The prince had never seen his mother grow so angry as she did at those words. She told her son that she was never to hear him talk like that again. That they were a family and that he should never be looking into his brother’s bowl to see if he had more, but only ever to make sure he had enough. And in punishment, she sent her son to bed without food.
The young prince raged. He decided that he had had enough. If his brother would not leave, he would. He was halfway through packing up his pitiful collection of belongings when his brother returned to the small room they shared. He turned out his pockets on to the bed, revealing that they were full of rice.
The second prince, feeling sorry that his brother had not eaten dinner, snuck every mouthful of his own into his pockets to bring to his brother later. The first prince was astonished to see that his brother was ready to go hungry himself and give everything he had to another – and to one who had wished him away only moments before.
It was in that moment that the first prince understood the goodness of his brother. That the second prince had a kinder, more selfless heart than the first prince could ever hope for. And he vowed that though he might never be as good as his brother, he would do all he could to protect him.
It was many years later that the girl known as the Blue-Eyed Bandit came to him, far from that table in the little home where they had grown up. And she asked him what he believed happened after death.
And he understood what it was that she meant to do.
He wanted to rage. To rage that his brother would get her life and that the Foreign Prince would be deprived of her in turn.
But he had made a vow on that day long ago.
And he would keep it.
Chapter 35
Jin did what he did best when I told him: he left me before I could leave him, joining Sam and Delila in the advance party headed towards Izman. He claimed to Ahmed that someone needed to take care of their little sister. I was grateful that he didn’t tell our prince the truth. If Ahmed knew he was sending me to die by disabling that machine, he would try to save me. That’s what he did, after all. He tried to save people.
That’s what I was doing, too.
Jin had been gone three days when a lookout reported there was an army making its way up the western side of the mountain. Not from Izman. From our side of the desert.
Rahim moved into action immediately, preparing his men to fight. They were used to this, to skirmishes in the mountains, though none of us had been expecting that we would need to defend ourselves before reaching Izman.
But as we stood watching from the walls in the early dawn air, over the crest of the hill below, a banner bobbed into view. Not one stitched with the Sultan’s colours. Instead, we saw Ahmed’s golden sun. A few moments later, the first figure came into view, and I realised that I knew her.
It was Samira, the daughter of the Emir of Saramotai. Or she had been until someone had overturned her father and killed him. We’d left her ruling her father’s city. Clearly the role suited her.
‘Hold your fire!’ I ordered Rahim and his men, who were poised with their guns on the wall. ‘Don’t shoot.’
I rushed into the courtyard, and I was out of the gates before anyone could stop me, Ahmed and Shazad close behind.
When she was near enough to be heard, Samira ducked her head in a quick nod to Ahmed as she reached the wall. ‘Your Exalted Highness, we heard you have need of men to fight. And women. I have a hundred with me who don’t want to sit behind our walls and wait for our enemies.’
‘One hundred,’ Shazad said under her breath, standing next to me. ‘That’s a good start.’ And then, speaking louder, she asked, ‘How did you know where we were?’
‘General Hamad,’ Samira said simply. I felt Shazad tense beside me.
‘My father?’ she said, and for just a second she sounded like a little girl again.
Samira nodded. ‘News that the Rebel Prince can’t be killed because he is protected by the Djinn reached even us in the west. And then the general rode through with news that if anyone truly wanted to defend their country, this was their last chance.’ She smiled at our startled faces. ‘Now, are you going to let us in, or do we have to storm your walls? I have to say, they don’t look like much next to ours.’
Saramotai wasn’t the last city to join us. A bigger party arrived from Fahali two days later, sent into action by the general as well. The port city of Ghasab joined us a day after that. And more kept trickling in from small desert and mountain towns, where the news had spread. Ahmed was alive. The Rebel Prince had come back from the dead to free the country from foreign rule. Sometimes they came in large groups, sometimes one by one, to pledge themselves to his cause. Until we couldn’t wait any more. We were out of time to train new recruits. Out of time to get more weapons. We needed to march. Before the Sultan marched on Iliaz, and we lost the element of surprise.
‘How many in all?’ Ahmed asked that night, before we descended the mountain.
Shazad and Rahim traded a look. ‘Enough,’ Shazad said.
‘Enough for what?’ I asked.
‘A fair fight,’ Rahim said.
‘Our father isn’t going to give us a fair fight, though, is he?’ Ahmed said.
‘No,’ Rahim replied. ‘I doubt he is.’
*
We had marched up the mountain with three hundred men and women. We marched down with close to a thousand. We made our way from Iliaz into the desert flats around the great city of Izman. We marched together to war.