Rebel of the Sands
I clapped my hand over his mouth as the soldier raised his head, looking in our direction. “He won’t find us,” I promised, quietly as I could.
We waited in silence while the soldier finished at the river before he mounted again. From the top of his horse, he pulled out something hanging around his neck that shined silver and pressed one end of it to his mouth. A sharp whistle blast echoed off the canyon walls. He waited while it went silent. And then another one answered. When that went silent, a third answered.
A search party. For us, or for something else. “They’re not going to find us,” I repeated, so quiet I wasn’t sure if it was for Jin or if it was a prayer. “They won’t find us.”
• • •
WE’D BEEN WALKING a few hours when I needed to rest. I leaned against the rock face, letting Jin slide to the ground, trying to catch my breath. We’d had to double back twice already when the path dead ended. I clutched the compass to my chest. I was still following the needle, but I had to get my head to stop spinning. And every step brought more chance the next one would lead me to the Gallan soldiers.
The sun was getting low when I ran into another dead end. Except none of the other dead ends had looked like this.
The wall of the canyon was painted bright—almost violent—colors, climbing one on top of another, from the dusty ground all the way up to where I couldn’t see anymore: A girl with yellow hair turning into an animal. An immense red Djinni raging against roiling water. A blue-skinned man surrounded by demons. A battle that might be able to split the earth open right where we stood and leave a mark the size of this valley. And wedged between a dancing girl with snakes for hair and a demon brandishing a severed head was a painted door. I checked the compass; sure enough, it pointed stright ahead.
I was raised on stories of Djinn and their world, of secret palaces in the clouds, homes that could be summoned from the sand. Doors to their kingdoms that could only be opened by whispering a secret word into the lock.
I traced the line of the door with my finger. Solid stone by the looks of it. Solid stone until the right password was whispered to it. Like in the stories.
Or else I was a deluded girl with a bad habit of putting too much stock in the stories my mother told me.
“Jin.” I shook his shoulders. My voice was scratchy with thirst. “Jin, wake up. I need you to wake up. I need the password.”
“Lost?” I jumped at the voice. The Gallan soldier, the one we’d seen, was standing a few feet away, leaning on the other side of the valley in the shade, looking smug.
I might’ve been afraid if I wasn’t already so desperate. “How did you find us?” My voice sounded scratchy.
“On your feet, before I have to shoot you,” he commanded, but I didn’t see a gun. And he was speaking perfect Mirajin.
Something was wrong here.
“Why don’t you come make me?” He was hovering in the shadows. Then I noticed the fresh blood smeared along his jawline. “Or are you afraid of daylight, Skinwalker?”
The change on his face was instantaneous. It became a person’s face without any humanity in it. The Skinwalker bared its sharp teeth in the soldier’s face—the face belonging to its last kill, I realized. I watched in horror as it sauntered over until it was at the very edge of the shadows cast by the canyon walls. “Well, it would have been nice to feed on you now.” Its tongue flicked out, long and black between sharp teeth. “I am starving. Even after eating that foreigner’s flesh. And you look so tasty. But I suppose I can wait a few hours.”
“You can wait until you’re dead. I’ll be gone by night.” I slung Jin’s arm back over my aching shoulder. If there was one thing that could keep me going, it was a Skinwalker.
“And where will you go, blue-eyed girl?” The Skinwalker had a hungry smile. “You’re trapped.” My eyes flicked back the way I’d come. In the time I’d been sitting, the sun had crept along the side just enough to cast the opening of the valley into shadow.
Jin and I were standing in the last patch of safe sunlight.
• • •
“OPEN.” I BANGED my hand against the door. “Unlock. Let me in.” The rock surface of the painted door wouldn’t budge. I didn’t figure the password would be obvious, but I wasn’t going to die for not trying.
“I think I’ll keep you alive for a while.” The Skinwalker was pacing back and forth along the shadow border. “That way, you can watch me eat your flesh with those pretty eyes and I’ll listen to you scream.” The Skinwalker grinned with the dead Gallan soldier’s mouth, only it was full of fangs. It wanted my attention. It was practically on top of me now, the shadows so close I had to pull my elbow against my stomach. The light would burn it. But it could be patient with the light shrinking every second.
I was running out of time.
I sagged against the stone. We were going to die here. We’d escaped Dustwalk, jumped off a train, crossed a desert, and survived Fahali and the Nightmares, and now this was where my story came to an end. In a dusty canyon at the hands of a hungry ghoul.
Stories. The memory flickered tiredly in my mind.
Sakhr.
Jin had gotten the name wrong. The name of the Djinni used to summon help, to open doors into his kingdom. And then he’d gotten it wrong again. He’d said it as he rambled incoherently from the Nightmare venom in the desert.