Some might say that the boy’s quest had failed. For he would forever be nameless in his own land. A pale girl he had once loved would think of him sometimes, on a bright spring day in her cold stone castle. But she would never speak his name. A family in a small, dark cottage would mourn their lost son when the war ended and he did not come home. But none of them would ever know how his end came, and as years passed they would wonder out loud about his fate less and less until they stopped altogether.
And when they were gone, too, his name would never be spoken again in the land of his birth. No mothers would tell their sons and daughters his story as they held their children on their knees in front of the fireplace. No singers would compose odes to his deeds. And the queen of the kingdom across the sea would never know that a boy from her island met his end alone in the dark, fighting another ruler’s war.
But not so in the desert.
In the land where he fell, they would speak his name around campfires, along with the other heroes of their country. Children would be told tales of his feats of heroism and clap their hands when they heard of his many tricks to fool the Rebellion’s enemies. And they would go quiet when the story came to how he died. Some would even shed tears.
He would be remembered long after those who had known him joined him in death.
In the desert, the boy would never be nameless again.
Chapter 41
I was alone.
Sprawled across the fine marble floor of the palace, I pressed down on the tiles, like I might be able to tear them up and reach Sam. To drag him to safety with me. But it was too late. It was just me now, and the mosaic of Princess Hawa staring down at me from the wall.
The first daughter of my father. The first girl to fall in love. The first girl to die for it.
Sam’s words from below the mountain in Sazi crept back to me, when he first told me that all great love stories ended in death, and I felt a sob inch its way up my throat. I fought it down. There was no going back now. He had made his choice in those tunnels. I had, too. I’d see him in death soon.
My side ached with the strain of using my power as I dragged myself to my feet. I pressed my hand against Hawa’s, silently calling on my sister through a thousand generations to help me. The door yielded below my hand, admitting me to the vaults.
The first time I had come down here, it was too dark to see. Now the vaults blazed with light from the machine, so bright that I could barely see anything else.
I shielded my eyes as I felt my way down the stairs. I thought I could hear voices calling out to me – the other Djinn I had imprisoned here. But I couldn’t make them out from one another over the whirring of the machine. I had to get close enough to it. As I reached the bottom of the stairs, I could scarcely see any more – the light was too bright. Even when I closed my eyes it seemed to burn.
I scrambled for my sheema, loose around my neck. It came free easily in my hands. I wrapped it around my head, covering my eyes twice, until the light didn’t burn against my eyelids, knotting it at the back of my head. I extended one hand in front of me. Moving forwards slowly, carefully. Trying to find my way blind.
The whirring grew louder as I got closer, until I was close enough that I heard the swish of one of the blades of the great machine next to my skin. I drew back, dropping to my knees, feeling my way along the ground until I found the metal of the circle below my fingertips.
I pressed my fingertips to the ground.
I felt the jagged glass of the ring, still on my hand, scrape against the stone floor. Useless now. I remembered the rush of relief and hope and joy that had flooded me last night, when I thought that I would get to live. I’d been so certain that I’d get to see more than one last dawn when I’d gone to Jin. Would he ever forgive me for going and dying on him after I’d told him that I wouldn’t do that to him?
I should have known better. We both should have. This was a war. If you didn’t die in one fight, there was always another one that might get you. Zaahir’s gift had saved my life and Sam’s long enough for us to get to the next fight. For Sam to die in that one, to save me. So that I could die in the one after that.
That was what we did. Survive one fight to get to the next. Over and over again until you didn’t survive. And all that you could hope for when dying was that some people wouldn’t have to see another fight. That eventually, somewhere, this country would find peace.
I couldn’t wait. Every second I waited, others were out there losing this fight against the Abdals. I had to do it now. I said the words in a rush, before I could lose my nerve. The same ones I had used to free Zaahir. I shouted them over the drone of the machine, my voice rising in angry defiance until I reached the last word, until I reached Fereshteh’s name.
And then the whole world turned to light.
Even through my blindfold I could see the blazing white of immortal fire, and I could feel pressure all around my body. Heat on my skin. A scream in my ears.
Then, the light vanished in a blink.
The heat went with it.
Left behind was a kaleidoscope of colors that I could see even behind my blindfold. I scrambled to untie it. To see whatever it was that had stopped Fereshteh’s freed soul from incinerating me.
As I pulled it away, I started to make out colours in the glare. Like pillars of blue, red, gold and a dozen other hues around the too-violent fire that had once been Fereshteh. I saw shapeless figures of flame encircling the machine. Standing around it. Caging it. Shielding me from it. Shielding the whole city from it.
*
I realised suddenly that I was lying on my back and opening my eyes. The rushing sound in my ears was gone. Above me, dust was dancing in the air through the sunlight. I could taste metal.
I pushed myself, shaking, on to my elbows. The light in the vaults was different now – not blinding white any more. It was the familiar buttery colour of early morning sun.
The motes floating through the morning light – it was what was left of the machine. It hadn’t just shattered. It was like the metal had turned back into dust of the mountain it was mined from.
There was nothing left of Fereshteh either. His soul had fled the prison Leyla made for it. And maybe tonight it would inhabit the sky, along with every other dead Djinn from the First War.
The pillars of coloured fire that had encircled the machine were gone, too. Where they had been now stood a circle of Djinn in the shape of men.
They had saved me.
They stood in somber silence with bowed heads, my father, Bahadur, among them. The ground beneath their feet was scorched black. I expected them to vanish, the way Zaahir had at Sazi. Instead, one of them turned his head towards me, blazing gold eyes catching me in his sights.
‘So,’ he said in an ancient voice, ‘Zaahir has sent an assassin after us.’
As one, they turned towards me, and suddenly I was caught under a dozen immortal gazes.
‘I’m not—’ Speaking was a struggle; I’d hit the ground hard, and my lungs felt raw. ‘I’m not an assassin.’
‘And yet you bring weapons here,’ one of them said. He didn’t move, but I felt the air stir under my hand, lifting it as if some invisible grip were guiding it. And I realised they were all staring at the now-useless ring that Zaahir had given me.
‘We made that weapon for Zaahir –’ it was my father who spoke now – ‘when we imprisoned him below the mountain. We gave him a promise of freedom if he would repent for what he did.’
‘But we gave him a second path to freedom, too, should he want it,’ another one of the Djinn stepped in. ‘We gave him that ring so he could choose his own death if he wished to. If, in a moment of desperation, he should wish to escape, all he needed to do was break the ring and he would be released from life.’
In one perfectly clear moment, I understood. This had been what Zaahir intended all along. To use me to exact revenge over those who had imprisoned him. To kill them in the same way they had given him to kill himself. He had given
me a weapon that could end an immortal and then sent me into their midst.
He hadn’t lied to me. It would’ve saved me. It would’ve taken Fereshteh’s energy away safely – as well as snuffed out the fire of every other Djinni here. As it had the Abdals. As it would have him, if he’d chosen to end his own immortal life.
This had been his intention from the beginning.
He had played a long game with me. He had given me a way to save Ahmed, but he knew I would never kill a prince with the knife. He had given me a way to save Bilal, but he knew I would be too late to use the kiss, the stage already set for him to kill all his men. And only then did he give me the ring to save myself. He had made me desperate enough, with one promised salvation after another, to accept this last gift without question. Too close to the battle to wonder for very long about his generosity. To realise that he was sending me in against his old enemies, the Djinn who had imprisoned him.
‘She will need to be punished,’ the one with molten-gold eyes said.
‘I didn’t know.’ I was breathing hard, and everything hurt. Slowly I tried to drag myself to my feet.
‘But you knew that you should not release the one your kind call the Sin Maker,’ another one said, turning violent blue eyes on me, ones that reminded me of the colour of Izz’s wings in the sun. ‘And so you allowed him to trick you.’
‘We should punish Zaahir,’ another one disagreed. This one had dark purple hair that looked almost black. ‘Bahadur’s daughter does not need to die.’
My father stayed silent, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
I had managed to get myself to standing now, as they all looked on, sizing me up with their unnatural gazes. ‘A balance, then,’ a red-eyed one said. ‘She should not die for Zaahir’s crimes. But someone should.’
There was a nod from around the assembled Djinn. And when the red-eyed Djinni looked at Bahadur, he, too, inclined his head just ever so slightly.
‘We are nothing if not just,’ another Djinni with eyes as unnaturally white as a flame spoke. ‘You chose to release Zaahir from his prison. You can make this choice, too.’
‘A choice?’ I wasn’t sure if it was a question or if I was just repeating the word. But it came out a low, angry, breathless hiss. He might burn with an infinite number of the small sparks that burned in me, but just then I’d swear there was enough fire in me to set the both of us alight.
The red-eyed Djinni didn’t wave a hand or say words like the market performers did before revealing the grand ending to their great trick. But I felt it all the same, the shift in the air the moment before they appeared across from me.
Side by side, staggering, fresh from the battlefield. Two brothers. Two princes.
Ahmed and Jin.
‘A choice of which one will die.’
Chapter 42
This would be a whole lot easier if I were still the same selfish girl you met in Dustwalk.
I’d said that to Jin about another choice, on another day. Or maybe it was really about the same choice. Because I’d made this choice so many times before without knowing it. A hundred small choices on the road that had led me to this one, this final choice. Between what I wanted and what I ought to do. Between myself and my country.
When I’d chosen not to flee Fahali, to save my own skin. When I’d chosen not to let Jin die in the desert after the Nightmare bite. When I’d chosen to face down Noorsham. When I’d chosen to let Shira die. And to let Hala die. And let Sam die. And when I’d chosen to free Zaahir.
It was a choice between what I wanted to do and what I needed to do.
‘Amani.’ Ahmed spoke, glancing around the vaults, confused. ‘What’s happening?’ But Jin never took his eyes off me.
‘It is your choice, daughter of Bahadur,’ one of the Djinn said, ‘which one dies today. Or don’t choose and they both die.’
A faraway part of me knew I ought to beg and plead, to rail against fate and the whole world for bringing me here. Against the Djinn, who made humanity and then played with us like this, with their deals and their tricks that they called justice. Who were taking more from me than I ever had from them.
But I didn’t. I didn’t rage or cry as I watched Ahmed’s mouth forming words I couldn’t hear. As I saw Jin standing perfectly, impossibly still, eyes closed as the understanding of what was happening, and the pain of it, struck him. I was standing in the same stone vaults, but I was far away.
Suddenly I was standing in a crowded barn on the other side of the desert all over again. One bullet left. Two bottles. Both – I needed both of them alive. But I couldn’t cheat my way out of this one.
It was an easy choice, really. Even if it was the hardest choice I’d ever have to make. Because I wasn’t that selfish girl any more.
Ahmed was shouting something, I realised. I forced myself to focus on him, to hear him from somewhere far beyond the roaring in my mind. He was telling me to take Jin and get out.
To let him die.
Jin wasn’t saying anything. He knew me. I didn’t take my eyes off Jin as I spoke. And though my voice was barely more than a whisper, I heard it echo around the vaults. ‘Let Ahmed go,’ I said.
Jin let out the breath he’d been holding. Like it was a relief.
‘No!’ Ahmed’s voice ripped from his throat. ‘Amani.’ He was on me, his hands tight around my arms. ‘Don’t do this. It’s not worth it, there are other ways—’
‘Ahmed.’ His name came out more prayer than plea. ‘It’s done.’ The tears were coming hard and fast now, streaking down my face.
Ahmed looked shocked, his hands digging into my arms. ‘But you love him,’ he said softly. ‘You love him, and you should save him. That’s what people do with those they love, Amani – they save them.’
No, it wasn’t. Sam had taught me that. Great love stories ended in death. All stories ended in death sooner or later. Ours was ending sooner.
I could feel grief hammering at me now, like waves against a ship. Like the sandstorm tearing at the walls of the camp. ‘I’m making the choice he would have made.’ The words wouldn’t come any more. ‘The choice we all made. That we would die for you.’
‘Ahmed.’ Jin still couldn’t move, but he found his voice. ‘I would always have died protecting you. You must know that.’
Ahmed’s chest rose and fell like he was trying to catch his breath. He moved over to Jin shakily. He placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘I would’ve died for you, brother. In a heartbeat.’
‘I know,’ Jin said. ‘But you’re not going to.’ And then he embraced him. They gripped each other like they were still young boys, like they could pour every bit of strength and life they had into each other. ‘Go do something worth dying for,’ Jin said, releasing him.
The red-eyed Djinni raised his arms.
I saw the rising panic in Ahmed as he scrambled for everything he wanted to say to his brother. ‘Jin—’ He stepped forward urgently just as the Djinni brought his arms down. And just like that, Ahmed was gone, air rushing in to fill the space where he’d been. Jin’s shoulders sagged, the strength leaving him, everything he’d been holding on to for Ahmed’s sake fleeing him.
His eyes landed on me.
I closed the distance between us, Jin pulling me close to him as soon as I was within reach, until every single part of us was pressed together and I felt whatever strength I had left leave me, too.
‘I’m sorry.’ The words came out a sob into his shirt as he tightened his arms around me. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I’m sorry, too.’ He spoke into my hair, pressing his mouth close to my ear. ‘I promised to teach you how to swim. I don’t like breaking my promises.’
The laugh that came out of me was short and ugly through the sobs. But I saw Jin smile as he tilted my head back up towards him, his thumbs wiping away the tears. He smiled faintly. I knew what he was thinking. I had some saltwater in my soul after all. ‘You should go,’ he said. You shouldn’t have to watch this.
‘No.’
I’m not going to let you die alone.
He pulled me suddenly, violently forwards. There was no gentleness in that kiss. Nothing but desperation and anger and fear. Knowing it was our last.
‘I love you. I love you. I love you.’ I wasn’t sure which one of us was saying which words. Pressing them hard against each other’s mouths in the last moment we had left. I could feel tears streaming down my face. I could taste blood.
We were ripped apart. Not by hands, but by air. By a power greater than us. And I was staring at him, suddenly dragged far away from me. I watched him through tears. A blade appeared out of nowhere. It wasn’t made of iron, I realised. It was made of sand – a sharpened blade made from the desert itself. The Djinni holding it was Bahadur.
My father gazed at me with ancient, pitiless eyes. ‘You don’t have to watch this, daughter. We can send you far away.’
‘I’m staying,’ I said, never taking my eyes off Jin, trying to drink him in until the very last second. ‘Until the end.’
And then my father plunged the knife through Jin’s stomach, driving it in to the hilt. And I felt my own insides rip open.
Chapter 43
I was bleeding.
It was soaking through my shirt and on to my hands. My fingers were stained bright red. And somehow I’d fallen to my knees.
I realised it all distantly, as if I was in a dream where everything was a little bit less clear.
I wasn’t just imagining the pain. My hands were wet with blood as I pulled them away from my stomach.
I pushed my shirt up hurriedly. There was a slice in my side exactly where the knife had gone into Jin. Exactly where my scar from the bullet in Iliaz was. Like an old wound torn open. Except this one was brand new.
The Djinn were looking down at us curiously. Even after all this time, they seemed unable to tear their eyes away from us. From our pain. Our anguish. All the experiences they hadn’t known before we brought them into the world.
‘You married him,’ one of the Djinn said matter-of-factly.
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