Nahri was very much not expecting that question. Before she could stop herself, her mind flashed back to his wet waist cloth, and it was her turn to grow flustered. “You’re a warrior. You’ve clearly spent a lot of time training, and you’re, you know …” She fought for an appropriate word, cursing the embarrassed heat in her cheeks. “… well-formed.”
It was not an appropriate word.
Nahri swore she heard an insect sneeze in the excruciating silence that sprawled between them.
“I think that was a compliment,” Ali said finally, his gaze firmly on the ground. “So thank you. I’m going to change the subject now, yes?”
“I beg you.”
When he looked up again, his expression was politely blank. “These ruins,” he started. “All the carvings, they’re interesting, aren’t they?”
Nahri jumped into the topic with enthusiasm. “They’re fascinating!” They were, actually, an easy topic for two overly curious djinn to get distracted by. She nodded toward the larger pictograms dominating the fallen structure, the majority depicting a muscled man with the head of a crocodile. Faded paint still clung to it in pieces. “Considering half of them are carved with crocodiles though, maybe you should rethink all the swimming.”
“I’ll be careful.” Ali tossed her one of the oranges and set to peeling the other. “Do you know anything about the people who built these places?”
“Not really. I spent most of my childhood breaking laws, not learning history.” Nahri traced the figure of a woman carrying a platter of grain. “Maybe this was a temple. They’d have to be offering people paradise to spend all this time carving rocks.”
“You are aware there are similarly grand carvings of your ancestors on the walls surrounding Daevabad?”
“I’m very aware. Why do you think I used my religious clout to convince people to build a hospital? At least it’s useful.”
That brought a more genuine smile to Ali’s face, relaxing the mood. “Don’t you sound like quite the revolutionary? People would call me a fanatic if I said that.”
“To be fair, people call you a fanatic for a lot of reasons.”
“One should not concern oneself with gossip.” Ali handed her half the peeled orange. “Do you know that if you try to chisel down the Nahid reliefs, you dissolve into a puddle of brass?”
“You what?”
“Do you really think my ancestors would otherwise have left them up?”
Nahri groaned. “Tell me again why we’re not settling into peaceful lives in Cairo?”
“It’s the right thing to do?”
“It’s the life-shortening thing to do.”
“One step at a time,” Ali assured her. “First Ta Ntry.”
“Ah, yes, another mysterious magical court where I’ll arrive powerless with nothing but the clothes on my back and an assortment of people who want me dead.” Nahri shuddered. “What do you think would be worse: everyone’s magic failing the moment we get close with the seal, or their abilities already being gone?”
“I don’t imagine either option leaves us popular. But if my mother is back, we should be okay.” His face fell. “I wonder if they’ve heard any news by now. She might think I’m dead.”
We would probably be safest if everyone thought us dead.
“Put down the fruit,” Nahri said, coming to a decision and setting aside her own tools. “We’re practicing with the seal.”
Ali sighed. “We’ve not had any luck, Nahri. I think it’s clear Suleiman’s seal ring wasn’t meant to leave Daevabad. For all we know, we broke some sacred promise Anahid made thousands of years ago.”
“I’m not ready to give up yet.” Nahri racked her mind, trying to think of any possibilities they hadn’t explored.
She frowned. “Where does it hurt?” she asked. “When you use your water magic, where exactly?”
“My heart, I suppose,” he said, touching the striped fabric of his shawl where it crossed his chest.
“Let me see.”
Ali looked embarrassed again, but obeyed, drawing down just enough of the shawl to reveal his heart.
You are a doctor, Nahri told herself, thoroughly annoyed by the effect that following the beat of Ali’s heart—along his very firm chest—was having on her. Creator damn all that sparring. She didn’t miss Ali shiver at her touch, his pulse picking up, but Nahri dismissed it. Well-formed or not, Alizayd al Qahtani had probably never allowed himself an impure thought.
A shame. Now Nahri did flush, fighting the urge to slap some sense into herself. No more journeying with attractive warriors on dangerous quests after this. She clearly had a problem.
“Is something wrong?”
“Yes, you’re talking and distracting me.” Nahri pressed her fingers closer, probing the muscle. “I feel like I’m examining you with my eyes closed,” she complained. “If my magic comes back, I’m never taking it for granted again.”
“Am I allowed to respond?”
“No. I want you to try a little water magic. Just enough to trigger some pain.”
Ali made an exaggerated show of obedience and then beckoned toward the river. A tendril of water had no sooner flown to his hand than he flinched, the muscles seizing under her fingers.
“Hmm,” she murmured, pulling her hand back. “I don’t—”
“Wait,” Ali grabbed her hand, pressing it hard against his chest. He’d closed his eyes and they were darting beneath his lids like he was dreaming. “There’s something—I think if I …”
The seal blazed on his face and then flushed out, the light vanishing to leave the eight-pointed ebony star stark and dull against the warmer hue of his black skin. Power surged through Nahri, so fast it left her breathless. The steady beat of her heart and the faster one of Ali’s. The rushing of blood through veins and air through throats.
Her magic.
After so many weeks, even a hint of it felt like Nahri had drunk too much wine, a heady sensation of strength and invulnerability. Her aching muscles and scratches vanished.
Ali gasped, his eyes shooting open.
Nahri dropped her hand. Her magic instantly fell away, but she was encouraged. “It worked!”
“Wow,” he whispered, his shoulders dropping. Sweat broke out across his brow.
Her glee faded a bit. “Are you okay?”
“I think so.” He rubbed the spot over his heart and then raised his palm, snapping his fingers as though to conjure a flame. “It didn’t last.”
“It’s a start.”
Ali reached for her hand, looking drained but no less determined. “Let’s try again.”
“If you insist.” Nahri touched his chest, and the seal fell even faster this time. She inhaled, welcoming the embrace of her magic.
Ali grimaced. “Still burns when I use my water abilities.”
“Just hold it another second,” she urged, trying to calm the spikes of pain radiating through his body. “I want to examine your heart.”
She closed her eyes, letting her abilities envelop her. It was as if she’d been too long underwater, surfacing in a world whose sensations overwhelmed her. Before her, Ali was a maze of muscle and tissue, coursing blood and churning fluid.
And something very wrong.
“The ring,” Nahri whispered, stunned. She could sense its hard contours just below the surface of his heart, so close it seemed almost possible to pluck it free. Nahri wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it wasn’t that. She hadn’t sensed the ring in Ghassan’s body and thought perhaps it was meant to bond with one’s heart in some sort of formless state, reappearing only when the organ was burned.
She opened her eyes to find Ali gazing at her with a strange expression. “What?” she asked.
“I … your face. I think I’m seeing how you look without the marid’s curse on your appearance.” Ali seemed stunned. “So that’s how he knew. You have Suleiman’s seal marked on your face.”
Ghassan’s words from that night came back to her. They all bear it. Every single Nahid
. “Your father said that to me once. He claimed all Nahids had it.”
Including Jamshid. But Nahri didn’t mention her brother. No matter her and Ali’s growing closeness, Jamshid’s identity wasn’t her secret to divulge.
Ali fell back against the column, visibly worn out. “I didn’t know that.” He rubbed his chest. “By the Most High, it feels like a city worth’s of magic just burned through me.”
Nahri hesitated, torn between wanting to know more and wanting to change the subject. “What else did you see?”
“What do you mean?”
Was there anything this man wasn’t obtuse about? “The curse, Ali, the one that makes me appear human. How do I look without it?”
He inclined his head. “I think you had the glow to your skin, but I was more focused on Suleiman’s mark.” He must have picked up on her disappointment. “Don’t tell me that’s something you fret over.”
She was immediately annoyed. “Maybe it seems shallow to a pureblood prince, but you might have noticed the rest of our world is obsessed with whether or not one looks shafit. I had an entire fleet of servants whose job was to cover me in magical powders. Yes, I fret over it.”
Ali winced. “I’m sorry.” He glanced around and then nodded at the water. “Tomorrow when the light is better, let’s try this again in a place where you can see your reflection.”
“I don’t need you to do that.”
“Who says you need anything? Maybe I want to study my own reflection. After all, I hear I’m well-formed.”
Equal parts embarrassment and warmth stole through her. “Did you just make a joke? Surely you would have needed the permission of at least three clerics.”
Ali smiled. “I’ll be sure to check with the appropriate authorities when we get to Ta Ntry.” But then he flinched, again, kneading the spot over his heart. “I wish I could cut this out of me.”
Nahri bit her lip, recalling her own impression. “I’m not sure the ring bonded with you the same way it did with your father. Muntadhir said the heart needs to be burned, and the ring reforms from the ash, but I’m telling you, I can sense that thing intact and clear as day, just below the heart muscle.”
“But you put it on my finger before we left Daevabad. Why wouldn’t it have bonded?”
“I don’t know.” Nahri found herself drawn to the spot on his chest, an ache in her own heart. “It feels like it’s right there. Like I could just pluck it out.”
“Want to try?” Ali nodded at the ruined pomegranate. “I promise I’ll be a better patient.” Despite the jest, there was a genuine plea in his voice.
“No,” Nahri said, aghast. “I’d have to cut into your heart.”
“You cut into a child’s skull.”
“That was different!”
But Ali looked grim. “I feel like I’m not meant to have this. I remember the way my father’s heart burned in your hands. I can feel mine burning when you touch me. It wants you.”
“It doesn’t want anything. It’s a ring. And we’ve already discussed this. You know what Manizheh said about my being a shafit. If I took the seal, it would have killed me.”
“She was lying, Nahri. She was trying to get under your skin.” His expression softened. “Listen, I can’t imagine how difficult—”
“No, you can’t.” Nahri rose to her feet, stalking into the shadows of the ruin.
There was a moment of silence before Ali spoke again. “Then tell me. God knows you’ve listened to enough of my family’s problems. Let me return the favor.”
“I wouldn’t know what to tell you. No one bothers to keep me in the loop. They didn’t even tell me my own mother was alive.”
“Do you have any idea who your father might be?”
“No,” Nahri replied, checking the ache in her voice. “And I can’t imagine the kind of man Manizheh would have fallen for. He probably murders kittens to relax. Not that it matters. If he’s shafit, that’s all the Daevas are going to care about.”
“You don’t know that,” Ali argued. “I’ve seen you with your people. They love you. If you told people who you really were—”
“They would turn on me.”
“Or maybe you’d bring everyone together. In a way no one else can.”
For a moment, Nahri imagined it. Declaring her true identity to the world, finding peace with both her communities, defiant proof a shafit could be anything, even a Nahid healer.
And then it was gone. That kind of optimism had been beaten out of Nahri a long time ago.
“I envy you sometimes,” she said softly. “I wish I had your faith in people’s goodness.” And then before she could see the pity she’d hate in his eyes, Nahri turned and walked away.
NAHRI DIDN’T RETURN UNTIL SUNDOWN, AND AFTER A tense meal of stale bread and dates—they’d learned to mutual chagrin early in their journey that each assumed the other had more cooking experience—they went back to the boat, sailing until the day’s light was gone before dropping anchor. Ali fell asleep fast, the pain from his marid magic taking a visible toll.
Nahri should have found a way to keep herself awake. Ever the soldier, Ali had suggested they trade shifts. But it had been a long day, and she found it impossible to keep her eyes open as the warm velvet of the darkening sky and gentle rock of the boat lulled her into a drowsy spell.
The sounds of distant sobbing pulled her back to consciousness. Nahri blinked, momentarily forgetting where she was, and then another wail came. It sounded like a woman, somewhere upriver, ending in weeping that carried along the water.
A finger of ice brushed down Nahri’s spine, adrenaline banishing the remnants of her stupor. She must have been sleeping for some time, because it was now pitch-black, so dark she could barely see her own hands. And utterly, unnaturally silent, the usual drone of insects and the creak of frogs gone.
The weeping came again. Nahri sat up and then tumbled as the boat lurched in the water, rocking as though the sail had caught. Which was impossible because the sail was tied back and the anchor let out.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a night like this. She crept forward. The moon was a bare sickle, its weak light scattered on the flowing water, and the scrubby trees and reeds on either bank were impossibly black, the kind that seemed capable of swallowing one whole.
Her bearings lost, she stumbled directly into Ali’s sleeping body. He popped upright like he was on a spring, the gleam of his khanjar already in hand. She opened her mouth to explain, but then the weeping came again, the plaintive cry nearly musical.
“Is that someone singing?” Ali asked.
“I don’t know,” Nahri whispered back. The woman did seem to be singing now, though not in any language Nahri had ever heard. It cut through her, bone-deep, and goose bumps erupted over her arms. “It sounds like a funeral dirge.”
The glint of the khanjar disappeared as Ali resheathed it. “Maybe she needs help.”
“That’s unfortunate for her.” When Ali glanced at her, disapproval in his glimmering eyes, Nahri spoke more firmly. “I don’t know what stories you heard growing up, but I’m not hunting after some mystery voice in the middle of the night.”
Light suddenly burst before them, fire flaring so brightly that Nahri held a hand over her eyes. The scene came to her in starry pieces: the large, pale lumps scattered across the choppy water, the rocky riverbank and spiky brush jutting up like teeth.
The woman swaying on the bank, fire gushing from her outstretched hands.
The burning singer before them was definitely not some lost farm girl. Her skin was pale—too pale, the color of bone—and her black hair was uncovered, falling in glossy waves past her ankles to pool in the shallows at her feet. She was dressed simply and sparsely in a thin shift that clung wetly to her body, leaving little of its curves hidden.
Not to mention the fire. Nahri instinctively stood, the healer in her mind going to burns and salves … until she realized the woman wasn’t burning, not quite. Tendrils of flames caressed her wrists
and danced through her fingers, but her skin wasn’t blackened, nor did the air smell of charred flesh.
And when she met Nahri’s gaze, there was no pain in it. There was delight. The delight of one genuinely and wonderfully surprised.
“Oh, but you are the last person I expected in my net.” The woman grinned, her teeth gleaming in the firelight. “What a lovely gift.”
Nahri gaped at her. There was something about the woman’s leering smile and voice that she would swear …
Her stomach dropped. “Qandisha.”
The ifrit laughed. “Clever girl.” She snapped her fingers, and the fire rushed to embrace her, the human appearance vanishing. “You’ll forgive the disguise. The fiery skin doesn’t lend itself to hunting.”
At the word “hunting,” Ali edged in front of Nahri. The ifrit’s gleaming orange eyes locked on the prince, and her lips twisted into a snarl.
“Suleiman’s mark,” Qandisha sneered. “Are you that djinn king, then?” She regarded them with a hungry, amused curiosity, like how a cat might watch an insect. “Oh, Aeshma …” She chuckled. “Whatever has gone wrong with your grand plan?”
Ali drew his zulfiqar. “And what plan would that be?”
“One that should have ended with both of you dead.” Qandisha’s voice turned alluring. “There’s not much you can do with that blade all the way out there, little mortal. Why don’t you come closer? I have been aching for some company.”
Nahri stepped back, dread crawling up her chest. “Ali, I don’t care what magic you have to use. Get us out of here.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Qandisha warned. “We’ve not yet finished our conversation.” She snapped her fingers, making a beckoning motion at the water. “My friends will find you rude.” She spread her hands, illuminating the river.
Nahri let out a strangled gasp.
The pale humps floating in the water were not rocks. They were bodies, at least a score of them, in various states of decay. Slain human men who abruptly raised their heads from the water and stared at her with sightless eyes.
Qandisha dropped her hands, and the bodies fell back into the water with a sickening unified splash. “Your countrymen are so welcoming,” she goaded. “‘Ya, sayyida, do you need help?’” she mocked in Egyptian Arabic. “And so very eager to share their whispers of a boat reputed to fly across the Nile as though enchanted.” She tsked. “I’ve been roaming these lands for thousands of years in search of djinn slaves. You really should have taken better care to mask your presence.”
The Empire of Gold Page 20
