Bilal inclined his head. ‘I’ll take the warning first, I suppose. It couldn’t get much worse.’
‘The Sultan knows that you met with Ahmed before leaving the city.’ I reached into my pocket, pulling out a piece of paper, one of the letters that Jin had stolen from the palace. I passed it to the servant, who handed it down to Bilal, holding it open for him to read. ‘Our exalted ruler knows you’re a traitor. After he deals with the foreign threat at his gates –’ my eyes flicked hesitantly towards the fox-haired captain – ‘you’re his next target.’
Bilal didn’t look unduly distressed by this as he scanned the paper in the servant’s hands. After all, Iliaz was supposed to be the impregnable city, the fortress that guarded one of the only passages between western and eastern Miraji. The ultimate strategic land, according to Shazad.
‘And your offer?’ He sounded bored as he flicked two fingers at the servant, dismissing him and the letter that spelled out his destruction as if it was nothing. The servant carefully set the paper aside on one of the tables that was already overflowing with scraps and scribbles. ‘Well?’ he prompted when I didn’t speak right away.
My eyes darted again to the others in this room before I spoke. ‘My offer is that if you help us rescue Rahim’ – Anwar, the soldier at Bilal’s side, snapped to attention at the mention of Rahim; the mere sound of his captain’s name seemed to straighten his spine – ‘and Ahmed, we will do our best to take the throne from the Sultan and make sure the ruler of this country isn’t someone who wants to kill you.’
Mention of Rahim didn’t seem to do as much to get Bilal’s attention as it had Anwar’s. I’d figured Bilal must be something close to a brother to him. That Bilal would care that Rahim was going to die if we didn’t rescue him.
But Bilal just spread his hands wide, indicating the man at his side in the Albish uniform. ‘Does it look to you as if I’m trying to hide my treason, Amani? What kind of ruler would I be if I wasn’t prepared to face the consequences of it?’
‘Maybe one who doesn’t care about consequences because he’s a dead man anyway.’ The words were out before I could decide whether or not I ought to say them. I could swear that I saw the Albish soldier’s eyebrows rise just a little at the unchecked words. But Bilal let out a sharp laugh that turned quickly into a cough. It racked painfully through his worn body, seeming to rattle his very bones. The servant stepped forward, but Bilal waved him off quickly, composing himself.
‘You think I’d throw our country to the dogs out of spite?’
My eyes flicked to the Albish captain to see whether he had any reaction to his army being called dogs. But his face was studied blankness again. ‘I think what you’re treating like an alliance looks a lot like an invasion.’
‘Invasions don’t usually come with an invitation.’ Bilal smoothed his hand over the table again, a tic he couldn’t seem to help, trying to hide his shaking hands. ‘Though I appreciate that with those two words sounding so similar, it might be confusing to simpler folk.’
I tried to ignore the flash of shame as his voice took on a mocking twinge of my thick accent on the last handful of words. Like I was stupid just because I didn’t talk like he did.
‘A breach was inevitable, Amani.’ Bilal’s words took on a patronising tone now. ‘The Sultan’s army at our western border is in shambles. The rumor is that General Hamad has gone missing and they are without leadership.’ General Hamad. That was Shazad’s father. Missing, he said. Not dead. Shazad’s father must have escaped the Sultan’s attempt to apprehend him after his daughter’s treason. ‘Without a decent line of defense, it was easy for my new friends to walk into the desert from Amonpour. Our ruler is struggling to hold onto this country, Amani. You really think he has the resources to come after me for my choice of allies?’ He sounded so smug, sitting up here in his fortress. But I had just come from Izman and I knew better than to underestimate the Sultan.
‘So, what about all those bodies buried in the dirt outside? That sure doesn’t look like an easy alliance to me.’
‘A run-in with a pack of Nightmares further down the mountain, not with my men. My new allies were not prepared, foreign as they are.’ Bilal looked at me like I was a child whose wild ideas he was entertaining for his own amusement. ‘Do you really want to debate with me on the difference between cooperation and invasion? Because I can promise you that my education in history, strategy and vocabulary was far more expensive than yours.’ It was like I was back in the palace, sitting across from the Sultan, unable to defend my Rebel Prince against his twisted logic. Shazad, who was better read, would have had some smart retort for him, or Ahmed, who was sure of his intentions, would have been able to stand his ground better than I could. I just stood, taking the blows of his words as he batted away my arguments effortlessly. ‘Captain Westcroft and his army are here at my invitation, because I do not intend to die.’
‘Lots of people wind up dead without meaning to, you know.’ Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Albish captain brush a hand across his moustache quickly, as if he was hiding a smile.
‘Yes, well –’ Bilal’s shaking hand twitched – ‘as amusing as your sense of self-importance is, you don’t really think you were my last resort, do you?’ He waved an arm weakly around himself, at the chaos that dominated the rest of the room. ‘I have tried a thousand ways to stay alive already. This is just one more. See for yourself.’
A few steps took me to the table where the servant had tossed the letter that acknowledged Bilal’s treason. I could barely see the table itself under the chaos. ‘I have tested and used and searched for every single piece of Mirajin sorcery to save me. Without any result. It is time to move away from desert magic.’ My fingers danced across the papers and scribbled, half-mad notes. There were pages violently ripped out of books, the torn edges painted with bright-pigmented flowers and gold-leaf animals. ‘The Albish know how to heal with water and earth instead of fire and words. You’ve already seen what they are capable of in battle.’ So he was trading our country to foreigners for a chance at a cure.