“Then you’re not very useful, are you?” But she beckoned him forward. “Sit up. Let me see your shoulder.”
Dara obeyed, grunting as a new burst of pain stabbed through his arm. “Blasted human weapons.”
“Ah, yes, it must be terrible to briefly feel powerless.” She tore his blood-soaked shirt at the gash, peeling it away from the wound. “They won’t forget its effect on you.”
With every press of her fingers, Dara was fighting not to pass out again. “I won’t either.”
She sat back on her heels. “The bullet isn’t deep. I can get a tool to cut it out. It will be crude and painful, but you’ll be able to escape, and then you can get Manizheh to properly care for you.”
“Again, why would you help me?”
“Because you’re going to help me.” She rose to her feet and then shoved his head back down. “Stay.”
She slammed the chest shut.
DARA FAINTED, DRIFTING IN AND OUT OF CONSCIOUSNESS as he slowly continued bleeding to death. That fact—and the pain—had started to bother Dara less and less as he lost feeling in the limbs jammed into the abominably small chest. He was dimly aware of the passage of time, of arguing voices.
And then the lid was flung open again. Light blinded him, the flare of a blazing candelabra and two torches.
There was yet another djinn in the room with bright emerald eyes.
“Suleiman’s eye,” Dara wheezed, embers falling from his lips. “How many of you are there?”
The new djinn—an elderly Ayaanle man with wild, overgrown eyebrows—reared back like Dara was a rukh.
“No,” the man said, shaking badly and attempting to back away. He brandished the candelabra like a weapon, which seemed unnecessary given Dara’s actively dying state. “I will not go with him, Razu. I will not!”
“Issa.” The Tukharistani woman—Razu—stepped into view, pulling the candelabra from his hands. “We’ve discussed this. You need to leave, my friend.” Her voice softened. “I know how frightened you are of the ifrit, and it is tearing me apart to see you suffer. Let the Afshin send you home.”
Let the Afshin do what? Dara opened his mouth, trying to object, but the only sound that emerged from his throat was a rattle. There were suddenly six freed djinn with green eyes, the original trio having sprouted twins.
No, not twins. He was seeing double. His head lolled back, his vision blurring.
Razu snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Pay attention. I have a deal for you.” She gestured to Issa. “I’m going to save your life and get you back to Manizheh. In exchange, you’re going to send him to Ta Ntry. That is your specialty, no? Flying rugs and conjured winged horses? Make him one and send him home.”
Dara squeezed his eyes shut, trying to summon what remained of his strength. “I … cannot. Banu Manizheh does not wish news to leave.”
“And I do not wish to fly one of his contraptions!” Issa protested.
Razu made a hissing noise, silencing both men. “Elashia, help Issa pack. Make sure he takes food, not just books and explosives.”
Dara heard the door open and close, the Ayaanle elder still rambling.
Razu sighed. “You’re not dead yet, are you?”
He managed a slight shake of his head.
“Good.” There was a moment of silence. “Banu Nahri planned out every detail of that courtyard. The tiles on the fountain, the trees overlooking the walking paths. She wanted it to be a place of healing for her patients, and you turned it into a slaughterhouse.”
Dara pressed the back of his skull into the wood. “They took my warrior.”
“Then why did you stop?” He opened his eyes, meeting Razu’s jewel-like gaze. She continued. “If you were justified in killing them, why did you stop when Doctor Sen shot you? They say you dropped your scourge and fled like a child.”
Humiliation and anger boiled in his veins, giving Dara a bit more life. “I did not wish to kill a woman.”
“I am Tukharistani, Afshin. I may have lived and died before Qui-zi rose, but I know your reputation. You’ve killed plenty of women.”
Dara didn’t know how to respond to that. “I did not wish to kill more,” he finally managed. “I was looking at her, and it all came back and I—I could not do it again.”
“I see.” Razu seemed to stare right through him. “Elashia thinks we should have a bond with you, she and Issa and I. I don’t know how I feel yet about you, but I do care about Issa. His grasp on reality was shaky before the invasion, and it has vanished entirely with the knowledge that ifrit are walking the streets. He spends his days talking to himself and his nights locked in closets with weapons. He nearly impaled himself just the other morning. You are going to send him home.”
“I cannot—”
Razu took Dara’s chin in one hand, forcing him to look at her. “You can. It is what Nahri would want,” she added, the words a sharp thrust to his heart. “You don’t seem like an evil man, Afshin, but you have a lot of blood on your hands. Do this small kindness, mercy for a man who has suffered at the hands of the same creatures as you, and maybe a drop or two can be washed away.”
Warnings were running through Dara’s mind, but Creator, he was torn. These people—closer to him in many ways than his own tribe—had already suffered so much. Could he not show mercy to a harmless old man?
Razu was waiting for a response, a tense, long silence stretching on the close air. The bloody courtyard—Nahri’s courtyard—came back to him, and Dara realized he had likely slain dozens of men in the same time it was taking him to contemplate granting mercy to just one.
“I will help you,” he finally whispered, feeling as uncertain as a new bridegroom, as though he were embarking on an unknown and dangerous journey. “I will need you to get the bullet out of my shoulder first, but then I will help you, I swear.”
Pleasure creased Razu’s face. “Good.” She rose to her feet.
“Wait,” Dara croaked. “Where are you going?”
“To get you a strong drink and something to bite.” She twirled the scalpel. “This is definitely going to hurt.”
TWO DAYS AFTER HE’D TAKEN TO THE WIND TO RESCUE Irtemiz, Dara limped into the Daeva Quarter.
Battered and covered in blood, he was a far cry from the arrogant immortal who’d sliced a path of death through the hospital. His shirt was gone, cut away so Razu could extract the iron bullet lodged in his shoulder—an experience that had made every other injury, including actual death, seem painless in comparison. Dara had been able to revert to his fiery form—but only just, pulling on enough magic to send Issa off in a giant cauldron enchanted to zip him to Ta Ntry and then collapsing yet again.
His frailty had surprised Razu. “My grandparents were from the generation Suleiman punished,” she explained. “They spent the rest of their lives grieving for the abilities taken from them and spoke of their magic at length. They could have leveled the hospital with a snap of their fingers and flown to Ta Ntry and back in a single night. You do not have their strength.”
Dara had been too foggy-headed to guard his words. “Then what in the name of the Creator am I?”
“A mess,” she’d assessed bluntly, before forcing him into the cart she wheeled around to sell some sort of self-brewed liquor called soma. It had not only gotten them out of the hospital, it got them out of the shafit district entirely, the Tukharistanis calling welcome to her in their language as Dara hid beneath boxes of tinkling glass bottles. Razu had ducked into an empty alley long enough for him to slip out, and then he’d waited in a trash heap until it was dark enough to climb the wall.
Smelling of garbage, Dara was in an exceedingly foul mood even before the first person he saw was Vizaresh.
“Afshin,” Vizaresh greeted him, bouncing in excitement. “Oh, you are in so much trouble.”
IT WASN’T THE INFIRMARY DARA WAS LED TO, BUT rather a small room nearby. Manizheh and Kaveh were waiting for him, the Banu Nahida dressed in a plain linen smock and standing b
eside a tray of healing supplies.
Kaveh lost his composure the moment Dara was through the door.
“You selfish, arrogant, witless bastard,” the grand wazir accused. “Do you have any idea the risk you took? We were ready to start evacuating women and children to the hills!”
“I miscalculated the odds,” Dara muttered, falling upon a glass pitcher next to a platter of fruit. Wine, thank the Creator.
“You miscalculated the—”
“Kaveh, please leave,” Manizheh interrupted. “I can handle this.”
Kaveh threw up his hands, glaring at Dara as he shoved past. “You have learned nothing. You’re still the same blundering fool who rushed off to save Nahri and got dozens of Daevas killed.”
Dara abruptly smashed the wine pitcher, wiping the liquid from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Not Daevas. Not this time.” He let out a hysterical laugh, whirling to face the angry minister. “Sand flies and dirt-bloods, Grand Wazir. Dozens. Scores! Should that not please you? Were you not the one who declared killing people was the reason I was brought back to life?”
“Enough.” Manizheh’s voice was as curt as a whip. “Kaveh, go. Afshin, sit.”
Dara sat, ignoring the furious look Kaveh shot him as he left. Let him be furious—he had nothing on Dara’s rage.
“Where is Irtemiz?” he demanded hoarsely. Dara knew he shouldn’t be demanding anything. If he had any sense and training left, he would have greeted Manizheh with his face in the dust. But with the blood of more victims thick on his skin, the memory of their hatred and how close he’d come to being torn apart by their hands, he found his composure was long gone.
“Resting.” Manizheh stepped behind him and then gasped at the sight of his wound. “Did they shoot you?”
“With an iron bullet. Else I would have returned sooner.”
There was a long moment of silence. “I see.” She pressed a soaking compress to his skin, and Dara flinched at the cool liquid. “I’ll clean and stitch it. Hopefully your magic will allow you to recover more thoroughly.”
He said nothing, and she set to work. Manizheh was as precise and professional as always, which made it harder. Had she been openly mad or treated him with rough impatience, it would have been easier to stay angry. But she was gentle and careful as she tended his wound, healer first.
“I am sorry,” Dara finally apologized as she tied off a stitch. “I had to get Irtemiz out of there, but I did not realize the extent of their weapons.”
Manizheh pierced his skin once more with her needle and pulled the wound closed. “I’m certain you didn’t.” She laid a bandage over the stitches. “Lift your arm so I can wrap this in place.”
Dara obeyed, trying to catch her eye as she wound a length of gauze around his shoulder and torso. “It will not happen again,” he added.
“No, it won’t.” Manizheh stepped back. “Confine yourself to your quarters for at least three days. No heavy lifting, no training, and absolutely no archery. Rest.”
“Understood,” Dara said, trying for more deference. “I will have Noshrad take over in my place during that time.”
“Is he your best?”
Dara nodded. “He has a half century on his fellows, and they respect him. Irtemiz and Gushtap are the better warriors, but Noshrad is a more experienced leader and can stand in for me at court.”
“Then he will be doing that from today on.”
“You mean, until I recover?”
Manizheh leveled her gaze on him. “No, I mean from today on. You are my Afshin and you will continue to lead my army, but I will require neither your council nor your presence at court.”
Dara stared at her in shock. “Banu Manizheh—”
She held up a hand. “You disobeyed a direct order, put your life—and thus the lives of all your fellow Daevas—at risk, and showed our enemy the best way to take you down. I have been willing to indulge your temper because I care for you, Afshin, and I know how much you’ve suffered, but I won’t abide disloyalty. I want to trust you, I do,” she added, a flicker of emotion in her eyes. “But if I can’t, I need to find other ways to keep our city safe.”
He opened and closed his mouth, struggling for a response. “I have only ever tried to serve my people.”
“That’s just it, Afshin. I don’t need you to serve the Daevas. I need you to serve me so that I may lead the Daevas. I have plenty of councilors, and I don’t need another arguing voice. I need someone to carry out my commands.”
“You need a weapon.” This time there was no keeping the bitterness from his voice.
“There is honor in being a weapon. Your family believed that once.” She picked up her tray and began putting away her supplies. “Did you at least learn anything useful nearly getting yourself killed?”
The blunt question took him aback, as did the immediate answer rising to his mind. Dara had indeed learned something useful—he’d learned where Zaynab al Qahtani was hiding. And had he succeeded in capturing her, he knew Manizheh would have greeted him with gratitude and praise rather than a demotion.
He started to reply … and then Razu’s words returned to him.
What would happen to the hospital he’d already ravaged if Manizheh learned the princess was there? Dara suddenly envisioned her ordering the ifrit to charge in, Aeshma and Vizaresh laughing as they slaughtered women and children and hunted down Elashia and Razu.
Zaynab has probably already fled. The princess was clearly no fool and it would have been suicidal to stay in a place her enemies had spotted her.
“No,” Dara replied, the deception settling over him. It was different from flouting Manizheh’s orders to rescue Irtemiz. This was an open lie, the kind of treason that in another life he might have had his tongue plucked out for. “I saw nothing.”
Manizheh looked at him for a very long moment. “That’s unfortunate.” She turned for the door. “Rest, Afshin. We wouldn’t want anything else to happen to you.”
PART TWO
14
NAHRI
Nahri teased aside the tissue-thin pomegranate skin with her scalpel, revealing a section of ruby clusters. Holding the splayed fruit between her knees, she set down the scalpel and picked up her needle. She pierced the skin, drawing a section of thread through the rind to stitch it in place. She’d piled her hair into a bun on the top of her head, and the sun beat on the back of her neck, pleasantly warm.
It was an idyllic scene. They’d pulled the boat alongside a jumble of ruins, and Nahri sat on a downed column carved with pictograms that jutted out of the water. Ali was gone, swimming in the river, and so Nahri was alone with her instruments and the quiet. A breeze played over her face, smelling of wildflowers, and above, birds twittered sweetly as they built a nest in the remains of the monument’s pockmarked ceiling.
She finished another stitch, admiring the neat row she’d made so far. The pomegranate tissue was even more delicate than flesh, and yet her sutures were perfect.
Nahri clearly wasn’t the only one who thought so.
“That looks very impressive,” enthused a male voice just past her ear.
Nahri jumped, letting out a yelp of surprise as she nearly stabbed herself with the needle. “Ali, for the love of God—I thought you were swimming!”
“I was.” Ali nodded to where his footprints still gleamed wetly across the stone. “I am done.”
“Then can you practice making some noise when you move?” She stared unhappily at her fruit. She’d torn through the skin when she jumped. “You killed my patient.”
“Does that mean we can eat it?”
“No, it means you can get me another before I start getting a feel for my instruments on you.”
Ali rolled his eyes but headed back toward their boat, water streaming down his legs. Ever prim, Ali kept a dry shawl within arm’s reach of the river when he swam, but he was still soaked to the bone, the glistening water droplets clinging to his bare skin twinkling in the sun.
“There are
no more pomegranates,” he called back, rooting through the basket where they kept their fruit. “Will an orange do?”
Nahri didn’t respond right away. The shawl had slipped from Ali’s back while he searched, creating a rather distracting effect. The waist cloth he wore when swimming was tied tight around his hips. Very tight. And it too was still wet, leaving perhaps less to the imagination than its wearer intended.
Well, aren’t you looking fully recovered? Nahri forced herself to look away, self-aware enough to know staring at Ali’s backside was of little diagnostic value. “What?” she asked distractedly.
He turned around, holding up two oranges. “An acceptable offering?”
“Sure.”
Ali rejoined her. “I’m sorry for startling you.” He stretched his neck, rolling one shoulder. “It feels good to swim, though. I was so weak after taking the seal. I think a child could have beat me up.”
Nahri gave him an incredulous look, taking in his overly lithe form as he dropped to the ground. Forget where her thoughts had been a minute ago; even now Ali might have passed for some sort of fabled river spirit, a guardian of the water trickling down his arms. “You’re out of your mind. God knows I saw enough of you when you were sick, and you looked fine then too.”
Ali froze, the orange dangling from his fingertips. “What do you mean, you saw enough of me?”
“I mean …” Heat rushed into her cheeks. “You were unconscious for a couple of days. Who do you think took care of you? Yaqub? The man could barely see you.”
Horror swept his face. “But I had been bathed. I had been changed.”
Nahri tried to calm him. “Listen, it’s a very normal part of my job—” When Ali only appeared more panic-stricken, his eyes going very wide, her patience vanished. “Creator, why do you always make things so awkward? I’m a healer, I see people—men!—all the time. And it’s not like you have anything to be embarrassed about!”
Ali opened and closed his mouth. “Why don’t I have anything to be embarrassed about?”
The Empire of Gold Page 19
