Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

younger than his commander, maybe even younger than me. He slumped in a uniform that didn’t quite fit, with a glazed look on his face. I’d bet that he wasn’t going to live long enough to ever look like a soldier.
    â€œI’m looking for a man.” The commander’s accent was sharp and northern and expensive. I felt the foreigner’s arm brush my leg as he tensed. I didn’t know if it was the soldier’s voice or because he thought I was about to sell him out.
    I gave the commander my best guileless blink. “Funny, most men round here are looking for a woman.” The words were out of my mouth before I remembered that he could shoot me in the head and call it justice. The older of the two soldiers coughed, covering a laugh.
    The commander just frowned, like he thought I didn’t understand him. “A criminal. Have you seen him?”
    I shrugged. “Seen a few people today. Fat Pama and her sons were in a few hours ago, and the Holy Father, too.”
    â€œThis man’s not from around here.” His head twitched from side to side, peering around the small store. He started pacing evenly. His steps made the glass bottles of liquor on the shelf behind me clink together.
    â€œIs that right?” My eyes tracked him as he walked to the door of the storeroom and squinted through into the dwindling stacks of tinned food. Our supplies were too sparse to hide anyone there.
    As the commander turned back toward me, I noticed a fresh speck of red on the counter. Like a drop of blood. I laid my hand across the stain as casual as I could.
    â€œYou’d know if you’d seen him,” the young commander was saying in his tightly coiled accent.
    I smiled like my heart wasn’t racing in my chest, telling me to run for the hills. “Like I said, not many folks round here today. Not many foreigners, neither.”
    â€œYou sure about that?”
    â€œWell, I’ve been here all day. It’s quiet on account of the heat and all.”
    â€œYou’d be clever not to lie to me,
girl
.”
    I bit my tongue. He was barely older than I was. Eighteen. Nineteen at most. Probably the same age as the foreigner.
    I crossed my arms, careful to hide the bloodstain, and leaned over the counter with a smile. “Oh, I don’t lie, Commander. Lying is a sin after all, isn’t it?” Where was Tamid when I needed him to share a joke?
    But to my surprise the younger of the two soldiers spoke up. “This desert is full of sin.”
    The commander looked toward his soldier in the same moment I did. I expected him to get a sharp reprimand for speaking out of turn. But the commander didn’t say a word. No wonder the older soldier didn’t work too hard tohide his laugh. No commander who wanted respect would let a soldier talk out of line like that.
    The young soldier met my gaze and I realized with a start that his eyes were as blue as mine.
    I’d never met another Mirajin with light eyes. Desert dwellers had dark hair, dark skin, and dark eyes. It was the Gallan who had pale features.
    Just because they were entitled to our weapons, the Gallan army seemed to think they were entitled to everything else in the desert. A couple of years back the men of Dustwalk hanged pretty young Dalala Al’Yimin after a Gallan soldier took a bit too much of a shine to her. All the women in town comforted Dalala’s mother by saying how it was the best thing to do, considering she wasn’t any good to anyone now he was done with her. That night I’d looked at my own blue eyes and thought of the Gallan with their pale eyes and light hair. For years I hadn’t really understood what my father meant when he’d get into one of his drunken rages and call my mother a foreigner’s whore. But I was fourteen then, old enough to understand that folks didn’t actually believe the dark-eyed desert man my dark-eyed mother was married to was really my