‘I sent Imin to die,’ she said, after a long moment of silence. I stayed quiet. Though I’d figured it had been Shazad who had come up with the plan to send Imin to die in Ahmed’s place. She was the strategist. She was the one who made the hardest choices for us. ‘Which means I killed Navid, too.’ That one caught me off guard. I suddenly realised that I hadn’t seen Navid as we fled Eremot. But there were plenty I hadn’t seen. ‘He dropped dead in the prison below the palace. Just stopped breathing. As the sun set.’
‘When Imin’s head was taken off,’ I realised. They’d made a vow when they’d married: My life is yours to share. Until the day we die. An oath made by a Demdji was a dangerous thing. Lord Bilal had counted on it to save his life. But it had robbed Navid of his.
‘I thought I was going to die down there. And I saw them both, over and over again. Waiting for me.’
I didn’t think Shazad had been alone in the dark. I didn’t think those images were just guilt. But right now I didn’t think telling her that would help. ‘I killed Hala,’ I offered instead, my voice cracking. Shazad’s head darted up as she took in my words. Not that I had let Hala die, or sent her to her death. I had taken her life.
‘How did it happen?’ she asked after a moment. She sounded more measured, more like herself. Like a general absorbing every detail of this latest casualty.
‘The Sultan. I had to either kill her or let him have her …’ I trailed off. ‘I did what I had to do. Because it was what you would’ve done.’
We fell silent, sitting side by side on the mountain, the rustle of the camp far below drifting up to us on the air, mourning those we had lost: Hala, Navid, Imin, Shira, Bahi and more I couldn’t count. Mourning that not everyone down below with us in Sazi tonight would live to see Ahmed sit on the throne – if he ever did.
Me among them.
‘Tamid said …’ I started, then hesitated. I had to tell someone. Nobody knew about what Tamid had told me back in the Hidden House. It hadn’t mattered until today. Until Tamid had read the words painted above the doorway that led to Zaahir. The same words he had been searching for high and low, the ones that could release what was left of Fereshteh into death from the confines of the machine and give us a fighting chance against the Sultan. ‘Tamid reckons there’s a good chance that I’ll die if I release Fereshteh.’ Shazad’s head snapped up. ‘But if someone doesn’t deactivate the machine, then we have to face the Abdals. And no matter how many people stand up to fight with us I don’t think we stand much of a fighting chance against them.’
Shazad pressed her hand against her mouth as she considered this. ‘Have you told him yet?’
She meant Jin. Not Ahmed. We both knew without saying it that I couldn’t tell Ahmed. He would try to find a way out of this for me. But I wasn’t sure I had it in me to tell Jin either. I was telling Shazad because I knew she understood. She would fight for me as long as she could, and she would mourn me if she could not win. But she wouldn’t try to stop me. Because she would do the same.
I remembered, way back at the beginning, on a runaway train, holding her hand, keeping her from slipping on to the tracks and dying. Her telling me to let her go, just like Hala had in the Sultan’s grip. For the greater good. She’d never been afraid. I thought of what Sam had said back at the White Fish – that anyone who wasn’t frightened of dying was stupid or lying. I knew I couldn’t be the second. I didn’t like to think I was the first. But what would I be if I asked others to die for this cause but wasn’t willing to give myself up to it?
‘I’ll tell you what,’ I said. ‘If I die, we sure as hell better win this war.’
Shazad let out a short, honest laugh as she pushed herself to her feet. ‘Well then, I guess we’d better do something about our new recruits,’ she said, offering a hand down for me. I clasped it.
As she pulled me to my feet, I felt something knocking against my hip. When I glanced down I knew what it was, even in the barest flash of moonlight on metal. It was the knife Zaahir had given me. Somehow it had made it out of Eremot, tucked into my belt.
And I realised, with a sinking sense of dread, that I had a way to win this war hanging at my hip. One simple way to make sure that my death was worthwhile.
All I had to do was kill a prince.
Chapter 28
The next day was a new dawn.
We didn’t talk about the things that had been said in the dark the night before. We had a war to win now.
Shazad and Rahim took stock of the weapons surrendered on entry to the camp. There were enough to arm everyone, if we stretched things. Jin and Sam and I reclaimed our own guns. Nobody seemed to notice that I had a knife at my side that hadn’t come from the stash of weapons.
‘Who already knows how to shoot?’ Shazad asked the new recruits lined up haphazardly in front of her. Most hands went up. That wasn’t surprising – this was the Last County. When you made guns, you tended to know how to use them. ‘What about hand to hand?’
Hands dropped, and I saw Samir lean in towards his neighbour, saying something under his breath, a smirk on his face. ‘Something to say?’ Shazad asked, never missing a thing.
I had a feeling he was wondering why he was listening to a woman when he’d pledged his allegiance to a prince. I could see that question on a few faces around us. Samir spoke up. ‘I was saying that it’s not much good having a knife when you’ve got a gun pointed at you.’
‘Have you ever seen the streets of Izman?’ Shazad didn’t wait for an answer. ‘They’re narrow enough that half the time you can’t walk two abreast, let alone turn around quickly enough to get a shot off before your opponent is on top of you. That is when you need to be able to fight man to man.’
‘So how does a woman know how to fight man to man?’ another boy sniggered, loud enough so that he was heard.
Shazad’s eyebrows went up. I stepped back.
‘I’ll tell you what.’ Shazad turned towards him. ‘Why don’t you come and face me? Anyone who can land a blow can take over this training.’ A small audience was gathering by now. Everyone who’d ever seen Shazad fight knew exactly where this was going. The rebels were elbowing one another slyly as the boy stepped forward, looking all too confident.
‘Doesn’t seem like a fair fight to me,’ the boy said, too lightly. The boy was at least twice Shazad’s weight, broad where she was slim – slimmer still, after her time in Eremot.
‘It’s not even close to a fair fight,’ Jin commented from the sidelines. We’d all formed a circle now, watching.
‘Oh, my friend.’ Sam clapped the boy on his back. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’
‘My loss?’ The young idiot said.
‘Of your dignity.’ He gave him a rueful smile before stepping back to stand next to me.
The challenger lunged at our general, all ungainly fists and brute force. Shazad moved like a blade through water, going for his clumsy legs. She danced under his fists easily, her foot catching him in the ankle. And just like that he was on the ground and she was on top of him with a knife at his throat. The fight had lasted less than three seconds.
‘And now you’re dead,’ Shazad said.
‘That’s not fair,’ he wheezed, fighting for breath against the knee pressed into his chest. I got the feeling she was pressing a little harder than she strictly needed to. Pressing a point home.