Dara bristled, but that was not a point he could refute. He might strangle the ifrit later for running his mouth, but not killing Alizayd had been a fatal error.
Manizheh seemed to recognize a hint of defeat. “Do not ever keep anything from me again, understand? I have an entire city to rule. I cannot do so while also worrying about what secrets the head of my security is harboring. I need my people loyal.”
Dara glowered, crossing his arms and resisting the urge to burn something. “What would you even have me do? We still have no idea where either of your children is, and you have made it clear I’m not allowed to risk our tribe’s safety by leaving to go look for them.”
“We don’t need to go look for them,” Manizheh said. “Not ourselves. Not if we send the right kind of message.”
“The right kind of message?”
“Yes.” She beckoned to him again. “Come, Afshin. It’s time I address my new subjects.”
5
ALI
From the time Alizayd al Qahtani was very small, he’d been blessed with the peculiar ability to instantly wake up.
It was an ability that used to unsettle others—nursemaids in the harem tiptoeing about when the little prince who’d been snoring abruptly spoke up, cheerfully greeting them; or his sister Zaynab, who’d go screeching to their mother when he snapped his eyes open, bellowing like the palace karkadann. That Ali slept so lightly had thoroughly pleased Wajed, who proudly declared his protégé rested like a warrior should, constantly alert. And indeed, Ali had seen firsthand what a blessing it was, saving his life the few times assassins came for him in the night during his exile in Am Gezira.
It wasn’t a blessing now. Because when Ali finally opened his eyes, he had not the mercy of a single moment of forgetting his brother was dead.
He was flat on his back, a low, unfamiliar ceiling before him. There must have been a window, for a few rays of sun pierced the warm air, dust motes dancing and sparkling before blinking out of existence. The grassy aroma of fresh-cut herbs, a steady rhythmic pounding, the clip of hooves, and the murmur of distant conversations were all signs indicating that Ali was no longer on an uninhabited bank of the Nile. He was cold, shivering under a thin blanket with the kind of clammy chill he associated with fever, and his body ached, weak in a way that should have concerned him.
It didn’t. Far more troublesome was the fact that Ali had woken up at all.
Was it quick, akhi? Or did it take as long as everyone says? Did it burn? Did the Afshin find you, hurt you worse? Ali knew those weren’t questions he should be asking. He knew, according to the religion he’d preached his entire life, that his brother was already at peace, a martyr in Paradise.
But the pious words he would have spoken to another in his place were ash in his mouth. Muntadhir wasn’t supposed to be in Paradise. He was supposed to be grinning and alive and doing something vaguely scandalous. Not falling against Ali’s chest, gasping as he took the zulfiqar strike meant for his little brother. Not touching Ali’s face with bloody hands, failing to mask his own fear and pain as he ordered Ali to run.
We’re okay, Zaydi. We’re okay. All those months of their stupid feud, weeks and days Ali would never get back. Could they not have sat and hashed out their politics, their resentments? Had Ali ever made clear to Muntadhir how much he loved and admired him—how much he desperately wished he could have ended their estrangement?
And now he would never be able to. He’d never talk to any of his brothers again. Not Muntadhir, who if the zulfiqar’s poison hadn’t taken him first, had almost certainly been tortured by the Afshin in his final moments. Not the men Ali had grown up with in the Royal Guard, now floating dead in Daevabad’s lake. Nor Lubayd, his first friend in Am Gezira, a man who’d saved his life and left his peaceful home only to be murdered by the ifrit. Had Ali ever properly thanked him? Sat him down and cut through Lubayd’s constant jesting to tell him how much his friendship meant?
Ali took a deep, rattling breath, but his eyes stayed dry. He wasn’t sure he could weep. He didn’t want to.
He wanted to scream.
To scream and scream until the awful crushing weight in his chest was gone. He understood now the grief that led people to pull out their hair, to tear at their skin and claw at the earth. More than scream, though, Ali wanted to be gone. It was selfish, it was contrary to his faith, but had he a blade at hand, he was not certain he could have stopped himself from carving out the ache in his heart.
Pull yourself together. You are a Geziri, a believer in the Most High.
Get up.
Still trembling and feverish, Ali forced himself into a sitting position, biting back a grunt of pain when every muscle in his body protested. He gripped his knees, black spots blossoming across his vision, and then touched his body, shocked by how frail he felt. His ruined dishdasha was gone, replaced with a soft cotton shawl that wrapped his shoulders and a waist cloth tied with what seemed like haste around his hips. He rubbed his eyes, trying to see straight.
The first person he spotted, lying unconscious on the floor, was Nahri.
Overwhelmed by worry, Ali lurched for her. He did so too quickly, nearly blacking out again as he crashed to his elbows next to her head. Closer now, he could see clearly the rise and fall of Nahri’s chest as she breathed. She murmured in her sleep, curling tighter into a ball.
Sleeping. She’s just sleeping. Ali forced himself to relax. He wasn’t helping either of them like this. He pushed himself back into a sitting position, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes until his head felt like it had mostly stopped spinning.
Better. So first, where were they? The last thing Ali remembered was feeling like he was about to die in a ruined mosque overlooking the Nile. Now they appeared to be in some sort of storeroom, an extremely disorganized one, packed with broken baskets and drying herbs.
Nahri must have gotten us here. He glanced again at the Banu Nahida. Her royal garments had been swapped for a worn black dress that looked several sizes too big, and the scarf tied around her head was doing little to contain her hair, the curls spilling out in an ebony halo. A few rays of dusty light striped her body, highlighting the curve of her hip and the delicate expanse of the inside of her wrist.
His heart skipped, and Ali was self-aware enough to recognize that it wasn’t grief alone spiking through him. Clever, stubborn Nahri who’d somehow kept him alive and gotten them from the river to wherever this was. She’d saved his life again, another debt in the ledger he knew she never forgot. She looked beautiful, sleep easing her features into a peaceful expression Ali had never seen before.
Muntadhir’s words from the arena stole through his mind. Abba will make you emir; he’ll give you Nahri. All the things you pretend you don’t want.
And now Ali had them, technically. All it had cost him was everything else he loved.
Ali swayed. Don’t do this. Not now. He’d already had to pull himself together once.
But before he dropped his gaze, he noticed something else. Scratches marred Nahri’s skin. Nothing serious, just the small gashes one might expect had they been dumped in a river and climbed through underbrush.
Except Nahri shouldn’t have had scratches. She should have healed.
Suleiman’s seal. Our magic. The memories tumbled through him again, and Ali instantly reached for his chest. The scorching, barbed pain that had driven him to his knees when they first arrived in Egypt was gone. Now Ali simply felt … nothing.
That can’t be. He tried to focus, closing his eyes and searching for something that felt new. But if there was some connection he was supposed to pull on to lift Suleiman’s seal, it was a power he couldn’t sense. He snapped his fingers, attempting to conjure a flame. It was the simplest magic Ali knew, something he’d been doing since he was a child.
Nothing.
Ali went cold. “Burn,” he whispered in Geziriyya, snapping his fingers again. “Burn,” he tried in Ntaran and then Djinnistani, raising his other hand.
None of it worked. There was not the slightest hint of heat, nor the shimmer of smoke.
My zulfiqar, my weapons. Ali looked wildly around the room, spotting the hilt of his sword poking out from a pile of filthy clothes. He lurched to his feet, stumbling across the room and reaching for his zulfiqar like a long-lost friend. His fingers closed around the hilt, and he desperately willed flames to rise from the blade he’d spent his life mastering—the blade tied so intimately to his identity.
It stayed cold in his hand, the copper surface dull in the dim light. It wasn’t just Nahri’s magic that was gone.
It was Ali’s.
That’s not possible. Ali had seen his father wield magic while using the seal to strip it from others. That was part of the ring’s legend—making its bearer the most powerful person in the room.
Panic raced through him. Was this a normal part of taking the seal, or had they done something wrong? Was there an incantation, a gesture, something that Ali was supposed to know?
Muntadhir would have known. Muntadhir would have known what to do with the seal had you not gotten him murdered with this very blade.
Ali dropped the zulfiqar. He stepped back, stumbling on his discarded blanket, the fragile veneer of control he’d pieced together slipping away.
You were supposed to protect him. It should have been you who held off the Afshin, you who died at his hand. What kind of brother was Ali, what kind of man, to be hiding in a storage room half a world away from the palace in which his father and brother had been murdered and his tribesmen and friends slaughtered? Where his sister—his sister—was trapped in a conquered city and surrounded by enemies?
Nahri mumbled in her sleep again, and Ali jumped.
You failed her. You failed all of them. Nahri could have been back in Daevabad right now, with the world and a throne at her fingertips.
I have to get out of here. Ali had a sudden driving need to get out of this claustrophobic little room. To breathe fresh air and put space between himself, Nahri, and his awful, bloody memories. He crossed the room, reaching for the door and stumbling through. He caught a glimpse of crowded shelves, the scent of sesame oil …
Then Ali crashed directly into a small, elderly man. The man let out a surprised yelp and stepped back, nearly upsetting a tin tray of carefully heaped powders.
“I’m sorry,” Ali rushed to say, speaking in Djinnistani before thinking. “I didn’t mean to … oh, my God, you’re a human.”
“Oh!” The man put down the knife, setting it next to the bright bed of herbs he’d been cutting. “Forgive me,” he said in Arabic. “I don’t think I quite understood that. But you’re still here—and awake. Nahri will be so pleased!” His fuzzy brows drew together. “I keep forgetting you exist.” He shook his head, looking oddly undisturbed by such alarming words. “But I am forgetting my manners. Peace be upon you.”
Ali swiftly pulled the door closed, not wanting to wake Nahri, and then stared at the man in open astonishment. Ali couldn’t have said what set him so immediately apart; after all, he’d met plenty of shafit with rounded ears, dull, earthy skin, and warm brown eyes like the man before him. But there was something entirely too real and too solid, too … rooted about this man. As though Ali had stepped into a dream, or a curtain had been drawn back he’d never realized was there.
“I, er … upon you peace,” he stammered back.
The man’s gaze traced across Ali’s face. “It is like the more I try to look at you, the harder it is. How bizarre.” He frowned. “Is that a tattoo on your cheek?”
Ali’s hand shot up to cover Suleiman’s mark. He had no idea how to interact with this man—despite his fascination with the human world, he had never imagined actually speaking with a human. By all accounts, the man shouldn’t have been able to see him at all.
What in the name of God has happened to magic? “Birthmark,” Ali managed, his voice pitched. “Completely natural. Since birth.”
“Ah,” the man marveled. “Well, would you like some tea? You must be hungry.” He beckoned Ali to follow him deeper into the shop. “I am Yaqub, by the way.”
Yaqub. Nahri’s stories of her human life came back to him. So they really were in Cairo—with the old man she said had been her only friend.
Ali swallowed, trying to get his bearings straight. “You are Nahri’s friend. The pharmacist she worked with.” He glanced down at the small man, Yaqub’s head barely reaching Ali’s chest. “She always spoke most highly of you.”
Yaqub blushed. “That was too kind of her. But my mind must be going with age. I cannot seem to recall her mentioning your name.”
Ali hesitated, torn between politeness and caution—the last time a non-djinn asked for his name, it had not gone well. “Ali,” he answered, keeping it simple.
“Ali? Are you a Muslim, then?”
The human word, a sacred word his people rarely voiced, tumbled Ali’s emotions further. “Yes,” he said hoarsely.
“And your kingdom?” Yaqub ventured. “Your Arabic … I’ve never heard an accent like that. Where is your family from?”
Ali grasped for an answer, trying to piece together what he knew of the human world and match it to his djinn geography. “The Kingdom of Saba?” When Yaqub merely looked more perplexed, he tried again. “Yemen? Is it the Yemen?”
“Yemen.” The old man pursed his lips. “The Yemen and Afghanistan,” he muttered under his breath. “Of course, the most natural of neighbors.”
But questions about Ali’s family had sent darkness rushing forward again, despair unfurling and creeping through him like vines that couldn’t be beaten back. If he stayed here and tried to make small talk with this curious human, he was going to slip up and unravel whatever story Nahri had already spun. The apothecary walls suddenly felt close, too close. Ali needed air, the sky. A moment alone.
“Does that lead outside?” Ali asked, raising a trembling finger at a door on the other side of the shop.
“Yes, but you’ve been bedridden for days. I’m not sure you should be out and about.”
Ali was already crossing the apothecary. “I’ll be fine.”
“Wait!” Yaqub protested. “What should I tell Nahri if she wakes before you return?”
Ali hesitated, his hand on the door. Forget whatever was going on with Suleiman’s seal and magic; it was hard not to feel like the kindest thing he could do for Nahri would be to never return. That if Ali truly cared for her—loved her as Muntadhir had accused—he’d leave and let her go back to the human world she’d never stopped missing, without needing to worry about the useless djinn prince she kept having to save.
Ali pulled open the door. “Tell her I’m sorry.”
ALI HAD SPENT HIS ENTIRE LIFE DREAMING OF THE human world. He’d devoured accounts of their monuments and marketplaces, envisioning himself in the holy city of Mecca and wandering the ports of great ships that crossed oceans. Exploring markets packed with new foods and inventions that had not yet made their way to Daevabad. And libraries … oh, the libraries.
None of those fantasies had included being nearly run down by a cart.
Ali jerked out of the path of the snub-nosed donkey and its driver and then ducked to avoid a mountain of sugarcane heaped on the back. The motion sent him crashing into a veiled woman lugging a basket of vivid purple eggplant.
“Forgive me!” he said quickly, but the woman was already brushing by as if Ali were an invisible irritant. A pair of chatting men in clerical robes parted like a human wave as they passed him, not even pausing in their conversation, and then he was almost knocked to the ground by a man balancing a large board of bread on his head.
Ali lurched out of the way, stumbling as he walked. It was too bright, too busy. Everywhere he looked was sky, a more vibrant, sunnier blue than he ever saw in Daevabad. The buildings were low, none more than a few stories tall, and far more spread out than they would have been in his packed island city. Beyond were glimpses of golden desert and rocky hills.
&nbs
p; Ali might have craved open sky and fresh air, but in his dazed grief, the bustling human world was suddenly too much; too different and too similar all at once. The heavy, dry heat felt like an oven compared to the misty chill of his kingdom, the rich scent of fried meat and spices as thick in the air as it was in Daevabad’s bazaars, but the notes unfamiliar.
“Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!”
Ali jumped at the adhan. Even the call to prayer sounded strange, the human intonation falling on different beats. He felt like he was dreaming, as if the awful circumstances to which he’d awoken weren’t real.
It’s real, all of it. Your brother is dead. Your father is dead. Your friends, your family, your home. You left them when they needed you most.
Ali clutched at his head but started walking faster, following the sound of the nearest muezzin through the winding streets like a man bewitched. This was something he knew, and all Ali wanted to do right now was pray, to cry out to God and beg Him to make this right.
He fell in with a crowd of men streaming into an enormous mosque, one of the largest Ali had ever seen. He didn’t have shoes to kick off, as he was already barefoot, but he paused as he entered anyway, his mouth falling open at the vast courtyard. The interior lay exposed to the sky, surrounded by four covered halls held up by hundreds of richly decorated stone arches. The skill and devotion displayed in the intricate patterns and soaring domes—done with painstaking effort by human hands, not by the simple snap of a djinn’s fingers—stunned him, briefly pulling Ali from his grief. Then the glisten and splash of water caught his eye: an ablution fountain.
Water.
A worshipper shouldered roughly past, but Ali didn’t care. He stared at the fountain like a man dying of thirst. But it wasn’t hydration he craved; it was something deeper. The strength that had run through his blood on Daevabad’s beach when he’d commanded the lake’s waves. The peace that had eased him when he’d coaxed springs out of Bir Nabat’s rocky cliffs.
The Empire of Gold Page 7
