He lies, she said again, hair fluttering freely over her fingers as she stared accusingly out across the crowd. And lying is a sin.
Scarcely had she spoken that, the sky darkened. And when the people of Izman looked up, a great sandstorm had rushed in to crown the city and hide the sun, plunging the palace into shadow, even as the Blessed Sultima glowed ever more brilliantly. The people cowered under this wrathful storm, which the dead girl had brought to hang over their heads like an axe that might fall and kill them before her very eyes, just as she had been killed before theirs. They dropped to their knees, praying for mercy, though they did not know if they prayed to God or the dead girl.
But the dead Sultima was not interested in mercy. Only in truth.
It was not the Rebel Prince who killed the Sultim. Her voice was clear even over the rising wind that balanced the sand over their heads.
It was his own father. The Sultima’s bloody hand shot out, pointing towards the Sultan on his balcony high above his people. Her head spilled from her hands and toppled to the ground so that its eyes stared angrily up at him. But her voice never wavered. He killed his son in cold blood, as he did his brothers and his father. And he now stands before you pretending grief while he prepares to send more of his sons to their deaths against the invaders he has brought down on this city.
On their knees in front of this miraculous apparition, the citizens of Izman believed her. For what reason would the dead have to lie?
Then the Sultima lifted her head from the ground where it had fallen, turning it to fix her eyes on the princes behind her. One dropped to his knees. Another drew a bow, firing an arrow towards her already blood-soaked chest. It passed straight through the deceased Sultima, as if through water, planting in the ground behind her.
The Sultima looked at the arrow dispassionately before turning back to the princes, who were helpless against her words.
No new Sultim will be chosen from this pack of unworthy princes. The true Sultim was already chosen, and I come here with a warning.
Later, those among the crowd would tell of how she cradled her head in her hands like it was the child who had been taken from her too soon, the child who had not been born of her husband but, some said, of a Djinni. Of course they should choose the mother of one of their children as their messenger from beyond this world.
The Rebel Prince is the true heir. He must rule in Miraji or else no Sultan will ever rule again. Our country will fall to war and conquest and the very armies who wait by our gates. It will be divided and bled dry by our enemies.
This Sultan can bring only darkness and death. Only the true heir to Miraji can bring peace and prosperity.
A great cry rose from the crowd then, though all heard the words she spoke next.
The Rebel Prince will rise again.
He will bring a new dawn. A new desert.
Chapter 3
Izman looked different from above.
I was standing on the ledge of the great prayer house and I could see the crowd assembled for the Sultim trials far below us. That was why we’d picked this spot, to keep an eye on this morning’s proceedings. Because it sure as hell wasn’t for the comfort of it.
I shifted as much as I dared on the narrow ledge, trying to get a better view of what was going on. I teetered forwards a little as gravity reached up for me, and to my right Jin instinctively grabbed my arm, steadying me before I could plunge hundreds of feet to my death.
‘I don’t have it in me to lose you, too, Bandit,’ he said as he anchored me to our perch.
Maz and Izz flanked us. They’d flown us up here, taking the form of two giant Rocs, just before daybreak, when people started to gather. The sun hitting the golden dome of the prayer house made it blaze so bright it almost blinded me, even with my back to it. Which meant it would blind anyone in the crowd who might happen to glance up our way, making us seem like kaleidoscopic illusions in the light instead of flesh and blood.
When I was down in the streets, the city was a latticed puzzle box. Sharp corners, hidden alcoves, unexpected dead ends. Long streets pierced occasionally by windows that leaked whole other worlds on to the dusty paving stones. Narrow passages made all the narrower for being lined by market stalls and a steady stream of people. The whole thing lidded by colourful canopies blotting out the sky. I still hadn’t managed to solve the city, even after nearly a month of being trapped inside it by the great dome of fire.
I knew it was one of Leyla’s unnatural inventions the moment I saw it. But the people had drawn the same conclusion as Sara that first night. That it was ancient magic, the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the end of the First War.
Many were calling it Ahmed’s Wall. Some had even begun praying to it. Ahmed’s Acolytes, so called. Men and women who singed their clothing and smeared their faces in ash and spent their days trying to get as close to the great barrier of fire as they could in order to pray for it to hold against the invaders at our gates. No matter how many times the Sultan’s soldiers turned them away, they kept coming back, dawn after dawn. A few had even died, getting too close to the barrier. Disintegrating like the stone Jin had thrown at it the day it appeared. They preached that Ahmed had saved us all.
I hated to admit it, but it was possible the barrier had saved us. Though I knew it was nothing to do with Ahmed.
From up here on our perch I could see the lines of blue tents encircling our city with military precision. Waiting. Just like they had been for weeks. After the twins saw them on the horizon, it wasn’t long before they got to the city. But that was where their invasion stalled. The couldn’t get through the barrier on their side any more than we could. Their bullets disintegrated against the barrier of fire too. Soon enough the Gallan had gone silent. Even if they hadn’t gone anywhere else. We all knew better than to think they would give up so easy.
The Gallan had occupied our desert for nearly two decades. They had put our Sultan on his throne, helping him usurp his father and brother. And in return he had let them impose their laws on us. Let their twisted beliefs guide them to kill Demdji and First Beings. Force our poorest people into dangerous labour to churn out enough weapons for them to fight their wars. Inflict their violence on us without fear of repercussion from the law. The Sultan had let it happen and waited until the Gallan didn’t serve his purposes any more. Only then had he tried to annihilate them using Noorsham, my brother, a Demdji who could flatten cities. He had turned the thing they hated most, magic, against them. But we’d got in the way before Noorsham could finish them off. I wanted the Gallan out as much as anyone, but he would’ve killed a whole lot of Mirajin citizens on his warpath, too. In the end the only thing the Sultan achieved was making enemies of our occupiers. And now here we were, under siege from the largest empire in the world.
They seemed to think they could wait us out on the other side of that wall of fire. But I knew a thing or two about the Sultan. He didn’t play games he didn’t think he could win.
I wondered how many Mirajin villages and towns the Gallan had stormed through on the way to Izman. How many people had died in their path as the Sultan waited for them to come to him.
The Sultan had claimed to me once that his purpose was to protect his country. That he would make Miraji as a force to be reckoned with, one that no foreign army would occupy ever again. And maybe it would be. But every step towards that looked to me like a little more power in the Sultan’s hands, and bodies being trampled on the way. The people of Miraji had not agreed to be pawns in this game the Sultan was playing against foreign invaders.