‘We know about that,’ I cut her off, sharper than I meant to. I’d been more worried about the Sultan tracking Noorsham down than anything else after we’d heard that rumour. I’d figured the chances there was another Demdji out there who could match my brother’s pure destructive power seemed mighty slim. Even I couldn’t raze a city the way Noorsham had. Still, we’d been careful the last few months not to let word spread that the Blue-Eyed Bandit and the Demdji who summoned desert storms were one and the same. Not that it mattered. I wasn’t ever going to let the Sultan take me alive. But now I considered the tiny sun in Ranaa’s hands. It was harmless enough, cupped in her palms like that. It might not be so harmless multiplied a hundredfold. The Sultan’s chances were looking better now.
‘Your rebellion has kept him out of this side of the desert so far,’ Samira said. ‘How long do you think you can keep him out?’
As long as it took. I’d be damned before I’d let the Sultan do to any other Demdji what he’d done to Noorsham. Ranaa might be a cloistered brat who’d developed a big head from being told her whole life she was the reincarnation of a legendary princess. But she was a Demdji. And we took care of our own.
‘I can get her to safety.’ I couldn’t leave her here. Not when there was a chance they might find her and I might find myself staring over the barrel of a gun at her next. ‘Out of the city.’
‘I don’t want to go anywhere with you,’ Ranaa argued. We both ignored her.
‘Prince Ahmed wants to make this country safe for Demdji, but until then, I know where she can be protected.’
Samira hesitated a moment. ‘Can I come with her?’
My shoulders eased in relief. ‘That depends. Can you walk?’
Imin helped Samira, keeping her standing upright as she limped towards the stairs, Ranaa still clinging to her. I was about to turn away when Ranaa’s light grazed the far wall. The cell wasn’t quite empty. A woman in a pale yellow khalat was still curled in the corner, not moving.
For a second I thought she was dead, weakened by days in the dark cramped prison. Then her back rose and fell, just slightly. She was still breathing. I crouched down and laid a hand on the bare skin of her arm. It was hotter than it ought to be down here away from the sun. She was sick with fever. My touch started her awake, and wide wild eyes flew open. She gaped at me through a dirty curtain of hair, in panic. Blood and muck caked it against her cheek, and her lips were cracked with thirst. ‘Can you stand?’ I asked. She didn’t answer, just stared at me with huge dark eyes. She looked worse than anyone else I’d seen stumble out of these cells. She could barely stay awake, let alone make a run for it.
‘Imin!’ I called. ‘I need some help here. Can you—’
‘Zahia?’ The name was whispered almost as a prayer, rasping out of a throat that sounded bone-dry, a second before her head lolled backwards and she lapsed back into feverish sleep.
I stilled. Every part of me. I wondered if this was what Hawa felt when her heart stopped in her chest.
Suddenly I wasn’t the Blue-Eyed Bandit. I wasn’t a rebel giving orders. I wasn’t even a Demdji. I was a girl from Dustwalk again. Because that was the last place I had heard anyone say my mother’s name.
Chapter 5
‘What is it?’ Imin appeared at my elbow.
‘I—’ I stumbled over my words, trying to pull my mind out of the past. There were other women in the desert named Zahia. It was a common enough name. But she’d looked at me like she knew me and said my mother’s name. And that wasn’t all that common.
No. I wasn’t a restless, reckless girl at the end of the desert any more. I was the Blue-Eyed Bandit, and this was a rescue. I nodded towards the unconscious figure on the ground. ‘Can you carry her?’ My voice was steadier than I felt.
Imin, still wearing the shape he’d fought in, lifted the unconscious woman off the ground as easy as a rag doll.
‘This is ridiculous, Amani,’ Mahdi hissed, pushing through the crowd of freed women as I followed Imin out of the cell. They didn’t look so good, but they were alive and standing on two feet. ‘Freeing people is one thing, but you want us to escape while carrying someone out?’
‘We are not leaving her behind.’ I’d made the mistake of leaving someone in need behind to save myself before – my friend Tamid, the night I’d fled Dustwalk with Jin. I’d been scared and desperate and frantic. I’d taken Jin’s hand without thinking, and I’d left Tamid to bleed out in the sand. I’d left him to die. I couldn’t undo what had happened that night. But I wasn’t the girl from Dustwalk any more. I could make sure nobody got left behind again.
‘Who knows how to use a gun?’ I asked the group of women. No one moved. ‘Oh, come on, it’s not that hard. You point and shoot.’ Samira’s hand went up first. A few more followed her lead nervously. ‘Take them off the bodies,’ I ordered, swiping one for myself. I flicked the chamber of the gun open; the slightest touch of iron instantly made my power slip away. But there was a full round. I flicked it shut again and tucked it against my hip, careful not to let any part of it touch my skin. I didn’t strictly need a gun. I had the entire desert. But it was always nice to have options. ‘Let’s move.’
*
It was after dark and the streets of Saramotai were empty. A whole lot emptier than they ought to be this soon after nightfall.