Rebel of the Sands
• • •
IT WAS LATE afternoon, which meant Shazad would likely have finished training and be back in our tent. Or rather, her tent. I’d slept there the first night, too drained from the revelation of being a Demdji to put up much of a fight. And then I’d just stayed. She still hadn’t kicked me out, and there was a small pile of her clothes that she had loaned me piling up in a heap on the floor on my side, dividing me from her militarily clean side. It was almost like home.
Stepping into the tent, I was greeted by a flying cloth bundle to the face.
“Catch,” Shazad said too late. I picked it up off the floor. A bright swathe of gold cloth with deep red stitching unfurled between my fingers.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A rare occurrence for which it’s traditional to wear your finest clothes.” I realized Shazad was already dressed for Shihabian. It couldn’t be natural to be as pulled together as she was. Her dark hair was piled in tight waves against her head, golden pins catching the dimming light, a khalat—so green it made the trees look dull—draped across her.
“I didn’t think to grab my finest clothes while running for my life.” I ran my hands across the fabric and imagined putting it on and turning into some phoenix creature from the stories, fire and gold.
“Well, in this case, your friend’s finest clothes,” Shazad said.
Friend. The simple word grabbed my attention. I’d been shedding friends since Tamid.
Shazad must’ve caught my hesitation. “I have other khalats. If you don’t like it,” she added quickly, pushing a loose piece of hair back behind her ear like she was nervous, only that was impossible.
“Is Imin back yet?” I asked. No matter what Delila said, I was nervous about the yellow-eyed Demdji in the Gallan camp.
“No.” Shazad became serious. “Not yet. I’m giving her until the end of Shihabian, and then tomorrow we’re going to look for her.” To make sure she hadn’t wound up like the red-haired Demdji.
“Who’s we?” I asked, starting to undress.
“Me and Jin, and you if you want.”
My hands faltered on my buttons, Delila’s words fresh in my mind. “I don’t think I’m meant to leave camp before I figure out my powers.” I didn’t sound that convincing even to myself, and Shazad made a disbelieving noise at the back of her throat.
“However short our lives might turn out to be if this revolution fails, you can’t avoid him forever, you know.”
“Want to watch me try anyway?”
• • •
THE HOLY TIME of Shihabian started when the sun vanished, a reminder of the night when the Destroyer of Worlds came and brought darkness with her. Last year Tamid had spun me in place until I was dizzy, and we both laughed until we had to hold each other up, tipsy-turvy from drink and dancing. We celebrated until midnight, when the whole world would turn black in memory of the first night. And then, when the stars and the moon came back, we prayed until dawn.
But Dustwalk’s celebrations had nothing on those at the Rebel camp. Lanterns were strung between the trees so thick, I could barely see the branches for the light. Figs plucked straight from the trees, cakes so sweet my fingers stuck together. The air smelled of oil and incense and smoke and food and the desert and being alive in the desert.
I was fiercely conscious of the way the silk and muslin of my borrowed khalat felt on my skin. The golden cloth draped and clung like nothing I’d ever owned. I’d cinched it at the waist. Shazad’s figure was better filled out than mine, but I wasn’t going to be mistaken for a boy in this, especially not when she opened the top three clasps at my throat. I’d put up a bit of a fight, but Shazad was a better born fighter than I was, and in the end I had to let her loose on me. I’d figured she’d try and fail to turn me into something as bright and polished as she was. Instead, when she’d held up the mirror, a wild thing stared back.
My hair was twisted and half-bound, coming apart in waves that kissed the edge of my jaw and my neck like I’d been caught in a sandstorm. She’d painted my lips red enough that I imagined I could taste blood. My eyes were so dark around the blue that I feared for anyone caught in their crosshairs.
I looked like something that belonged in a revolution.
The pair of us drifted from one fire to another, people catching us to talk, sweeping me up in camp chatter as easily as Shazad. I ate honey cakes and washed them down with sweet wine. I spotted Jin across the campfire, playing some game or other with his sister and laughing as he lost.
There was a pair of cats by a fire. One blue, the other gray with a blue tuft on its head. I knelt down to scratch the blue one absently, and instead of a cat I found my hand on the stomach of a very naked, very blue boy.
“Happy Shihabian, General.” The boy saluted Shazad, who barely bothered to look down as she stepped over him. I tried to keep my eyes on his face and off any other part of him.
“Izz,” Shazad replied, nodding to the blue-skinned boy, “meet Amani. Amani, meet the twins. Or one of them. They just got back from doing a supply run for us this morning.”
I flushed and looked away, catching Shazad looking too damn amused. The other cat turned into a boy, too. He was identical to Izz, but his skin was dark. Only his hair was the same pale blue as his brother’s skin.
“And this is Maz.” Shazad gestured.
Maz grinned. “The one and only.”