Rebel of the Sands

Jin sat down next to me without a word. There was something in his hands. The red sheema, I realized. The one I’d let go out the window. He took my right arm, gently, without asking. My hand was swollen and tender, but I’d almost stopped noticing the constant throbbing. Sprained. Not broken. The place where my ribs had connected with the canyon wall had faded to a dull ache. I felt Bahi’s absence like a badly stitched wound as Jin’s hands worked, clumsy with exhaustion, binding my hand with my sheema. He tied it off, his fingers skimming over the cloth before he set my hand down gently.

“You all right?” he asked.

“It’ll heal.”

We both knew that wasn’t what he’d been asking, but Jin let it pass anyway.

“Can you shoot left-handed?”

“If I have to,” I said.

Jin held his pistol out to me. “Do you want it?” I stared at the gun in his hands, but I didn’t snatch it up like I would’ve once. Yesterday. “You’ve worked it out, haven’t you?”

“It’s because of the iron.” I took the gun by the leather handle, careful not to touch the metal. I thought of the way he’d pressed a bullet to my skin as the sand was rising. Just one touch and I was stripped powerless because of the thing that had shaped my whole life, with or against my will. It was like the Buraqi and the metal horseshoes: so long as I had iron against my skin, I couldn’t touch my Demdji powers. “It’s the reason I got through my whole life without knowing I was a Demdji. Because I’m from Dustwalk.” The girl who taught herself to shoot a gun. Until she could knock down a row of tin cans like they were nothing and the gun was everything. “Because I’m the girl with the gun.” And Noorsham was the boy from the iron mines. He said he’d been sick. Sick enough to leave the mines and stop inhaling iron dust for a little while, maybe. So that when he went back to work, he did it as a Demdji.

“From the town where even the water tastes like iron.” And when they’d been afraid of Noorsham in Fahali, iron was what they’d chained him with. Jin’s hand was clenching and unclenching around nothing. His knuckles were torn up, and the motion was making the scabs break all over again. That had to be painful.

“Bet you weren’t counting on all this being so damn complicated when you abducted me from that godforsaken place.”

“I didn’t abduct you!” At least he’d stopped punishing his knuckles raw. He realized I was baiting him a moment too late. His shoulders eased. The cautious angry fragility wasn’t something either of us could keep up long.

“You abducted me a little bit.” It was like we were back with the Camel’s Knees, except there was no more pretending about what I was.

I wasn’t going to craft illusions out of the air or twist people’s minds or change my shape. Those were the powers of Djinn in the stories where they tricked men and one another. Then there were the other stories. Massil and the sand that filled the sea in a fit of Djinni anger. The golden city of Habadden burned by the Djinn for its corruption. Just like Noorsham did. I wondered if I could bury the sea in sand, too.

“Noorsham’s eyes are the same color as mine,” I blurted out. I couldn’t be the only one who’d put it all together. “He’s about my age. He was born spitting distance from where I was.” I couldn’t be the only one thinking it. “Dustwalk to Sazi, that’s only a few hours as the Buraqi rides. How far do you reckon that is as the Djinni walks? He’s my brother, isn’t he?”

“Amani. No matter what he is, he’s not your family. Family and blood aren’t the same thing.”

“If that’s true, how come you didn’t shoot Naguib in Dustwalk?” The truth showed on his face, just long enough for me to read it. “I don’t want my brother to have to die either, Jin.” We understood each other. His brother and mine were both just the Sultan’s weapons.

Jin put his hands on my face. “We don’t have to do anything. He’s after the Gallan. You don’t have to stop him.” I was so used to Jin’s unwavering certainty. The hitch in his voice, the tentativeness of his hand on my face, this was unfamiliar ground. “We could retreat. Live to fight another day.”

“We’d just be living to die another day.” I leaned my forehead into his. “Noorsham—we have to stop him. If the Sultan has a weapon like that, it’s only a matter of time before he cuts his way through the foreigners and comes for us, too. We might never get another chance.” I wasn’t even sure what I meant by “stop him.” Kill him? Rescue him? Save him? “They’re headed to the Gallan camp,” I said, and the moment I did, I knew I was right. “They’re going to kill them. We can get there first.”

“I’m not that inclined to save any Gallan soldiers,” Hala interrupted. “I’ve been a Demdji in an occupied country longer than you have. They all deserve to burn, if you ask me. We should take care of our own.”

“And Fahali?” I looked around the group of tired, ragged rebels. “What about all the people there? They’re headed back there to burn out the Gallan. A lot of desert folks will burn with them.”

No one answered me.

“We need to sleep.” Jin ran his hands over his face. I felt that exhaustion, too. It was soul deep. “Nobody makes smart decisions in the dark. We sleep and tomorrow we head back to camp. Tell Ahmed about the weapon. And then we decide.”