The Kingdom of Copper

Longing stole into his heart. Though Dara had been born in Daevabad, this was the type of country he loved. Open skies and staggering vistas. One could take a horse and a bow and disappear into a land like this to sleep under the stars and explore the ruins of kingdoms lost to time.

Ahead, a fire blazed on the beach, the flames licking the air with a bit too much malicious delight.

Dara inhaled, catching the scent of ancient blood and iron. “Aeshma. He is near.” Smoke curled from under his collar. “I can smell that foul mace he carries, thick with the blood of our people.”

“Perhaps you should shift back into your natural form.”

Dara scowled. “This is my natural form.”

Manizheh sighed. “It isn’t, and you know it. Not anymore. The ifrit have warned you that your magic is too much for this body.” She tapped his tattooed arm, the skin pale brown and very much not aflame. “You leave yourself weak.”

Their carpet fluttered to the ground. Dara didn’t respond, but he didn’t shift either. He would do so if and when the marid appeared.

“Ah, there are my erstwhile allies.”

At the sound of Aeshma’s voice, Dara’s hand dropped to the long knife at his side. The bonfire split, and the ifrit strolled through the break with a black-fanged grin.

It was a grin that made Dara sick. That was what he looked like now when he shifted, his fire-bright skin, gold eyes, and clawed hands a mirror of the demons who’d enslaved him. That his ancestors had looked the same before Suleiman’s curse was of little comfort. It hadn’t been his ancestor’s grin he’d seen just before the fetid water of the well closed over his face.

Aeshma sauntered closer, his smile widening as if he could sense Dara’s displeasure. He probably could; it was not a thing Dara tried to conceal. Balanced on one shoulder was his mace, a crude metal hammer studded with barbs. Aeshma seemed to enjoy the effect it had on Dara’s temper, and took special delight in mentioning the times it had been bathed with Nahid and Afshin blood.

Our allies. Dara’s hand curled around the hilt of his knife.

“A knife?” Aeshma clucked his tongue in disappointment. “You could summon a sandstorm that would throw me across the lake if you would leave that useless body behind you.” His eyes brightened with viciousness. “And surely if you’re going to use a weapon, we might as well get a look at your famous scourge.”

Manizheh’s hand shot out as the air sparked with heat. “Afshin,” she warned him before fixing her attention on Aeshma. “I received your signal, Aeshma. What have you heard?”

“The same whispers and premonitions that started up when you brought your Scourge back to life,” the ifrit replied. “My companions have gone burning through all the marid haunts they know without response. But now there’s something else …” He paused, seeming to savor the moment. “The peris have left the clouds to sing their warnings on the wind. They say the marid have overstepped. That they broke the rules and are to be called to account—punished by the lesser being to whom they owe blood.”

Dara stared at him. “Are you drunk?”

Aeshma grinned, his fangs gleaming. “Forgive me, I forget at times one must speak simply to you.” His voice slowed to a mocking crawl. “The marid killed you, Afshin. And now they owe you a blood debt.”

Dara shook his head. “They might have been involved, but it was a djinn who wielded the blade.”

“And?” Manizheh cut in. “Think back on what you’ve told me of that night. Do you truly believe some al Qahtani brat was capable of cutting you down on his own?”

Dara hesitated. He’d put arrows in the prince’s throat and lungs and knocked him into the lake’s cursed depths. Alizayd should have been dead twice over and instead he’d climbed back onto the boat looking like some sort of watery wraith. “What do you mean by a blood debt?” he asked.

Aeshma shrugged. “The marid owe you a favor. Which is convenient, because you want to break into their lake.”

“It’s not their lake. It’s ours.”

Manizheh laid a hand on Dara’s wrist as Aeshma rolled his eyes. “It was once theirs,” she said. “The marid helped Anahid build the city. Surely you were taught some of this? It’s said that the jeweled stones that pave the Temple grounds were brought by the marid as tribute.”

Afshin children were not exactly schooled in the finer points of their people’s history, but Dara had heard the story of the Temple’s stones. “So how does that get me across the threshold?”

“Forget your threshold,” Aeshma said. “Do you imagine water beings crossing deserts and mountains? They use the waters of the world to travel … and they once taught your Nahid masters to do the same.” Resentment flashed in his eyes. “It made hunting my people that much easier. We dared not even go near a pond lest some blood-poisoning Nahid spring from its depths.”

“This is madness,” Dara declared. “You want me to threaten the marid—the marid, beings capable of turning a river into a serpent the size of a mountain—based on the supposed whispers of peris and tales of a legendary magic neither Banu Manizheh nor I were alive to witness.” He narrowed his eyes. “You wish to kill us, is that it?”

“If I wanted to kill you, Afshin, believe me I’d have come up with a far simpler method and spared myself your paranoid company,” Aeshma replied. “You should be excited! You get to avenge yourself on the marid who killed you! You get to be their Suleiman.”

The comparison instantly extinguished Dara’s anger, replacing it with dread. “I am no Suleiman.” The denial surged from his mouth, his skin prickling at the thought of such blasphemy. “Suleiman was a prophet. He was the man who set our laws and granted us Daevabad and blessed our Nahids—”

Aeshma burst into laughter. “My, you really do rattle that off. I remain forever impressed by the training your Nahid Council beat into you.”

“Leave him alone,” Manizheh said sharply. She turned back to Dara. “No one is asking you to be Suleiman,” she assured him, her voice gentler. “You are our Afshin. That is all we need you to be.” The confidence in her eyes helped calm him. “But this blood debt is a good thing. A blessed thing. It might get us back to Daevabad. To my daughter.”

Nahri. Her face played in his memory. The betrayal in her dark eyes as Dara forced her hand in the infirmary, her screams as he was cut down.

Sixty-four, Kaveh had said coldly. Sixty-four Daevas who died in the chaos Dara had caused.

He swallowed the lump growing in his throat. “How do we summon the marid?”

Violent delight danced across the ifrit’s face. “We anger them.” He turned away. “Come! I’ve found something they’re going to be very upset to lose.”

We anger them? Dara stayed rooted to the sand. “My lady … this could be quite dangerous.”

“I know.” Manizheh’s gaze was locked on the retreating ifrit. “You should shift.”

This time, Dara obeyed, letting the magic take him. Fire raced down his limbs, claws and fangs bursting forth. He sheathed the knife, conjuring a new weapon from the smoke that swirled around his hips. He raised it, the familiar handle of the scourge warming in his hand.

It would not hurt to remind Aeshma of what he was capable of.

“Don’t believe everything they tell you,” Manizheh said, suddenly sounding on edge. “The marid. They are liars.” She turned abruptly on her heel, following Aeshma through the flames.

Dara stared at her another moment. What would they possibly have to tell me?

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