And the people. Everybody I saw was dressed in colors that looked like they’d been born back when the world was new. A few folks were gathered around a pool, washing clothes and chattering; they didn’t look up when I passed. The girl who had killed the Skinwalker was leading a half dozen men and women with wooden blades through what looked like army drills. I almost stepped on two boys, younger than me by the looks of it, who were tinkering with something that looked like a bomb. They both looked up at me.
“You’re going to want to go the long way around,” one of them said.
“We’d rather only blow our own hands off.” As the other one spoke, I realized it wasn’t a boy at all. She was a girl, hair cropped close to her skull, and so skinny she’d have to stand up twice to cast a shadow, but a girl all the same. Neither of them seemed to have even a bit of worry about me being a stranger. Maybe having a magic door just saved you a whole lot of suspicion. I took the long, long way around to be safe, even if I wasn’t sure where I was headed.
I stepped out of the trees and into a large clearing of sand. Facing me was the biggest tent by far. It was twice the height of a man and it looked like it could hold half the camp—more like a pavilion than a place to sleep. The canvas was red, with a huge blue sun stitched into the canopy.
Identical to Jin’s tattoo.
As I moved closer, I saw that a lone figure stood in the tent. He should’ve looked small under the high canopy, but somehow he seemed to fill the space as easily as the sunlight. He was bent over a table, so all I could see was the crown of his head. His hands were planted on either side of a huge map. Other papers were held down by stones and empty cups and weapons.
And one beat-up brass compass.
The sun caught the knife in my hand, sending a flash of light across the tent. The boy looked up, startled, his eyes going straight to me.
He didn’t look at me like I really looked—a strange girl hovering in the opening of the pavilion, dusty, bruised, bloody, hair caked with sand. And a tongue suddenly unable to talk. He looked at me like I had every right and reason to be standing there.
“You’re hurt.” His brow furrowed with concern. For a second I didn’t understand, and then I realized I was bleeding through the bandages.
Then his eyes swung to the knife in my other hand. I did the only thing I could think of. I held up the compass like a peace offering. “I’ve got this.”
“Ah.” Understanding dawned on his face. “You’re the one Shazad brought in with my brother.”
He said something else, but I only heard one thing.
Brother.
The word bounced around my head, looking for another meaning than the one I knew.
Then he said something else, but one word stuck itself in my head and didn’t let anything else through.
Brother.
My head scrambled looking for another explanation, but there was only one person he could mean.
Jin was his brother.
“Who are you?” I asked, even though I already half guessed.
An uncertain smile flicked over his face, like he wasn’t sure if I was joking. His smile looked nothing like Jin’s. “I’m Ahmed.”
He didn’t say his full name. He didn’t say he was Prince Ahmed Al’Oman Bin Izman. The Rebel Prince and rightful heir of Miraji. Prince. Stepped out of campfire stories. Who inspired cries to revolution across the desert.
I had no idea what I’d expected of the Rebel Prince, but it wasn’t that he would look just like every other desert boy I’d ever known. He was young. Black hair, skin dark from the sun, a strong square jaw, clean-shaven. Standing in a pavilion crowned in the sun with the commanding air of a Sultan twice his age. His sun. Not the sun of some foreign country tattooed on Jin’s heart. The sun of the rebellion. Of his brother’s rebellion.
A new dawn. A new desert.
Which meant Jin was a prince, too.
He’d told me about breaking his nose and his brother setting it. About how he’d been born in Izman but was from Xicha.
He’d never told me he was a prince.
I’d kissed a prince.
I felt the barrel of a gun press into the side of my neck, interrupting the spiral of my thoughts. “Drop the knife,” a girl’s voice said. “You owe me that much for saving your life.”
The instinct to fight reared its head, but my body was too tired to obey it. I uncurled my fingers so the knife planted straight at my feet. The gun moved away from my neck as the girl—the same one who’d killed the Skinwalker—walked around to face me, still aiming the gun at me. I remembered Ahmed had called her Shazad. She raised her voice. “Bahi, I found her.”
“Oh, thank God and every First Being.” A third figure dashed into the tent. It was the curly-haired boy who’d been dozing when I woke up. “I swear I only fell asleep for a second.” He wagged a finger at me like a scolding mother. “It’s not very polite to sneak away from someone after he’s saved your life.”
“Not the first time I’ve done that,” I admitted. My mind was still racing, but having a gun pointed at you had a way of making a girl focus.
“Not the first time a girl has snuck out on you while you were sleeping, either,” Shazad muttered at Bahi, low enough that I was the only one who heard. I hadn’t noticed when she’d been slaying the Skinwalker, but her accent was as northern and sharp as Commander Naguib’s, and it made me want to pick the knife back up.
“Are you going to shoot me or not?” My own accent scraped bumpily against hers as I stared down the barrel of the gun. “Seems like a waste of your saving my life.” he people. Everybody I saw was dressed in colors that looked like they’d been born back when the world was new. A few folks were gathered around a pool, washing clothes and chattering; they didn’t look up when I passed. The girl who had killed the Skinwalker was leading a half dozen men and women with wooden blades through what looked like army drills. I almost stepped on two boys, younger than me by the looks of it, who were tinkering with something that looked like a bomb. They both looked up at me.
“You’re going to want to go the long way around,” one of them said.
“We’d rather only blow our own hands off.” As the other one spoke, I realized it wasn’t a boy at all. She was a girl, hair cropped close to her skull, and so skinny she’d have to stand up twice to cast a shadow, but a girl all the same. Neither of them seemed to have even a bit of worry about me being a stranger. Maybe having a magic door just saved you a whole lot of suspicion. I took the long, long way around to be safe, even if I wasn’t sure where I was headed.
I stepped out of the trees and into a large clearing of sand. Facing me was the biggest tent by far. It was twice the height of a man and it looked like it could hold half the camp—more like a pavilion than a place to sleep. The canvas was red, with a huge blue sun stitched into the canopy.
Identical to Jin’s tattoo.
As I moved closer, I saw that a lone figure stood in the tent. He should’ve looked small under the high canopy, but somehow he seemed to fill the space as easily as the sunlight. He was bent over a table, so all I could see was the crown of his head. His hands were planted on either side of a huge map. Other papers were held down by stones and empty cups and weapons.
And one beat-up brass compass.
The sun caught the knife in my hand, sending a flash of light across the tent. The boy looked up, startled, his eyes going straight to me.
He didn’t look at me like I really looked—a strange girl hovering in the opening of the pavilion, dusty, bruised, bloody, hair caked with sand. And a tongue suddenly unable to talk. He looked at me like I had every right and reason to be standing there.
“You’re hurt.” His brow furrowed with concern. For a second I didn’t understand, and then I realized I was bleeding through the bandages.
Then his eyes swung to the knife in my other hand. I did the only thing I could think of. I held up the compass like a peace offering. “I’ve got this.”
“Ah.” Understanding dawned on his face. “You’re the one Shazad brought in with my brother.”
He said something else, but I only heard one thing.
Brother.
The word bounced around my head, looking for another meaning than the one I knew.
Then he said something else, but one word stuck itself in my head and didn’t let anything else through.
Brother.
My head scrambled looking for another explanation, but there was only one person he could mean.
Jin was his brother.
“Who are you?” I asked, even though I already half guessed.
An uncertain smile flicked over his face, like he wasn’t sure if I was joking. His smile looked nothing like Jin’s. “I’m Ahmed.”
He didn’t say his full name. He didn’t say he was Prince Ahmed Al’Oman Bin Izman. The Rebel Prince and rightful heir of Miraji. Prince. Stepped out of campfire stories. Who inspired cries to revolution across the desert.
I had no idea what I’d expected of the Rebel Prince, but it wasn’t that he would look just like every other desert boy I’d ever known. He was young. Black hair, skin dark from the sun, a strong square jaw, clean-shaven. Standing in a pavilion crowned in the sun with the commanding air of a Sultan twice his age. His sun. Not the sun of some foreign country tattooed on Jin’s heart. The sun of the rebellion. Of his brother’s rebellion.
A new dawn. A new desert.
Which meant Jin was a prince, too.
He’d told me about breaking his nose and his brother setting it. About how he’d been born in Izman but was from Xicha.
He’d never told me he was a prince.
I’d kissed a prince.
I felt the barrel of a gun press into the side of my neck, interrupting the spiral of my thoughts. “Drop the knife,” a girl’s voice said. “You owe me that much for saving your life.”
The instinct to fight reared its head, but my body was too tired to obey it. I uncurled my fingers so the knife planted straight at my feet. The gun moved away from my neck as the girl—the same one who’d killed the Skinwalker—walked around to face me, still aiming the gun at me. I remembered Ahmed had called her Shazad. She raised her voice. “Bahi, I found her.”
“Oh, thank God and every First Being.” A third figure dashed into the tent. It was the curly-haired boy who’d been dozing when I woke up. “I swear I only fell asleep for a second.” He wagged a finger at me like a scolding mother. “It’s not very polite to sneak away from someone after he’s saved your life.”
“Not the first time I’ve done that,” I admitted. My mind was still racing, but having a gun pointed at you had a way of making a girl focus.
“Not the first time a girl has snuck out on you while you were sleeping, either,” Shazad muttered at Bahi, low enough that I was the only one who heard. I hadn’t noticed when she’d been slaying the Skinwalker, but her accent was as northern and sharp as Commander Naguib’s, and it made me want to pick the knife back up.
“Are you going to shoot me or not?” My own accent scraped bumpily against hers as I stared down the barrel of the gun. “Seems like a waste of your saving my life.”