‘Here.’ He handed me a flat green leaf. ‘Chew on it. It’ll settle your stomach. I got some from the Holy Father in Tiamat. I thought we might need it. It took me a while to find my sea legs, too, back when Jin and I first set off seafaring.’

Tentatively, I put the thing in my mouth. It didn’t taste bad – sweet and cool as it hit my tongue. I chewed slowly. Ahmed watched as I tried to get my feet under me.

‘Amani, I need to ask you something.’ If Ahmed had more guile, I might’ve thought he’d deliberately come looking for me when I was shaky and vulnerable. But it was Ahmed. ‘After this is all over, I’m not going to take the throne.’

That got my attention. ‘What?’

‘At least not the way my father took it,’ Ahmed hurried on before I could start berating him. ‘Not by force, without giving the people a choice in who governs them. You were right what you said in Sazi. I ought to listen to the people who know this desert. I’m going to hold a vote. Like they do in the Ionian republics, to let the people choose their ruler. Any man or woman who thinks they would make a better ruler than me can put their name forward, and if the people agree they would be better than me, they can choose that person instead.’

I stared back at him, trying to take this all in. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because –’ Ahmed rubbed at the scar on his forehead thoughtfully; it was a habit of his when he was thinking – ‘I want to know what you think.’

‘Why?’ I realised I was speaking mostly in single words. I didn’t sound smart enough to lace up my own boots, let alone advise a ruler on this. But I had told him back in Sazi that he didn’t know everything. That he ought to listen to me.

‘Amani, you know this country better than anyone else. Do you think it will work?’

I thought about it. ‘What would you do about the Sultim trials? They’ve been used to determine the next ruler since the beginning. It’s a hard tradition to break.’

‘I know that. But do you think I can?’

The Sultan had said something to me the night of Auranzeb, with his firstborn’s blood still on his hands. He’d said that the world was changing. That the time of immortals and magic was ending. That they should not be allowed to rule our lives any more – we should rule theirs. The Sultan was a cruel, self-serving man. But I didn’t know that he was wrong when he said that. Maybe it was time to change. Maybe the desert was ready to choose its own ruler.

‘Yes.’ I nodded slowly, my head still swimming a little. ‘I think it might work.’ Ahmed’s shoulders sagged in relief, and I realised he’d been nervous about what I would say. He pressed his knuckle into the spot on his forehead.

I reached up to his hairline, moving one of the dark curls away from the spot he’d been worrying at. ‘Where did you get that?’ I asked before I could stop myself. I knew most of the scars on Jin’s body. Ahmed didn’t have quite so many. But he had some.

‘Oh.’ Ahmed laughed. ‘It was my fault. It was when Jin and I were very young, our first year on board the Black Seagull. I was learning to plot courses while Jin spent most of his time clambering up and down the rigging. I made a mistake one day. We sailed into a storm that we should have been able to avoid. I could’ve shipwrecked us. As it was, I was lucky – I just split my head open on the deck when we nearly capsized. I thought I was going to die that day.’

‘Are you afraid?’ I asked, dropping my hand. ‘Of dying?’ I felt the memory of Zaahir’s kiss tingling on my lips.

‘I don’t know.’ He considered. If anyone had asked me the same question, my answer would have been quick and certain. Yes, terrified. Did that make me selfish and cowardly? ‘I’ve seen a lot of the world, a lot of what people believe about death, and I don’t entirely know what I believe waits for us after. But I do fear things in this life. Not dying, but losing. That I’ll have been the one to lead us into the monster’s mouth, promising it was a cave of riches. That others will die, and that those who have already died for me will have done so for nothing. That everything that has happened and everything I have done will have become entirely insignificant and forgotten.’

But then we were all more selfish than Ahmed. That was why he led us. And he was right. We weren’t in this for ourselves. For this life. We were in it for what we could make for the future. The rest of us could die for this. But Ahmed needed to live.

If I used Zaahir’s kiss for Bilal, Ahmed might still fall at the eleventh hour. He might die leading us to victory. But I was frightened that if I didn’t use Zaahir’s kiss for Bilal, I’d be far too tempted to give it to Jin instead.

Because I would always be more selfish than Ahmed.

*

It took us three days of sailing to reach the northern edge of Miraji, and another two before we were close to port again. As we sailed towards Ghasab, we passed near enough to the coast that the shadow of the middle mountains fell over the ship. Everyone came on deck to watch as we sailed by, crossing the frontier from eastern Miraji to west, a long way from where we’d crossed over the other way.

We were close.

So close to getting Rahim to his army, to snatching them away from Bilal and marching them on Izman.

I’d only been to the port city of Ghasab once – twice if you counted the time I was dragged through it unconscious by my aunt. But I hadn’t exactly got to see much of it then.