We were the enemy at the gates of the city.
Jin and I emerged on to the palace walls to find a real battle below us. Our people weren’t on the defensive any more. They were attacking.
The Sultan’s unnatural wall was gone, and the city ramparts were scattered with bronze bodies – fallen Abdals, their spark vanished with Fereshteh’s release. The Sultan’s soldiers made of flesh and blood were scrambling to get into position, reaching for their weapons. More rushed through empty streets towards the palace. We matched them in numbers, but they still had the higher ground.
A scream from above drew both of our heads up. Izz flew overhead, releasing something from his claws, a bomb that struck the wall, exploding as it landed, taking stone and soldiers with it but still not shaking the gates open. The Rebellion needed a way in.
I reached for the desert.
And there was no pain. No struggle. My power flowed easily, like it was breathing a sigh of relief as it invaded my whole body.
Involuntarily, I touched the smooth skin of my stomach. My father had healed that old wound, too, along with the new one.
But it was more than the absence of the ache. For the first time ever, I felt my power like it was part of me. Truly in my soul. Not a weapon at my fingertips but like another heartbeat.
I didn’t so much as twitch my fingers as I grabbed full hold of the desert. Of my desert. I was the desert. And it would answer to me.
I pulled with everything I had, raising the sand like the surge of the sea. It crashed into the Eastern Gate, splintering the stones, scattering soldiers and opening the gates.
I flooded the city with the Rebellion.
The streets turned into a battlefield as we raced down from the palace walls. We were unarmed except for my gift, and Jin hung behind me as we entered the fight.
A soldier turned as we rounded a narrow corner, his gun rising to meet us. I moved faster than he did, the sand around his feet surging up around him, blinding him, choking him.
Jin shifted past me. In one swift motion, he knocked the soldier in the face, grabbing the rifle out of his hands.
Suddenly there came a gunshot behind us. Jin and I turned as one. But the bullet hadn’t been aimed at us. Sprawled on the street was a man in a soldier’s uniform. Above him in a window was a girl in a gold khalat, her hair tied back off her face, a gun in her hands. She was shaking, and her eyes looked wide with the shock of what she’d just done. She’d just saved us.
Her gaze met mine, and she gave me a small nod. I felt a surge of hope. The Rebellion hadn’t been extinguished inside the city while we were gone.
We had to get back to the rest of the battle.
Shazad’s plan had been to split the Sultan’s soldiers up, divide them among the streets and alleyways, where numbers wouldn’t matter and we could push them back until the palace was in reach.
We started to see the first signs of fighting on Red Reed Way, the thoroughfare that led through the city from west to east.
Jin braced the rifle against his arm, taking aim even as I gathered the sand to me, guiding it together until it would arc like a blade against them.
Together we fought through the fray like a knife through water.
A dozen times a blade skimmed by my neck, close but not close enough. I saw a gun raised towards me even as I brought the force of the desert down on the head of the solider who wielded it. I should have been dead a hundred times over. I wasn’t. I felt like I was untouchable. Like no bullets could hit me. No swords could strike me as we cut through the fight, back to our own side.
Then I saw her in the middle of the fight, dark braid swinging as her sword caught a man in the throat before she dropped to her knees, slicing her blade along the back of another man’s leg, downing him before she executed the killing blow, a knife to his neck.
Shazad had always been a force to be reckoned with, but watching her now it was like she was barely human. She was a firestorm, and she would burn the Sultan’s armies to the ground before she fell to them.
When she spotted us in a lull in the fray, her face shifted. She grabbed me, pulling us towards her as we rounded a corner into a small impasse, temporary shelter. ‘You’re alive,’ she said, embracing me even as Jin took up a position watching the streets around us, rifle at the ready.
‘I’m alive,’ I agreed. ‘Shazad –’ I drew away from her – ‘Sam didn’t—’
Jin’s rifle went off suddenly, cutting me off with a bang. A cry came from the street near us as the threat fell.
‘We can grieve the dead later.’ Shazad shook her head quickly, guessing what I couldn’t say. But her voice still sounded tight. ‘For now, I need a barricade across the palace road and Golder’s Way to stop the soldiers retreating any further than the river. The streets start to climb up there; we’re lost if they gain higher ground. Can you get me that?’
‘Yeah.’ I nodded, glancing quickly up above us. ‘I think I can. But listen, Shazad, you might be able to get reinforcements out on the streets. The people of Izman – we got them to riot once. If you can get them out in the street in Ahmed’s name, then we outnumber the soldiers. I think we can end this.’
‘We don’t exactly have time to go door to door,’ Shazad said as something exploded nearby. None of us flinched.
‘The Zungvox,’ I said. ‘I reckon it’s still in the great prayer house.’ I remembered seeing it, the wiring of Leyla’s invention curled around the inside of the dome like a snake, designed to allow one man to speak to the whole city. For the Sultan to threaten and control us. But we could use it another way. We could get the fallen Abdals to speak for us.
Shazad’s eyes darted quickly in that way they did when she was working out a plan faster than any of us could. ‘All right, here’s what we’re going to do: Amani, you get me some barricades so we can keep fighting. And flag down the twins, get them to move as many of the Abdals away from the walls and into the city as we can.’
‘Yes, General.’ I saluted her. And for the first time, Shazad didn’t correct me on her title.
‘Jin,’ she called on him, ‘how about we get your brother to the great prayer house. It’s about time the city knew he was alive.’
‘We can manage that between the two of us.’ He drew back into the shelter of the alley, reloading his gun. ‘Any sign of the Sultan?’
‘He’s on the battlements.’ She squinted up at the walls. ‘But I haven’t been able to pin him down. The orders are that if anyone gets the shot with the Sultan in their crosshairs … take it.’
Jin and Shazad darted out of the shelter of the small street, back towards the fray, even as I turned to the nearest door. It took one burst of sand to shatter the locks, and then I pushed through. The ground floor of the house was empty, but as I pounded up the stairs I could hear voices and small whimpers and cries from behind doors. But I wasn’t here to hurt anyone; I just needed higher ground.
I burst on to their roof. From up here, I could see the end of Golder’s Way. Shazad had made us all memorise the map of Izman. I could already feel the desert rising below my hands. The sand roared to life, answering my call as it surged in a storm up from the ground and slithered over Izman like some great swarm.
I brought it crashing down at the place where Golder’s Way met the river, building an immense blockade that no soldier would get past, stopping their escape short.
I glanced eastwards. I couldn’t make out the palace road from here, the other point of retreat. I needed to move. I would lose precious time running back into the streets and fighting my way through. But it was too far to jump to the next roof.