I swore, dropping the bow, clutching my scraped arm.

‘Let me see.’ The Sultan took hold of my wrist, another order I couldn’t disobey. My forearm was already welting.

‘You should have an arm guard,’ he commanded. ‘Here.’ He pulled his sheema off from around his neck. It was the colour of the fresh saffron in dishes in the harem. He wrapped it neatly around my arm.

The sight of it brought on a pang of longing as I remembered my old red sheema. Jin.

The Sultan finished tying off the sheema with a final yank, fastening the knot around my wrist. ‘When the birds return, try again. And this time, draw the bowstring higher – closer to your cheek.’ I had to obey, though I half thought he had forgotten who he was speaking to. That he meant them as instructions more than orders.

We waited in silence until the birds returned and settled again. I wanted to call them stupid for coming back to something that might get them killed so readily. But then, I was standing next to the Sultan of my own will.

I missed again with my second shot. And my third. I could feel my neck prickling with shame, keenly aware of the Sultan watching me miss over and over. I needed to win. I needed to be able to leave the harem. I needed to save my family from my father.

‘Your Exalted Highness.’ A servant’s voice made us both turn. He was bent low. ‘You are awaited for negotiations by the Gallan ambassador.’ My ears perked up. It was starting. The negotiations for this country. To turn us back over to them. Why I needed to be able to report back.

‘Wait,’ I called out as the Sultan turned to go. ‘I can do this.’

The Sultan considered for a moment. And then he nodded. ‘Then find me when you have.’

*

The sun crept across the sky as I tried. I could feel the sweat running down my neck and I was half-tempted to unwrap the sheema from my arm and tie it around my head. But the throbbing welt there told me not to. There was nothing to be done about the blistering in my fingers, though. Or the creeping ache in my arm as my muscles protested being pulled back the same way one more painful time. Shaking to release the bowstring.

Some servants came and placed a jug of water and a bowl of dates next to me when the sun got high. I ignored them both. I could do this.

I pulled back. Another arrow dove into the water. The birds scattered.

I cursed under my breath.

Damn this.

I had done harder things.

Before the birds could fully escape I reached down and plucked out another arrow. I nocked it quickly and aimed for the still-flapping squawking mess of birds. I found the duck I wanted to hit. And I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t waste time trying to line up my shot. I aimed with certainty, the way I always had with a gun.

And I loosed the arrow.

The duck separated itself from the flock, plummeted, and hit the grass even as my heart took off.

*

I barged through the palace, dripping a trail of blood behind me as I held the dead bird by the neck.

The Sultan had told me to come find him when I’d succeeded, and the tug of an order on my gut kept me moving. I didn’t think about what I was doing until I’d pushed past the guard, who didn’t try to stop me, and burst through the doors.

Dozens of heads turned to look at me as I crashed in. A thought flitted through my mind that I shouldn’t be doing this. But it was a little late for that. I strode up to the table, my eyes on the Sultan, and slammed my prize down on the table in front of him, making his cup shake.

The Sultan looked at the dead duck.

It was only then that I took stock of my surroundings. The council room was full to bursting. With men in uniforms. Uniforms of all sorts. Golden Mirajin uniforms and the blue of the Gallan empire.

And they were all staring at me: a wild-eyed girl who had just slammed a dead duck with an arrow through its neck down on the table in front of her Sultan. Prince Rahim was hiding a smile under the pretence of scratching his nose, but nobody else seemed amused.

I had just interrupted one of the Sultan’s councils to decide the outcome of the ceasefire and the fate of our whole country, with a dead duck.

I wondered if this was what would cost me my head.

‘Well, it seems you are a half-decent shot after all,’ the Sultan said, too low for anyone else to hear. ‘You will leave the harem at any time you please.’ There was a short pause in which a moment of hope bloomed, that he might really leave that loophole for me, one that would allow me slip out of his grip and back to the Rebellion … ‘But you will do so with a guard. And you will not leave the palace.’ My hope died. I was stupid to even entertain it to start with. The Sultan wasn’t an incautious man. And then, raising his voice: ‘Someone take this duck to the kitchens and my Demdji to somewhere she belongs.’ I saw the Gallan delegation’s heads lift at the word Demdji. They’d call me a demon but they knew what that word meant all the same. I wondered if the Sultan was rubbing me in their faces. That didn’t seem much of a political tactic.

A servant lifted the duck by the neck gingerly. The papers spread across the desk shifted as he did. I caught sight of a map of Miraji, drawn in faded black ink. Marked with newer blue lines. On our half of the desert. It was barely a glimpse of a corner but it was enough. I saw it. Circled in fresh blue ink was a tiny black dot, labelled in careful print: Saramotai.

My mind dashed to Samira. To the rebels Shazad was going to send to hold the city. To Ikar on the walls. And the women who’d chosen to stay behind. All of them sitting like a bull’s-eye inside the blue ink circle.