we’re coming,’ Shazad thought out loud, her hair dancing backwards in the warm air off the sea as she considered our target. She almost looked like her old self after weeks of walking and fresh air and sun. ‘There’s not a chance they think they can hold against us either. He hasn’t even tried to bar the gates.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed, squinting down at the city below. We were almost there, and I felt a sudden burst of impatience as I saw our target. The ships we needed docked just beyond those walls. Ready to carry us to north. ‘So how about we just walk in?’

  I suppose I expected Shazad to disagree with me. She didn’t.

  We walked to the city as if we were invited, not invading. Haytham and Ahmed leading the way, with me and Shazad close behind and Jin protecting our backs. The twins kept watch overhead as hummingbirds, zipping back and forth, ready to shift to a more threatening shape. Rahim was left with the army just outside the walls. Reinforcements if we needed them.

  No one stopped us at the gates of Tiamat, although plenty of people came out to gawk at us: the Rebel Prince, returned from the dead, walking side by side with their rightful emir, who had been taken away months ago. I’d never been in a city like this before. We marched through tidy, wide, well-paved streets, boxes of flowers and plants overflowing on to colourfully painted walls.

  The emir’s grand house stood at the eastmost point of the city, a great square structure painted pale blue and overlooking the water. So close, in fact, that the sea breeze picked up the white flag that had been raised over its roof, whipping it out for us as we approached.

  So Haytham’s brother had seen us coming. He was surrendering.

  ‘If someone surrenders, does that mean you can’t kill them?’ Haytham asked, squinting up at the flag over his home. He was older than us by a decade or so, though he looked even older from his time at Eremot. Curly hair grew shaggy across his brow. He had been trapped there longer than our people, and he bore marks I was sure would never go away. But there was a new lightness to him now he was back in his city again.

  ‘It is traditional not to,’ Shazad advised.

  ‘But then again, we’re big on breaking tradition,’ Jin tossed in, as we approached the doors of the house. I could sense him close behind me as we climbed up the clean white steps. When I turned back to look at him, his eyes weren’t on me though. They were fixed on the ships in the harbour just below. Jin and Ahmed has spent most of their lives on ships. There was an easiness in Jin’s stance I hadn’t seen in a long time, now we were so close to the sea.

  We were wary in spite of the white flag as we entered the house. But there was no ambush inside the door. We ventured in carefully. Marble hallways spread out around us, vacant, and room after room was empty, except for the sea air stirring the curtains. There was no one here for revenge even if Haytham had wanted it.

  ‘He fled,’ Haytham declared, pushing open the door to a fine set of rooms. Those that belonged to the emir, I guess. The inside was turned over, as if someone had grabbed their belongings in a rush. His brother. ‘The coward.’

  He must’ve heard that we were on our way. But I had the feeling it wasn’t news of our numbers or our weapons that made him flee. It was the news that the Rebel Prince had returned from the dead. We didn’t even have to fight with the tale of Ahmed preceding us.

  That was the power of a legend.

  *

  We split up, starting a quick search of the house. Haytham’s brother couldn’t have got far. Shazad and I took the ground floor, while Haytham went looking for the servants who used to work in his household. If anyone had answers, it would be them.

  Shazad made a face as she pushed open a door.

  ‘What?’ I asked, reaching for my gun already.

  ‘No, no.’ She stopped me quickly, opening the door fully. It gave way to a small courtyard, with a bubbling fountain set into the wall. And above that was a half-finished, multicoloured mosaic. It looked like a man’s face. ‘If ever I think it’s a good idea to put a six-foot-high portrait of myself in my home, will you promise to slap me?’

  I snorted, relaxing my grip on my gun. ‘You know it’s dangerous for Demdji to make promises,’ I joked.

  She was about to say something else when we both heard it. It sounded like a child’s cry. It was coming from just beyond the wooden doorway in the small courtyard. The lightness leached out of Shazad’s face as quick as anything as she set her hand on her sword.

  She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. We’d fought many a fight together. I knew what she needed. I offered her a slight nod as she moved towards the door, drawing my gun. I took a deep breath as she exhaled.

  Shazad shoved the door open abruptly, drawing her sword as she did, even as I moved forwards, covering her with my gun.

  And then we both stopped abruptly.

  Beyond the door was another small garden, crowded with cowering people. And they were far from threats. I counted about two dozen women and at least twice as many children, from about thirteen years old all the way down to babes in arms.

  Shazad dropped her blade even as children in the garden started to cry and women clutched their children closer to their chests.

  ‘It’s all right!’ She held up her now empty hands. ‘We’re not here to hurt you.’

  I knew them, I realised. The boy who was pressed behind his mother nearby – his name was Bassam. I had seen him once before, standing on the edge of a lake, bow in hand, as he came of age. His father’s hand had been on his shoulder.

  They were the Sultan’s wives and children.

  Leyla had said that the rest of the harem had been sent away as the siege approached. Sent to safety.

  Tiamat had been safety. At least before we’d arrived.

  ‘We’re not going to hurt you,’ Shazad repeated even as I touched the knife that Zaahir had given me, hanging at my side.

  Use this knife to take the life of another prince, and I promise you that your prince will live through the battle to take the throne.

  A prince’s life for a prince’s life.

  I thought he meant it as some brutal taunt, that I should kill Jin or Rahim, when he knew I never would. Some tainted offer of help that I would never get.

  Except I had hung on to the knife in spite of that. And now, I was being presented with dozens of princes.

  We’re not here to hurt you, Shazad had told them.

  Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I pressed out of the garden, ignoring Shazad calling out behind me. Quickly I laced my way back to the street. I found the road to the sea easily enough, and soon I was standing at the docks, overlooking the ships and the terrifyingly endless water. I ripped the knife out of the sheath at my side and flung it through the air. I had good aim – it arced and landed in the waves, sinking far out of my reach. Taking away the chance I might do something stupid and desperate.

  ‘It’s no wonder you wanted to rescue him.’ I looked up, startled by the voice. There was a man behind me, his back against the wall, a small collection of coins by his grubby bare feet. ‘You’re
so afraid of making the wrong choices, aren’t you?’

  I glanced around, confused. But everyone else at the docks was going about their business without so much as glancing our way. The beggar couldn’t be talking to anyone other than me.

  ‘Do you want to know what I think?’ He paused and reached out a hand towards me, like he was begging for a coin. I found a loose half-louzi piece in my pocket and dropped it into his hands. ‘I think you’re selfish.’ He pocketed the coin quickly. ‘All those princes to choose from, who don’t mean anything to you, and you can’t even kill one of them to save thousands of your own kind when I handed you a way to do it.’ That was when he looked at me straight on, and I saw that his eyes were the colour of embers.

  ‘Zaahir.’ I recognised him, disguised in this new human shape. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I wanted to know what you would do.’ He stood, gliding his back up the stone wall behind him. ‘But I’m also here to keep my promises,’ he said. As he spoke, his body shifted, morphing from the old beggar into a young man who bore an uncanny resemblance to Ahmed. ‘You wanted a way to put your prince on the throne, and I promised to give you one. Except that you just walked away from it.’

  Jin told me once that coincidence didn’t have the same cruel sense of humour as fate. The Djinn, they had a cruel sense of humour, too – and enough power to open a mountain. To turn a boy into a wall of fire. To lead me here, across a desert, and give me exactly what I’d asked for: a way to keep Ahmed alive.

  ‘They’re children.’

  ‘So are you,’ he said. ‘Does it really matter whether a life lasts one handful of years, or two, or three?’ He was really asking me, I realised. He had been out of the mortal world as long as it had existed. He didn’t understand us at all. Didn’t understand the difference between being ten and being twenty and being a hundred. They were all young to him. ‘Would it be easier to kill him if he were a man?’ he asked. ‘No, that can’t be it, because then you could have killed the other two princes you travel with. But they are men you need. Each in his own way.’ When he smiled his face shifted again, this time turning to one that resembled Jin’s. ‘You’ve killed others before, daughter of Bahadur. Don’t deny it.’

  ‘Killing people to save—’ I cut myself off as a sly smile spread across the face that looked unsettlingly like Jin’s. ‘Killing people in battle is different.’

  ‘And this is a war. But if you insist, there is another gift I can give you.’

  He moved quicker than I could see. He didn’t step towards me, just disappeared from the air where he stood, reappearing directly before me. I didn’t even have time to stagger back before he caught me, holding me tighter than any mortal thing could. It was more like being trapped in the stones of a mountain than being held by arms made of flesh and blood. ‘This is my new gift to you, daughter of Bahadur.’

  He kissed me then, before I could pull away. He didn’t kiss me like a mortal man, either. But his mouth wasn’t stone; it was fire. My mouth was scalding under his. And then, just as quickly, it was over.

  For a moment, as he pulled away, something changed in his face. The certainty shifted to the same bewildered madness I’d seen on his face in the mountain. I remembered something he had said. That I looked like her. The First Hero. He had lived with mortality as long as the other Djinn, but he had lived out of the world. He had not been blunted by time, nor by the deaths of thousands, the way they had.

  ‘What was that?’ I brought my hand to my mouth, but when I touched my lips, they were the same temperature they always were.

  ‘A gift, of life.’ His grip didn’t feel like warm skin – it felt like air and stone and fire. ‘You can’t keep it for yourself. But you can pass it on to one person, and I promise you that they will live to see old age.’

  First he’d given me the chance to kill someone, and now he was giving me the chance to save someone with a kiss. To save Ahmed, if I wanted to.

  Or I could save Jin. The selfish thought crept in faster than I could expel it.

  And then I had another thought. Bilal. If I used it on him, we might be able to take Iliaz as bloodlessly as we had this city. I could give Bilal his escape from death after all.

  Chapter 30

  I hated the sea.

  We set sail the next morning, Haytham supplying us with one of the ships from his reclaimed city and a crew to man it.

  Last time I’d been on a ship, I’d been drugged and a prisoner on the way to the palace. It turned out that not being shackled wasn’t much better. The deck of the ship was never steady, and after I lost sight of land, a strange panic set in. Ahmed found me the first night below deck with my head in a bucket. He sat patiently next to me, running a hand gently up and down my spine as I retched up the contents of my stomach.

  I waited until I was sure I had nothing left before speaking to him. Even if I didn’t quite dare lift my head from the safety of the bucket.

  ‘How did you find me?’ My mouth tasted like bile.

  ‘Sam sold you out,’ he said as I slowly lifted my head. Ahmed handed me a skin of water. I took it with shaky hands and rinsed out my mouth, spitting into the bucket. ‘He said he hadn’t seen you eat anything today.’

  ‘Should I be flattered he tore his eyes off Shazad long enough to notice anyone else?’ I peeled a strand of my still-too-short hair away from my face.

  ‘Here.’ He handed me a flat green leaf. ‘Chew on it. It’ll settle your stomach. I got some from the Holy Father in Tiamat. I thought we might need it. It took me a while to find my sea legs, too, back when Jin and I first set off seafaring.’

  Tentatively, I put the thing in my mouth. It didn’t taste bad – sweet and cool as it hit my tongue. I chewed slowly. Ahmed watched as I tried to get my feet under me.

  ‘Amani, I need to ask you something.’ If Ahmed had more guile, I might’ve thought he’d deliberately come looking for me when I was shaky and vulnerable. But it was Ahmed. ‘After this is all over, I’m not going to take the throne.’

  That got my attention. ‘What?’

  ‘At least not the way my father took it,’ Ahmed hurried on before I could start berating him. ‘Not by force, without giving the people a choice in who governs them. You were right what you said in Sazi. I ought to listen to the people who know this desert. I’m going to hold a vote. Like they do in the Ionian republics, to let the people choose their ruler. Any man or woman who thinks they would make a better ruler than me can put their name forward, and if the people agree they would be better than me, they can choose that person instead.’

  I stared back at him, trying to take this all in. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because –’ Ahmed rubbed at the scar on his forehead thoughtfully; it was a habit of his when he was thinking – ‘I want to know what you think.’

  ‘Why?’ I realised I was speaking mostly in single words. I didn’t sound smart enough to lace up my own boots, let alone advise a ruler on this. But I had told him back in Sazi that he didn’t know everything. That he ought to listen to me.

  ‘Amani, you know this country better than anyone else. Do you think it will work?’

  I thought about it. ‘What would you do about the Sultim trials? They’ve been used to determine the next ruler since the beginning. It’s a hard tradition to break.’

  ‘I know that. But do you think I can?’

  The Sultan had said something to me the night of Auranzeb, with his firstborn’s blood still on his hands. He’d said that the world was changing. That the time of immortals and magic was ending. That they should not be allowed to rule our lives any more – we should rule theirs. The Sultan was a cruel, self-serving man. But I didn’t know that he was wrong when he said that. Maybe it was time to change. Maybe the desert was ready to choose its own ruler.

  ‘Yes.’ I nodded slowly, my head still swimming a little. ‘I think it might work.’ Ahmed’s shoulders sagged in relief, and I realised he’d been nervous about what I would say. He pressed
his knuckle into the spot on his forehead.

  I reached up to his hairline, moving one of the dark curls away from the spot he’d been worrying at. ‘Where did you get that?’ I asked before I could stop myself. I knew most of the scars on Jin’s body. Ahmed didn’t have quite so many. But he had some.

  ‘Oh.’ Ahmed laughed. ‘It was my fault. It was when Jin and I were very young, our first year on board the Black Seagull. I was learning to plot courses while Jin spent most of his time clambering up and down the rigging. I made a mistake one day. We sailed into a storm that we should have been able to avoid. I could’ve shipwrecked us. As it was, I was lucky – I just split my head open on the deck when we nearly capsized. I thought I was going to die that day.’

  ‘Are you afraid?’ I asked, dropping my hand. ‘Of dying?’ I felt the memory of Zaahir’s kiss tingling on my lips.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He considered. If anyone had asked me the same question, my answer would have been quick and certain. Yes, terrified. Did that make me selfish and cowardly? ‘I’ve seen a lot of the world, a lot of what people believe about death, and I don’t entirely know what I believe waits for us after. But I do fear things in this life. Not dying, but losing. That I’ll have been the one to lead us into the monster’s mouth, promising it was a cave of riches. That others will die, and that those who have already died for me will have done so for nothing. That everything that has happened and everything I have done will have become entirely insignificant and forgotten.’

  But then we were all more selfish than Ahmed. That was why he led us. And he was right. We weren’t in this for ourselves. For this life. We were in it for what we could make for the future. The rest of us could die for this. But Ahmed needed to live.

  If I used Zaahir’s kiss for Bilal, Ahmed might still fall at the eleventh hour. He might die leading us to victory. But I was frightened that if I didn’t use Zaahir’s kiss for Bilal, I’d be far too tempted to give it to Jin instead.