Traitor to the Throne

The Sultan had been the same age Ahmed was now when he took the throne. Ahmed and Jin were both born barely a year into his rule. I was decent enough at arithmetic to know that meant the man in front of me now hadn’t seen four decades yet.

‘You’ve brought me a fighter.’ He wasn’t speaking to me. I noticed a fourth figure, hovering in the door. My aunt. Anger flooded out all my common sense. I moved again, lunging at her on instinct. I knew I wouldn’t make it far, but the Sultan caught me before I’d gotten a step, hands on my shoulders. ‘Stop,’ he ordered. ‘You’ll do yourself more harm than you will to her.’ He was right. The sudden motion had made my head light. My strength was draining out of me, even if the will to fight wasn’t. I sagged in his grip.

‘Good,’ the Sultan praised me gently, like I was an animal who’d done a trick. ‘Now let’s take a look at you.’ He reached for my face. I recoiled on instinct, but I had nowhere to go. I’d been here before – on a dark night in Dustwalk and with Commander Naguib, another son of the Sultan’s. I’d had the bruises he gave me across my cheek for weeks.

But the Sultan cupped my chin gently. He’d been a fighter when he’d taken the throne. They said he’d killed half his brothers that day himself. Two decades didn’t seem to have made him any weaker. His fingers were calloused from use. For hunting. For war. For killing Ahmed and Delila’s mother. But they were terribly gentle peeling my matted hair away from my face so he could see me clearer.

‘Blue eyes,’ he said, without taking his hands away. ‘Unusual for a Mirajin girl.’

My heart caught in my chest. What had my aunt and Tamid told him? That I’d come from the Rebellion? Would he believe them? Had the stories of the Blue-Eyed Bandit reached as high as the Sultan? ‘Your aunt has told me all about you, Amani.’

‘She’s a liar.’ It spilled out, fast and angry. ‘Whatever she’s told you, she can’t be trusted.’

‘So you’re saying you’re not a Demdji, as she claims? Or are you just accusing her of being faithless to her own flesh and blood?’

‘Don’t bother, Amani,’ my aunt interjected. ‘You might have everyone else in Dustwalk fooled, but your mother confided in me.’ I understood the heavy look she was giving me over the Sultan’s shoulder. She’d told him we’d come straight from Dustwalk. She was a liar. Not on my account, but she’d lied all the same. She hadn’t told him about the Rebellion. And she was warning me with those veiled words. It would be bad for both of us if the Sultan found out where I’d really come from. He’d have questions for her, no doubt. Besides, I was valuable as a Demdji, not as a rebel.

‘She wouldn’t be the first, you know,’ the Sultan said to me. ‘To bring me a false Demdji. I’ve already had plenty of fathers and mothers travel from little towns at the end of my country just like yours, bringing me daughters with their hair dipped in saffron to make it look yellow, or their skin painted blue, thinking I would not know the difference.’

He ran his hand across my cheekbone. There was a wound there; I could feel the dull throb of it under his thumb. I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten it. His eyes travelled between me and my aunt. ‘You despise this woman. And I don’t blame you. Do you go to prayers?’ I kept my eyes on him, although I could feel Tamid watching me, tucked against the wall, like he could become part of it. Last time I’d truly attended prayers had been in Dustwalk and he’d been beside me, trying to make me be quiet as I shifted restlessly. ‘The Holy Books tell us worse than traitors are those who betray their own flesh and blood. Aunts who sell their nieces. Sons who rebel against their fathers.’ I tensed. ‘So, I will strike a deal with you. The same one I have struck with all the false Demdji who’ve come before you. If you can tell me that you are not the daughter of a Djinni, I will release you, with as much gold as you can carry, and your aunt will be punished in a way of your choosing. If you need any inspiration, the girl whose father dyed her skin chose to have him strung up by his toes until all his blood rushed into his brain and killed him.’ He tapped my cheek, like we were sharing a joke. ‘All you have to do is say six little words: I am not a Djinni’s daughter, and you can have your freedom. Or stay silent and your aunt will walk away with all that gold.’

It was a damn good offer. Freedom and revenge. Only I’d have to lie for it.

‘Go ahead,’ he said. I focused on his mouth as the words formed, that one part of him that didn’t look like Ahmed.

I couldn’t lie, but I could be deceitful. I’d done it before. I’d dodged my way out of plenty of things without speaking a single word that wasn’t true.

‘I didn’t know my father.’ Tamid will vouch for me. But I didn’t want to bring him into this just now if I didn’t have to. The Sultan gave no sign that he knew that anything connected me and Tamid. Tamid could’ve told the Sultan that he knew me as more than a Demdji. He knew me as the girl who’d gotten a bullet put through his knee and ridden off with the Rebellion. But if he hadn’t already, I wasn’t about to be the one to sell us out. ‘My mother never said a word about him to me, and the whole of Dustwalk figured he was a Gallan soldier—’

The Sultan pressed his fingers to my lips, cutting me off sharply. He was leaning in so close now he filled my whole world. There was something unsettlingly familiar about him – more than just the face he shared with Ahmed. I just couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was.