‘I ought to go,’ I argued, glancing at the city on the horizon. ‘So long as I don’t look anyone in the eye it ought to be fine.’
‘Right,’ Jin said, flipping a two-louzi coin along his knuckles. ‘When’s the last time you got in any trouble when left to your own devices?’ But he flipped the coin in my direction all the same. I caught it out of the air as he handed the rest of our money over. He knew I was right. Foreigners in this part of the desert during a war would arouse suspicion.
I paused as I rewrapped my sheema.
Tamid was unstrapping his false leg, sitting on the ground. ‘None of us knows where the compass is leading.’ I could tell he knew I was talking to him, even though he wasn’t looking at me. ‘This might be the closest thing to civilisation we see for a while. You could stay here if you wanted. When this is all over there’ll be trains running again, back down to Dustwalk …’
‘No.’ He didn’t look up. ‘The compass points south and south is the way to Dustwalk. I’ll keep going with you as far as I need to get home.’
Home. If home was Dustwalk instead of the Dev’s Valley, that was the last home I wanted to go back to.
*
Fahali wasn’t just any city. It was the first city that had knelt to Ahmed, after we’d saved it from being annihilated by Noorsham. It was one of our cities – or it used to be. It had been occupied by the Gallan for nearly two decades before that. Now, with the news that Ahmed was dead, it was an uncertain city. As I walked through the streets, I could feel the unease. News of impending war and invasion must’ve reached them. Everyone kept their eyes down, moving quickly, as if they were afraid to be outside too long.
I kept my own eyes to the ground as I navigated the city, my sheema pulled over my face. There were people here who would know me even if I didn’t stand out like Jin or the twins would.
This city knew me. And once I’d known it pretty damn well, too. But it had changed since we were last here. The streets were filled with women in rags, begging, and children running around barefoot. Where the sprawling market ought to have been, the streets were empty, shops boarded up.
I felt a tug on my clothes. I snapped around quickly, grabbing the small hand that had been trying to find its way into my pockets. It was a little girl, her eyes big in her gaunt face.
‘I wasn’t doing anything!’ The boldness of the lie was somewhat undercut by the panic in her expression.
‘It’s all right.’ I dropped to my knees, though I didn’t let her go, in case she fled. ‘You think you could tell me what’s happening here?’
The waif looked at me warily, as if she didn’t believe that I didn’t know. ‘Food doesn’t come any more,’ she said finally. ‘My papa says it’s our punishment for turning against the Sultan.’
So the Sultan was starving them out for allying with us. He could do that. Most of the desert’s trade came on the caravans or on trains from eastern Miraji. If he’d cut off what was coming from across the mountains, then there wouldn’t be enough for everyone.
‘Well, you can tell your papa there’s a difference between punishment and revenge.’ I let her go, pushing my sheema away as I leaned back against the wall, silently cursing the Sultan’s name. Ahmed would never have let this happen if he were still here. Hell, he would never have let this happen if he were Sultan. I’d seen Ahmed give up his own food to people hungrier than him more than once.
I was going to have to leave this starving city without supplies. Izz or Maz could probably catch us a rabbit to cook up in the hills for tonight. And then after that … we’d have to survive. We were good at that. It was why we were still here.
I let her go, but the little girl didn’t dash away like I’d expected. She was staring at me curiously now we were directly eye level. ‘Are you the Blue-Eyed Bandit?’ she asked boldly. And then before I could answer she kept going. ‘Are you here to save us? The man in the uniform said you would save us.’
‘What man in the uniform?’
‘The one who came through the city a few days ago. He said the Rebellion would save us. He said he was a general and he knew. He said his daughter was with them and that all of you would save us.’
General Hamad, Shazad’s father. He had come through this way. My head dashed around without thinking, like I might be able to spy him among these streets. Like he wasn’t long gone.
‘Was he right?’ she asked insistently. ‘Are you here to save us?’
I wanted to lie, to tell her that I would. That I could save them. But I was just a girl from Dustwalk. ‘No.’ I straightened. ‘I’m not here to save you.’ But I’m going to try to save someone else for you.
They needed more than a girl from Dustwalk. They needed their prince. They needed his general. The best I could do was try to bring the real saviours back.
*
It was our sixth day of flying when the direction of Jin’s compass changed abruptly in his hands. It had been pointing due south since we left Iliaz, heading over the desert as straight as a bullet. But now, suddenly, it swung back north. We’d passed over our target. Jin quickly leaned over Maz’s neck, giving him instructions. Maz did as he was told, plunging us towards the sand. Izz followed behind.
I squinted through the haze of the afternoon heat as we descended. There, not far off, was a town, the first we’d seen in days. I hadn’t even noticed it when we’d passed over it a moment ago, but I knew it instantly all the same: Juniper City. It was where I’d got on a train to Izman a year ago, and where Jin caught up with me as I tried to head north with his compass. They called it a city, and back then it was the biggest place I’d ever seen. But since then I’d seen Izman. Juniper City didn’t look like much in comparison.
Jin’s compass was pointing straight towards it.
Something wasn’t right. I knew I ought to be happy. I ought to feel some hope. That we were close. That we’d found our people. But this wasn’t exactly Eremot, the prison of legends. It was just a big town in the desert. And I might not trust Leyla, but I knew she hadn’t lied to me. Instead of hope, a new fear was being born in my chest. That this was a wild-goose chase. That we were going the wrong way. That Ahmed and the others weren’t going to be here.
But there was only one way to know for sure.
We walked in silence, following Jin’s compass to the city. Izz became a small bird, flying excitedly ahead of us, then back again, while Maz sat on my shoulder, a little blue-headed lizard basking in the afternoon sun.
It was slow-going with Tamid’s bad leg, and I caught him glancing over his shoulder more than once as we walked. Back in the direction of Dustwalk. I’d promised to get him as close to home as possible. This was pretty damn close.
By tomorrow morning he would be home. And I could tell myself all I liked that it wasn’t my home any more, but the only thing that had made it bearable during the last year I’d lived there, after my mother was hanged, was Tamid. And even if he hated me, I didn’t know that I had it in me to hate him. I only hated that he was going back.
That I was losing one more person. Not to death maybe, but to somewhere I’d never see him again just the same.
It was nearer to dusk than noon when we passed through the city gates. Jin and Sam wore their sheemas tight to hide their foreignness as best they could as we joined the crowds in the streets.
The war had not reached this far south yet in earnest, but there were still signs of it. Supplies from anywhere other than the desert or the nearby mountains seemed fewer in the market stalls. And there were more men carrying weapons on the street than I remembered.