Hero at the Fall

Emboldened by the mob forming at his back, a man stepped towards me. Shazad might be weak, but she still moved faster than most, and she was between us in a second. ‘Try it,’ she challenged.

The man took another step, seeming like he fully intended to try to take us on. I felt drained. Too drained to fight. But we didn’t have a choice. Ahmed had led us back here when we should’ve steered clear. And now we had a mob facing us. I had seen what they were capable of when they had forced us to confront the Eye. We might match them in numbers, but we were a sorry collection of bedraggled prisoners, and they were an angry mass of devotees.

Behind the belligerent man, a woman picked up a stone from the ground, preparing to throw it.

Then, just as the last of the sunlight started to fade, a light bloomed from the mountain face. Right between Shazad and the first man who had challenged us, the air turned itself inside out, changing the darkness into dozens of colours. And then it spread, in the open space between the belligerent inhabitants of Sazi and our people, forming into a collection of bronze soldiers facing a fiery wall. An illusion in miniature of what had awaited us outside Eremot.

The woman staggered back, dropping the stone from her hand as tiny Abdals blossomed around her feet like flowers. And Delila stepped forward, out of the crowd.

‘She’s not lying.’ Delila spoke softly, but that didn’t keep her from being heard. Not when she was conjuring images from thin air. ‘He wasn’t killed. He walked into the arms of death like a hero.’ Even as she spoke, a small figure of Noorsham materialised out of thin air and started to advance.

Delila’s voice was gentle and melodic. It always had been. It was what made everyone think she was so fragile, that she needed to be protected. But it was a good voice for stories, too. She held the attention of the crowd easily as her words and her illusions worked together to tell the tale. She chose her words carefully, stopping and pausing at the right moments. Delila, who had been the subject of so many stories, about the Sultan’s unfaithful wife and the Rebel Prince’s return, was now telling one for herself. Her voice cracked as it got to the end, as Noorsham’s soul evanesced from his body, taking the place of Ashra’s Wall.

‘So you see –’ Delila’s illusions melted away as she finished – ‘he can’t come back. We are here instead.’

Darkness and silence followed those words for a long moment. As the spell of her words slowly began to drop away.

Then a man fell to his knees. Another one dropped down behind him, and then another and another, until in the space of a few moments every single one of Noorsham’s people was kneeling before Delila.

She had done it. Delila had saved us. And she’d done it without a single weapon. I’d forgotten how powerful a story could be.

Suddenly, from the middle of the crowd, a boy stood back up abruptly. I knew him, I realised. He was from Dustwalk. His name was Samir, and he was a year or so younger than I was. My hand strayed for a gun that wasn’t there. But he made no move to fight.

‘Are you really the Rebel Prince?’ he asked.

All eyes turned to Ahmed. ‘I am.’

‘I could fight for you,’ the boy declared loudly. ‘Against the Sultan. He killed our leader. He drove us from our homes.’ A murmur of ascent went through the crowd. ‘I would fight for you.’

‘I would fight for you, too.’ Another man stood up, this one older, more hardened. ‘If our leader was willing to die for you, so am I.’

‘So would I.’ It was a girl who stood up now, sweeping short dark hair behind her ears, speaking a little more quietly than the men.

‘And so would I.’ I knew that voice. It was Olia, my cousin who was nearest to me in age now that Shira was gone. If there was ever someone I didn’t think cared about a damn thing enough to fight for it, it was her. But then, Hala had been that way, too. So had I, once. I noticed Olia’s mother, my uncle’s second wife, grab for her arm, as if to pull her back. But Olia jerked her arm out of her mother’s reach, standing tall as others rose around her, declaring their allegiance.

Delila had done a whole lot more than save us. She had rallied for us.

All eyes were on Ahmed when I noticed Shazad moving slowly away from the front of the group, melting away from all this.

Sam saw her, too. He gave me a raised brow as we caught each other’s eye. I shook my head quickly. Stay, that gesture told him, as I slipped away behind her.

For once he did as he was told.

‘Shazad.’ I didn’t call out to her until we were out of earshot of the others. Ahead of me, on the slope of the mountain, Shazad started, almost losing her footing. I’d never encountered anything quick enough or quiet enough to startle her.

‘Sorry,’ she said when she realised it was me. ‘I had to go. I couldn’t breathe.’ She dropped down to sit on the slope of the mountain. ‘I needed to …’ She trailed off. Not sure what she needed. I wasn’t either.

‘Do you want me to go?’ I hovered uncertainly.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be—’ She cut herself off, laughing ruefully. ‘I wasn’t afraid of the dark when I was young.’

‘We’re still young,’ I said, dropping down next to her. She’d been alone in the dark for three days. That’d be enough to make a lot of people worse than afraid.