I closed my eyes, too. It didn’t matter. I wouldn’t miss.
A gunshot echoed around the cavernous gold dome just as hands closed over my feet. I felt the floor give way below me, like it was turning to water. I couldn’t help it – I opened my eyes for a fraction of a second even as I sank quickly through the floor. Even as the moment that it would be too late rushed towards us. I had to see. I had to make sure I hadn’t broken my promise.
She was slumped in the Sultan’s arms, red blood smearing her still-smiling face. Her fingers dragged on the floor. Only eight of them. That was how I knew she was dead. If she was living she would be trying to hide that wound, one way or another. Like she always did.
For a moment as I sank, my eye caught on the broken Abdal. And I realised Hala looked the same, her glowing gold skin like their polished bronze. If she’d been left alive she would have been just like them, a thing to be used. A mechanical Demdji.
The floor rushed up and I shut my eyes again, like Sam had always taught me. When I hit solid ground again, I opened them. I was standing in the dark, broken only by the faint flicker of an oil lamp by Sam’s feet.
We’d found the tunnels Leyla had told us about last night and worked out an escape route, a way to get out when Fariha was safe, one the Sultan wouldn’t be able to anticipate. The floor was stone, which meant Sam could pass his arms through it and pull us down through the floor and out of the prayer house into the tunnels below. We’d marked the spot on the roof of the tunnel, figuring out which tile above corresponded to it. We’d been standing exactly where we needed to stand to get to safety. To get out of there alive. If it wasn’t for the iron-dust bomb.
Sam opened his mouth, a question in his pale eyes. Hala? But before he could ask it, I shook my head quickly.
He understood.
She had died so that others could live. So that we could save them. So that other girls wouldn’t die while we were gone. Maybe she had even walked in there knowing one of us had to die. Deciding it would be her. So that we could live. Escape.
So we did what she had died for. We ran.
Chapter 10
The Girl Made of Gold
Once there was a woman so greedy she gave birth to a daughter made of gold.
The Girl Made of Gold knew what it meant to be used. By a greedy mother. Then by a greedy husband. But the Girl Made of Gold had a secret: she could remake the world in the mind of others.
And one day she used her gift to escape all those who would have used her against her will.
She saw that there were others in the world who were being used against their will. But unlike the Girl Made of Gold, they were powerless to escape.
She resolved that she would not only remake the world in people’s minds, she would dedicate her life to remaking it in reality, too. And she vowed that she would die before anyone ever used her against her will again.
And she kept that vow.
Chapter 11
It was the middle of the day by the time we reached the mountains of Iliaz.
I felt weighed down with grief over Hala, like I ought to be too heavy to fly through the desert skies like this. Too heavy for Maz to carry me, even with those immense wings that cast such a long shadow across the sand below. But somehow we were soaring through the air, leaving Izman far behind, racing towards the mountain fortress of Iliaz ahead of us. Jin’s compass would lead us to Ahmed, but we had a pit stop to make first. Our destination was only a few short hours due west of Izman, as the magical shape-shifting Roc flew.
I was keenly aware that we were missing a soul every time I glanced over at Izz, flying parallel with his brother, carrying Sam, Tamid and Leyla, while Maz carried just me and Jin.
It shouldn’t have been this way. We’d had a plan. I’d waited at the Hidden House while Sam and Hala accompanied the others into the tunnels Leyla had located for us. Sam got them through the bricked-up exits of the tunnels and out beyond the barrier. And then Hala used her Demdji gift to walk them through the Gallan siege around the city unseen. Then, once the others were out of sight beyond the city, Hala and Sam came back to the Hidden House, to wait until it was time to pull off our grand trick in the prayer house.
And then … iron dust, blood, bullets … and we were left without our golden-skinned Demdji.
I’d felt Hala’s absence as soon as Sam and I emerged through the bricks and the sand, out of the tunnel, into broad daylight, facing our enemies with no cover from a Demdji illusion.
‘So, what do we do now?’ Sam had asked in a low voice that carried far too much for my liking, as we’d crouched just outside the walls of Izman, facing the Gallan military tents ahead of us. And suddenly I felt like a child again.
I’d grown up in a desert full of monsters, but I’d never feared Nightmares or Skinwalkers as much as I did the Gallan.
For a moment I wasn’t a rebel any more. I was a little girl hiding under the house when the Gallan came to Dustwalk. I was watching through the windows when they dragged a man out of his house for spitting at their boots and shot him. I was seeing a woman swing because a Gallan soldier had caught her alone in the dark and everyone had closed their ears to her screams. I was helpless in Fahali, watching a bullet go through a Demdji’s head before I even knew what a Demdji was.
I was helpless back then. I wasn’t helpless now.
I was a Demdji now. I had all the more reason to fear them for that. But I also had more weapons than I used to.
I was a Demdji. I wasn’t a little girl. I repeated that over and over, even as I dredged up enough power from inside myself to raise a small sandstorm around us, leaning on Sam for support as I did. It was enough to give us cover to get through the Gallan siege, to where the others were waiting for us.
Now Maz spread his wings, just barely brushing my knees as I clung to him against the wind. Jin’s arm went around me as Maz prepared to drop down, steadying me against his solidness.
Last time I was in these mountains I was shot through the stomach, and Jin carried me to safety – barely. This place didn’t exactly hold wonderful memories for me. But even I had to admit that Iliaz was a sight to behold. Half our country might be desert, but the rainclouds that gathered over the sea always broke across the mountains, making the soil here rich. The slopes were laced with vines and fields and orchards. And at the highest point, governing over the only pass through the mountains, was the great fortress.
Jin’s compass pointed south, toward Eremot if Leyla was to be believed. But even I wasn’t reckless enough to think we could pull off a rescue with only eight of us – seven now, I reminded myself. A Blue-Eyed Bandit and an imposter Blue-Eyed Bandit, a foreign prince, a reluctant one-time friend, shape-shifting twins, and an enemy princess. Not exactly an army.