The steward hesitated. He was a Daeva man, a Creator-fearing one if the ash mark on his brow was anything to judge by. “Should we … should we make some effort to learn their identities? It doesn’t seem right to—”
“No.” At Dara’s curt response, the steward flinched, and Dara tried to explain. “It is better if the true toll is not known in case we need to adjust the number.”
The other man paled. “There are children.”
Dara cleared his throat, swallowing the lump rising there. He looked directly at the steward, letting his eyes brook no further discussion. “Find one of their clerics and have him pray over them. Then burn them.”
The steward swayed on his feet. “As you command.” He bowed and then scurried away.
Dara let his gaze fall on the dead again. It was utterly silent in the bloody garden, the close air feeling like a tomb. The palace walls loomed high overhead, their height tripled by his magic. Dara had done the same for the entire Daeva Quarter, taking advantage of the pandemonium to thoroughly seal his tribe off from the rest of the city. He’d done more magic than he ever had before, not even caring he’d had to stay in his fiery form to conserve his strength.
And looking at the murdered Geziris, he was glad. For if their kin on the other side of the city had somehow survived the vapor, Dara doubted even the loss of magic would keep them from coming for vengeance.
Devil, a voice whispered in his mind as he returned to the palace. It sounded like Nahri. Murderer.
Scourge.
He shoved the voice away. Dara was the weapon of the Nahids, and weapons didn’t have feelings.
The halls were desolate, his steps ringing on the ancient stones—many of which had cracked during the quake that had shaken the city when its magic was ripped away. The djinn who hadn’t managed to escape the royal complex, along with any Daevas caught protecting them, had been rounded up and herded into the ruined library. Many were inconsequential—bloodied scholars and civil servants, wailing harem companions, and terrified shafit servants—but among the mix, Kaveh had pointed out a few dozen nobles: men and women who would make for useful hostages, should their tribesmen start feeling mutinous. There was also a handful of surviving Geziris, the few besides Muntadhir who’d managed to remove their relic in time.
Dara kept walking. These are the corridors you said would be filled with celebration, aren’t they? Music and joy: the victory you promised your young warriors who now lie slaughtered on the beach, their bodies left to rot. The warriors who trusted you.
Dara squeezed his eyes shut, but he couldn’t stop the heat crackling down his limbs. He exhaled, smoky embers escaping his mouth, and opened his eyes to see fire swirling in his palms. Had the Qahtani emir not accused him of belonging to hell? Perhaps his current appearance was an apt one.
He could hear the cries of the infirmary’s injured long before he passed through the thick wooden doors. Inside was organized chaos. Manizheh might not have her healing magic, but she commanded a forceful presence and had pulled together a team to help her, including the followers she’d brought from their camp in northern Daevastana, servants who’d worked with Nahri in the infirmary, a few seamstresses who were taking their talents to flesh, and a midwife she’d plucked from the harem.
Dara spotted her across the room now, dismayed to see she’d replaced the quilted armor he’d insisted she wear during the attack with lighter clothes she must have pillaged: a man’s tunic and a blood-soaked apron stuffed with tools. Her silvering black hair was gathered in a hasty bun, strands of it falling in her face as she bent over a crying Daeva girl.
Dara joined her, prostrating himself and pressing his brow to the ground. The show of obedience was intentional. In the face of an incomplete conquest and a frightened city stripped of its magic, the strains in their relationship were petty concerns. He would not dare undermine her in public—people needed to believe her rule was absolute.
“Banu Nahida,” he intoned.
“Afshin.” There was relief in her voice. “Rise. I think we can put off the bowing for the time being.”
He did as she commanded but kept his tone formal. “I have done what I can to seal off the Daeva Quarter and the palace from the rest of the city. I cannot imagine the djinn have the resources to scale such high walls anytime soon, and if they try, I have archers and Vizaresh awaiting them.”
“Good.” Her attention shifted to a man across the room. “Did you find the saw?” she called out.
The Daeva servant hurried over. “Yes, Banu Nahida.”
“A saw?” Dara asked.
Manizheh inclined her head toward her patient. The girl was young, her eyes squeezed shut against the pain of her wound: a grisly bite in the meat of her arm. The surrounding flesh was crimson and badly engorged.
“She’s a simurgh trainer in the royal menagerie,” Manizheh explained softly. “When the firebirds panic, they emit a venom in their saliva. Apparently the arena’s karkadann escaped when its magical gate fell away, and in the chaos, one of her birds bit her.”
Dara’s heart dropped. “What will you do?”
“If I had my abilities, I could draw the poison out before it reached her heart. Without magic, there’s only one thing I can do.”
The meaning of the saw became horribly clear, and whatever was between them, Manizheh seemed to have some mercy left for him. “She is the last patient I need to stabilize, and then I would like to catch up with you and Kaveh.” She nodded to a pair of doors. “He’s waiting in the other room.”
Dara bowed haltingly. “Yes, Banu Nahida.”
He weaved his way through the crowded infirmary. It was packed with the injured, and Dara didn’t miss that they were all Daevas. He doubted it meant casualties were confined to his tribe—on the contrary, he suspected that in the cold calculus of their world, it meant only after the Daevas were helped would Manizheh turn her attention to the rest of the djinn.
We are never going to have peace, he despaired as he pushed through the doors she had indicated. Not after this. Consumed by his thoughts, Dara only realized where Manizheh had sent him when the door fell shut behind him.
He was in Nahri’s room.
Compared to the rest of the conquered palace, Nahri’s room was quiet and untouched. Dara was alone, Kaveh nowhere to be seen. The apartment was pretty and well appointed and at first glance could have belonged to any Daeva noblewoman. A silver fire altar smoldered in a prayer niche, perfuming the air with cedar, and a pair of delicate gold earrings and a ruby ring had been left on a small painted table.
Looking closer, though, Dara saw signs of the woman he’d known, the woman he’d loved and betrayed. Books were stacked in a precarious tower beside the bed, and what appeared to be small, almost crude items—a reed bent to resemble a boat, a dried garland of jasmine blossoms, a carved wooden bangle—were set with reverence on the windowsill. An ivory hair comb and an abandoned cotton shawl lay on the table beside him, and it was everything Dara could do not to pick them up and touch the things Nahri had touched so recently, to see if her scent lingered.
She cannot be dead. She simply cannot be. Losing the battle with his aching heart, Dara ventured farther into the room, feeling like an intruder as he ran his fingers over the finely carved mahogany bedposts. He could still remember doing so six years ago. How full of himself he’d been that night, righteously indignant after learning the Qahtanis intended to force Nahri to marry Muntadhir. Dara had not doubted for a moment when he had slipped into her bedchamber that what he was doing was right, that Nahri would greet him with a relieved smile, take his hand, and escape Daevabad at his side. That he was saving her from a terrible fate she could not possibly want.
He had been so entirely, utterly wrong.
In hindsight, it was obvious he’d lost her here, that night, and Dara had no one but himself to blame. He had taken Nahri’s choice away from her—from her, the only person who’d seen something in him beyond the legendary Afshin, the abominable Scourge, and might have loved him for it.
“Afshin?”
Dara straightened up at Kaveh’s faint voice. The grand wazir stood at the steps that led to the garden, looking pale as parchment and about as stable as the gauzy curtain dancing in the breeze.
“Kaveh.” Dara crossed the room, reaching out a hand to steady the other man. “Are you all right?”
The grand wazir let himself be led to a cushion near the fire altar. Despite the warm day, he was shivering. “No. I … Manizheh said I should wait here, but I can’t.” His bloodshot gaze darted to Dara’s. “You’ve been all over the palace … is it true about the Geziris?”
Dara nodded grimly. “A few survivors removed their relics in time—the emir is one of them—but the rest are dead.”
Kaveh jerked back, one hand going to his mouth in horror. “Creator, no,” he whispered. “The poison, the vapor … it wasn’t supposed to spread beyond the spot in which it was unleashed.”
Dara went cold. “Manizheh told you that?”
Kaveh nodded, rocking back and forth. “H-how many …”
There was no point in pretending. Kaveh would learn the truth either way. “At least a thousand. There were … travelers staying in the garden that we didn’t anticipate.”
The grand wazir let out a strangled sound. “Oh my God, the camp.” He was pressing his fingers so hard against his skull it had to hurt. “There were children there,” he wept. “I saw them playing. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I only meant to kill Ghassan and his men!”
Dara didn’t know what to say. Manizheh had known damn well the vapor would spread—she and Dara had fought bitterly about it. Why had she kept it from Kaveh? Was it because she feared the man she loved would protest? Or was it to spare him the shared guilt since she’d already made the decision to proceed?
She spared him nothing. Manizheh had made Kaveh into an instrument of mass murder, and for that, Dara had no reassuring platitudes. He knew the feeling all too well.
He tried to change the subject. “Is there any news of Jamshid?”
Kaveh wiped his eyes. “Ghassan only said he was holding him with people he trusted.” He started to shake harder. “Afshin, if he was at the Citadel … if he died when we attacked it …”
“You have no reason to believe he was there.” Dara knelt in front of the other man, gripping his arm. “Kaveh, you need to pull yourself together.”
“You’re not a father. You don’t understand.”
“I understand that there are thousands of Daevas who will be slaughtered for our actions if we lose control of this city. Manizheh is out there amputating limbs because she has no magic. She has the ifrit buzzing all around her, searching for a weakness. She needs you. Daevabad needs you. We will find Jamshid and Nahri. I pray as much as you do that the Creator has spared them. But we are helping neither if we don’t secure this city.”
The door opened and Manizheh stepped in. She took one look at them, and weariness creased her expression. “Well, don’t you two look hopeful.”
Dara stiffened. “I was updating Kaveh about the number of Geziri dead.” He met her eyes. “It seems the vapor spread farther than anticipated. Nearly all the Geziris in the palace are dead.”
He had to give her credit—Manizheh didn’t so much as flinch. “A pity. But then I suppose war is often more violent than expected. Had their people ruled justly, we wouldn’t have had to resort to such desperate means. But quite frankly, a few hundred dead djinn—”
“It is not a few hundred,” he cut in. “It is at least a thousand, if not more.”
Manizheh held his gaze, and though she did not directly rebuke him for interrupting her, Dara did not miss the warning in her eyes. “A thousand, then. They still aren’t our most pressing issue. Not when compared with our loss of magic.”
There was a moment of silence before Kaveh spoke. “Do you think it’s a punishment?”
Dara frowned. “A punishment?”
“From the Creator,” Kaveh whispered. “Because of what we did.”
“No,” Manizheh said flatly. “I don’t think the Divine had anything to do with this. Quite frankly, I don’t see the Divine anywhere in this awful city, and I refuse to believe Zaydi al Qahtani could have sacked the place and not suffered similar heavenly retribution if that were the case.” She sat down, looking rueful. “Though I don’t imagine you’ll be the only person to leap to that conclusion.”
Dara paced, too agitated to stay still. A thousand responsibilities pulled at him. “How do we rule a city with no magic? How do we live without magic?”
“We can’t,” Kaveh replied, dourer by the moment. “Our society, our economy, our world depends on magic. Half the goods traded in the city are conjured. People rely on enchantments to wake them up, to take them to work, to cook their food. I doubt one in twenty of us could even light a fire without magic.”
“Then we need to get it back,” Manizheh said. “As soon as possible.”
Dara stopped pacing. “How? We don’t even know why it’s gone.”
“We can make some guesses. You’re both fretting, but we’re not completely in the dark. You still have your magic, Afshin, as do the ifrit.”
He scowled at the comparison. “Meaning?”
“Meaning the magic that vanished is that which Suleiman granted our ancestors after their penance,” she explained. “You have yours because you’re untouched by Suleiman’s curse. The ifrit have their tricks because it is a different sort of magic, things they learned to circumvent his curse. It cannot be coincidence that our powers only vanished when Nahri and Alizayd took Suleiman’s ring and jumped into the lake.”
Dara paused, following her reasoning. “You are certain?”
“Quite,” Manizheh replied, a trace of bitterness in her voice. “Nahri slipped it on his finger, they vanished into the lake, and moments later, the veil fell and my abilities were gone.” She looked grim. “I watched the water. They didn’t resurface.”
“I checked the cliffs as well.” It had nearly killed Dara to do so, the prospect of discovering Nahri dashed upon the rocks too awful to contemplate. “I found nothing. But the fall is not long. Perhaps they swam back, and I missed them. They could be hiding elsewhere on the island, Alizayd using the seal to stop magic.”
Manizheh shook her head. “It was too sudden. Ghassan went into seclusion for days when he first took the seal and looked like he’d been on the wrong end of a plague when he returned. I do not think this could be Alizayd’s doing.”
Kaveh cleared his throat. “I will say what neither of you want to: they are just as likely dead. That is a fall that could kill a man. For all we know, they drowned, and their bodies sank beneath the water.”
Dara’s heart twisted, but Manizheh was already responding. “The ring-bearer being dead should not have affected magic like this. After all, how many hours did Ghassan lie slain with it?”
Dara pinched the bridge of his nose. “Nahri is not dead,” he said stubbornly. “It is not possible. And I do not believe for one moment that the marid let their little pawn drown.”
Kaveh looked confused. “Why would the marid care? From what Manizheh told me, I got the impression Alizayd was nothing to them, merely the first convenient body to jump in that night they cut you down.”
“For someone who was merely convenient, he’s certainly been well rewarded. That sand fly killed my men with water magic. Vizaresh said he found Alizayd controlling the lake as though he were marid himself.”
“You might have mentioned that a bit sooner,” Kaveh sputtered. “They jumped in a marid-cursed lake, Afshin! If Alizayd is under the protection of those creatures—”
“The marid told me they wouldn’t interfere with us again,” Dara argued. “I made clear the consequences.”
“Enough.” Manizheh raised a hand. “I cannot think with you two shouting like that.” She pursed her lips, looking troubled. “What if he didn’t need to be under their protection?”
“What do you mean?” Dara asked.
“I mean that it might not have been Alizayd,” Manizheh suggested. “We were the ones who insisted the marid restore the lake’s original enchantment, the one that let Nahids travel through the waters—it’s how we returned to Daevabad. What if Nahri somehow used it to get them away?”
Kaveh opened his mouth, looking even paler. Dara was genuinely surprised he hadn’t fainted yet.
“That … that could fit. Back at the camp, you both said there was no evidence Suleiman’s seal had ever left Daevabad. Maybe this is why,” Kaveh continued, gesticulating like an over-exuberant lecturer. “Because if you remove the seal from Daevabad, everything falls apart. Does it otherwise not seem strange the Qahtanis never took the seal back to Am Gezira? That they wouldn’t have tried to build an empire closer to their home and allies?”
“It’s a theory,” Manizheh said after a cautious silence. “One that might fit, but even so, if Nahri accessed that kind of magic, they could be anywhere. She would have merely needed to think of a place, and they’d be gone.”
“Then I will go find them,” Dara rushed, not caring how emotional he sounded. “Egypt. Am Gezira. Nahri and Alizayd are not fools. They’ll go somewhere familiar and safe.”
“Absolutely not.” Kaveh’s voice fell like a hammer. “You can’t leave Daevabad, Afshin. Not for a single minute. Besides the ifrit, you’re the only magic-user in the city. If the djinn and shafit thought you weren’t here to protect us …” He began to shake again. “You didn’t see what they did to the Navasatem parade. What they did to Nisreen. The dirt-bloods don’t need magic. They have ghastly human weapons capable of blowing people to pieces. They have Rumi fire and rifles and—”
Manizheh’s hand fell on Kaveh’s wrist. “I think he understands.” She glanced at Dara, resignation in her face. “I am desperate for my magic, Afshin, I am. But we took this city by blood, and now Daevabad comes first. We’ll need to come up with another way to get the seal back.”
If Dara had felt the weight of his duties before, it landed even more heavily now, tightening around his shoulders and throat like a barbed scarf. Manizheh wasn’t manipulating him this time. Dara knew damn well the price his people would pay for the violence their invasion had wrought.
It was not a thing he would let happen. “Then what do we do?” he asked.
“We finish what we started: we put Daevabad—all of it—under our control. And while we’ll need to find out if magic is gone beyond our borders, for now we keep news of what’s happened under wraps. I won’t have the shafit running off to bring magic to the human world or the djinn fleeing to their homelands. Have the ifrit burn any boats trying to cross the lake.”
Kaveh visibly started at that. “But there will be travelers trying to come for Navasatem.”
“Then we’ll deal with them. And on a more personal note”—Manizheh took a deep breath—“is there any news of Jamshid?”
The grand wazir’s face crumpled. “No, my lady. I’m sorry. All I know is that Ghassan said he was someplace secure. He might have been at the Citadel when it fell.”
“Stop saying that,” Dara demanded, seeing Manizheh pale for the first time. “Kaveh, you were the one who told me about Alizayd’s rebellion. The Citadel was his when it fell—why would Ghassan have sent Jamshid there?”
Manizheh stepped closer to the mirrored table, picking up Nahri’s hair comb. “There’s someone else who might know where Ghassan would have kept Jamshid,” she said, running her fingers over the ivory teeth. “Someone who might also be able to tell us about Suleiman’s seal—and where his brother and wife would run if indeed they’re still alive.” She slipped the comb into one of her pockets. “I say it’s time we pay a visit to our former emir.”
3
NAHRI
Yaqub reentered the room, and dropped a shawl around her shoulders. “You look cold.”
Nahri drew the shawl closer. “Thank you.” It wasn’t particularly chilly in the apothecary’s cramped back storeroom—especially not at the side of a feverish, unconscious djinn—but Nahri hadn’t been able to stop shivering.
She dipped her compress into a bowl of cool peppermint-scented water, squeezed it, and then laid it flat upon Ali’s brow. He stirred but didn’t open his eyes, the cloth steaming where it touched his hot skin.
Still standing, Yaqub spoke again. “How long has he had the fever?”
Nahri pressed her fingers against Ali’s throat. His pulse was still too fast, though she’d swear it was a degree slower than it had been at the riverside. She prayed to God it was, anyway, clinging to Muntadhir’s warning that it would take the new seal-bearer a few days to adjust to the ring’s presence and praying this was all normal, not a consequence of taking the ring out of Daevabad.
“A day,” she answered.
“And his head …” Yaqub’s voice was uncertain. “You’ve bandaged it. Did he take a blow? If there’s a wound and it turned septic—”
“It didn’t.” Nahri wasn’t sure what a human would see if they looked at the glowing mark of Suleiman’s seal on Ali’s temple but had decided not to find out, ripping a strip from the bottom of her dress and tying it tight around his brow.
Gripping a new cane—it really had been a long time—Yaqub lowered himself to the ground beside her, carefully balancing another bowl. “I brought some broth from the butcher. He owed me a favor.”
Guilt stabbed through her. “You didn’t have to trade a favor for me.”
“Nonsense. Help me raise your mysterious companion a bit. He’s moving enough that you should try and get some liquid in him.”
Nahri lifted Ali’s shoulders, her arms still aching from the river. He mumbled something in his sleep, shivering like her, and her heart panged. Please don’t die, she begged silently as Yaqub slid another cushion behind him.
Yaqub wordlessly took over, coaxing a couple of spoonfuls of broth into Ali’s mouth and down his throat. “Not too much,” he instructed. “You don’t want him to choke.” His voice was gentle, like a man trying not to spook a nervous animal, and it touched Nahri almost as much as it embarrassed her. If she had feared him turning her away at the door, such worry had been entirely unfounded—the old pharmacist had taken one look at her with a sick man in her arms and invited her in without question.
He sat back. “My mind or my eyes must be going. Every time I look at him, he seems to vanish.”
“Odd,” Nahri replied, her voice strained. “He looks normal to me.”
Yaqub set down the bowl. “I always had the impression that you and normal did not quite fit. Now, I would ask if you’d like to get a proper doctor to see him and not just some batty old pharmacist, but I suspect that I already know the answer.”
Nahri shook her head. No human doctor was going to be able to help Ali, and she didn’t want either of them attracting undue attention. “No doctors.”
“Of course not. Why do something that would make sense?”
Ah, there was the old business partner she remembered. “I don’t want to get in trouble with anyone,” she retorted. “I don’t want you to get in trouble. It’s best if we lie low for now. And I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have intruded on you like this. I’ll get the rest of this broth in him and then—”
“And then you’ll what? Drag an unconscious body around Cairo?” Yaqub asked drily. “No, you will both be staying right—” He jumped, staring in bewilderment at Ali. “He did it again,” he said. “I would swear he just vanished.”
“It’s your eyes. They start going at your age.” When Yaqub gave her an incredulous look, Nahri forced a pained smile. “But thank you for your offer of hospitality.”
Yaqub sighed. “You would return under such circumstances.” He climbed heavily to his feet, motioning for her to follow. “Come. Let whoever this is rest. You need to eat, and I have some questions.”