‘Only those I needed to, in order to protect my people.’ If he felt any remorse for what he’d done, it didn’t show. ‘I am meant to do something great in this life, Amani.’ From another man, that might sound like pretension. But the way Noorsham said it, it was just certainty. And he was a Demdji – he couldn’t lie. ‘My mother always said so,’ Noorsham said simply. ‘She had been promised it.’

By our father, I realised. Shira had told me, in the palace prison, that Fereshteh had granted her a gift for their son: an untainted wish, freely given, so that it wouldn’t turn against her as most did in the stories. Shira, trapped in an endless cycle of political machinations, had wished that her son would be Sultan one day. Hala’s mother, poor and greedy, had wished for gold. And Noorsham’s mother, caught in a small life in a small mountain town, had wished for greatness for her son.

I wondered, not for the first time, what my mother had wished. For me to get the hell out of Dustwalk, since she never could? For me to know a bigger world? I glanced down at the peach stone in my hand. I doubted even she could have anticipated that the world was this big.

‘When the mountain fell on me,’ Noorsham went on, ‘after I was given my gift, I thought I might die before I could fulfil my destiny. And then I was rescued. I was told that I was indeed destined to do great things.’ He had a faraway look in his eyes. ‘I thought at first it was to drive the foreigners out of our desert. But then I failed. And I came back here, back home. I found this desert dying. Deadshot was tearing itself apart. Dustwalk was starving. Sazi was despairing. And I understood. It was my duty to save them. I must save as many of our people as I had killed.’

That would be a whole lot of people. He had flattened Dassama, an oasis city in the northern desert. He had burned men from Sazi alive in the same mines we were in now. Bahi. Bilal’s men.

‘You’re still killing people,’ I said.

‘Only the ones who come to me with harm in their hearts.’ Noorsham didn’t blink. ‘Ones like you. Ashra’s Wall is a sacred barrier, you know.’ So he had seen that in the Eye, too. Damn.

‘I know,’ I said. And I did. More than anyone I understood what stories could mean when they were true. ‘But there are people on the other side … I need to get them out, Noorsham. I can’t leave them there.’

‘Ashra’s Wall is—’

‘I know, I know.’ I raised my voice without meaning to. ‘But, Noorsham, this country is being ripped apart. You have only seen some of it. That’s why the Last County was in trouble. That’s why you had to save them. And there are people on the other side of that wall who can save a whole lot more people than this – who could change the whole country. For good.’

Noorsham looked unmoved. ‘I believe that if God had wanted them to save people, he would have given them a gift like mine—’

‘We are not gifted by God,’ I snapped, the truth boiling over on to my lips. ‘You and I, we’re not chosen for anything. We’re just born like everyone else. We’re just a side effect of immortals not being able to resist mortal women. And these so-called gifts they give us are just powers that are bound to tear us up or get us killed before we get old enough to do anything at all. Great or terrible.’ I felt the tears start, even though I didn’t know if they were anger or bitterness or grief. ‘Ashra was probably a Demdji, just like us, who died in a war she shouldn’t have been fighting. Princess Hawa was, too.’ I was breathing hard. ‘She was also our sister – did you know that? And she died doing something great. And Hala died, and Imin died. And if Tamid is right, I might be dead soon, too. I’m not going to let all of that be for nothing. I have to save them.’

Noorsham embraced me unexpectedly, cutting off my tirade of tears as he pressed me to his chest. ‘I’m sorry, sister,’ he said close to my ear. ‘I see your pain.’ He drew away and clasped my tearstained face with his hands. ‘But I cannot let you release the Destroyer of Worlds.’

His hands were pleasantly warm at first. Then hot – too hot. And I knew. He had made the decision to protect his people over saving mine.

It was the choice I would have made, too. I couldn’t begrudge him that.

His hands were scalding now.

I shifted, just barely, dropping the peach I had been clutching. My hand slipped into my pocket. I found the single bullet I had saved when we’d handed over our weapons. It was seemingly useless without a gun – unless you knew what we really were. We weren’t chosen by God, we were children of immortal beings, vulnerable to iron just like they were.

I knew that. Even if my brother didn’t.

I clasped my hand over Noorsham’s, pressing the bullet to his skin. Immediately the heat in his hands vanished. He blinked in confusion as he felt his gift leave him. His blue eyes met mine, looking for answers.

‘I’m so sorry, Noorsham,’ I said. And then I punched him in the face.

Chapter 22

‘This was your plan all along, wasn’t it?’ Sam had his arms wrapped around me, pressing me to his chest so I couldn’t escape him talking. ‘Lure me down to the dead end of nowhere with promises of heroic deeds, all just to get close to me.’

‘That’s an awfully convoluted plan.’ I was trying to find a comfortable place to settle my arms that wasn’t his shoulders, but there really weren’t a whole lot of options. ‘If I was going to take advantage of you, I could’ve done it back in the harem.’