The Empire of Gold

by S. A. Chakraborty

  Dara sucked his teeth, resisting the urge to boil the emir’s wine. “We have made overtures to the other tribes, but none have responded positively.” He thought back to the reports he’d been given—true to her word, Manizheh had not allowed him back to court, and he was now forced to rely on secondhand accounts. “The Sahrayn keep attempting to escape on boats they cobble together, Tukharistani bandits have been climbing the walls to steal from Daeva orchards, and the Agnivanshi hung two traders over the midan after they were caught selling grain to the palace. The Geziris and shafit have armed themselves with human weapons and are pushing for open civil war.”

  Muntadhir pursed his lips. “And the Ayaanle?”

  “No one has heard anything from the Ayaanle.”

  “Then that should concern you more than the rest.”

  Dara waited, but when Muntadhir didn’t explain, he threw up his hands. “That is it?”

  Muntadhir gave him an incredulous look. “You could not have broken Daevabad more if you’d literally picked the city up and shaken it. This place is a pile of kindling, and my father spent his entire reign stamping out smoke before it could become flame, only for you and Manizheh to come and dump an ocean of oil over it and light a thousand bonfires. And that was before magic vanished. What did you expect?”

  “That you might help me fix it.”

  The emir drew himself up, all humor vanishing. “I’m not going to help you. Kaveh and Manizheh murdered my father and a thousand other Geziris. Your plan, whose failure you’re mourning, was intended to annihilate my people. I found you trying to enslave my brother. Everything went sideways, and now I am to assist you? Never. If I have found a glimmer of pleasure in all this, it is the assurance that you will destroy yourselves just as spectacularly.”

  Fire burned through his blood, and Dara struggled to check it. Immediately he thought of Zaynab—Muntadhir wore his fear for his sister so openly that it was an easy threat.

  But he’d promised Kartir—he’d promised himself—that he would find another way.

  He eyed the other man. “You are supposed to be the pragmatic one, are you not? If you truly love this city, help me. Please,” Dara added when the emir snorted. “Djinn, I know you hate me. You’ve every right to. But trust that I know too well what happens when cities fall, and Daevabad—our Daevabad—is on the brink. This needn’t end with us all slaughtering one another. Help me save your people.”

  “You’re the greatest threat to my people.” But when Dara gave him a pleading look, Muntadhir let out an irritated sound of defeat. “God, I wish you’d just strangled me. Taking my chances with the afterlife would have been better than this.”

  Dara’s spirits fell. “It is nice.”

  Muntadhir gave him a bewildered look. “Are you speaking from personal experience?” When Dara opened his mouth, Muntadhir held up a hand. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.” He rose to his feet, taking a long sip of his wine. “These overtures to the other tribes … tell me about them.”

  “I burned a section of land in each quarter, and warned them to submit and send tribute immediately.”

  “That was your overture?”

  “Ah, yes, because your father was such a peaceful man.”

  “My father made sure his rewards were more inviting than his threats—and he had centuries of stability and a standing army to back them up, not just a mad Afshin and an even madder Nahid with ifrit friends. You need to make joining your side at least somewhat tempting. Most people just want safety for their families, food on the table, and a roof overhead. Give them that, and they’ll look away from plenty. Give them nothing but violence, and they’ll join with the idealists calling for your head.”

  Dara stared at him. “You really are your father’s son.”

  Muntadhir shrugged, but Dara did not miss the tremble of his hands—the words had struck no matter how he pretended otherwise. “So, you’ve thoroughly isolated and bullied the other tribes. How do things stand with the Daevas?”

  “The Daevas are on our side, of course.”

  “Oh?”

  “Granted, Kartir and some of the priests are not pleased by the violence nor the presence of the ifrit, and I have not had much success recruiting new soldiers—”

  “I’m going to stop you there.” Muntadhir gave Dara a shrewd look, the pearly scar dividing his brow where he’d been scourged glinting in the sun. “The Daevas in this city aren’t fools. They’re survivors, and you are an outsider who has visited violence upon them twice.”

  Dara bristled. “I’m no outsider. I have been fighting for my people since—”

  “You are an outsider,” Muntadhir said firmly. “You are foreign to this century, Manizheh is foreign to the struggles of daily life in the quarter, and Kaveh grew up on a country estate where he likely saw a djinn once a year. You are all outsiders to Daevabad’s Daevas, and you rushed in to save them—I assume without actually consulting any of them, yes? You want my advice? Make sure you have the support of your own people before reaching out to the other tribes. That was how we ruled.”

  “Your brother mounted a successful insurrection among the Geziris the same night we attacked.”

  “Which is why he stood a very good chance of taking my father down. It is those we are closest to who have an opportunity to observe our weaknesses best, and I take it your Manizheh has surrounded herself with Daevas.”

  Regardless of how strained his relationship with Manizheh was, a protective instinct raced down Dara’s spine. “What do you suggest?”

  “Reach out to your tribe’s nobles. The Daeva noble houses are among the oldest and most respected in our world. More important—for now—is that they control most of the arable land outside the city walls and at least half the trade.”

  Dara grimaced. Kaveh had also said something about the Daeva nobles, hadn’t he? “We seized much of the land outside the city right after the conquest. We wanted to secure the harvest, should trade with the outside world not resume quickly.”

  “Does ‘seized’ imply no payment was exchanged?”

  “We are working on it.”

  “Work faster,” Muntadhir warned. “Those houses are the backbone of this city. Many survived not only the fall of the Nahids, but all the civil wars and squabbles that have plagued us since. They’ll still be standing when neither the Nahids nor Qahtanis are.”

  Dara didn’t like the sound of any of that, and he didn’t like thinking his people so easily divided and greedy for riches. “Kaveh is from a noble house. Surely he already knows this.”

  Muntadhir gave him a patronizing smile. “I would take comfort in your ignorance if it didn’t affect my people. Kaveh is from the countryside; his family could be in Daevabad another eight centuries, and they still would not be viewed as equals among the nobles I’m talking about. They like that he earned them additional concessions and court positions while he was grand wazir, but they mocked his accent behind his back and would have died of shame before allowing their daughters to marry his son.”

  “That son is the same man you profess to love,” Dara pointed out. “Are you so dishonorable that you mocked his name behind his back?”

  Muntadhir grinned widely. “Oh no, Afshin. I drew my khanjar and threatened to open all their throats the first time they attempted to mock him in my presence. But then I smiled and sent them all home with gold, and strangely, Jamshid found himself receiving more invitations.” He shrugged. “I knew my part, and I played it well. There will always be people who crave the attention of princes and you can go as far with wine, conversation, and glamour as you can with weapons. Putting aside the fact that we’d all stab each other in the back if our fortunes changed, I found their company quite enjoyable. Some very talented poets in the bunch.”

  Dara opened and closed his mouth, suddenly feeling rather provincial himself. Never again would he take for granted the simple ease of sitting around a cookfire with fellow soldiers. “And these honey-mouthed snobs with more coin than tribal
loyalty are your … friends?”

  “You could use that word,” Muntadhir said, sounding almost cheerful. The topic of murderous court intrigue seemed to energize him. “The kind of tribal loyalty of which you are so fond has its limits. Manizheh was more feared and greeted with awe than loved by the Daevas when she lived here. You are definitely feared. Kaveh has good political instincts, but he just proved he’s a disloyal traitor who plotted the massacre of children. Not to mention that the rest of the city openly hates you and is probably planning your demise. Why would families clever enough to have navigated centuries of occupation publicly support you? Far better to wait until you inevitably implode and then deal with whoever rises from the dust.”

  Dara indeed felt ready to implode. “Then how do we get the nobles on our side?”

  Muntadhir twirled the cup in his hand. “I watched you turn into fire and survive being crushed by a ceiling. Surely you can conjure grape wine.”

  Checking his temper, Dara grabbed the cup out of Muntadhir’s hands. A moment later, dark crimson swirled inside. “Here you are, Majesty,” he said sarcastically.

  The emir tasted it and smiled. “That’s delicious! Maybe you should abandon this life. Leave the war, go open a tavern in the mountains—”

  “Al Qahtani, you are trying me,” Dara said through his teeth. “How do we get the nobles on our side?”

  The mirth left the other man’s face. “There is one more promise you must make if you want my help. Swear not to hurt my siblings.”

  Dara scowled. “I will not hurt your sister, but Alizayd is another matter. He allied with the marid to slaughter my men. If your brother comes before me again, I will kill him.”

  “You allied with the marid to bring down the Citadel and slaughter virtually everyone he knew, you insufferable hypocrite.” Muntadhir’s eyes narrowed. “Swear not to hurt my siblings. Swear on Nahri’s life. Those are my terms.”

  Cursing inwardly, Dara touched his heart. “Fine. I will not harm them, I swear on Nahri.”

  “Good.” Muntadhir took another long sip of wine. “You should throw a feast.”

  “A feast?” Dara spat. “I am to stay my hand from cutting down a hated enemy because you told me to hold a party?”

  “You asked for my advice, and I know the nobles well. They want to be made to feel important, and they’ll want to see signs of stability. Convince them you can rule, that you have a plan for peace, a way to bring magic back, and you may be surprised by the quiet methods they have of reaching out to their counterparts in the other tribes.”

  A feast for the rich fools who’d paid lip service to Ghassan all these years. Dara fumed. That was not the Daevabad he’d dreamed of returning to.

  But the Daevabad he’d dreamed of was long gone—if it had ever existed.

  Still, he pressed on. “Nahri had allies among these people?” He couldn’t imagine the acid-tongued former slum dweller having the patience for these kinds of festivities.

  “No,” Muntadhir replied. “Nahri was actually beloved by her people. Because she teased their children in the Temple gardens, listened to their gripes in the infirmary, and used her dowry to fund weddings for the poor. She was not inclined to flatter nobles, and because I wasn’t inclined to see her power eclipse mine, I didn’t advise her to.”

  “A very happy couple you must have made. You know, when you weren’t sleeping with her brother.”

  If the rebuke landed, Dara couldn’t tell; the words seemed to slide past Muntadhir like water. He must have had a lot of experience in letting them do so, Dara realized. The court life Muntadhir spoke of sounded as deadly as a battlefield, and yet he’d navigated it for decades, holding tight to a lover he would never have been able to openly declare, checking an ambitious brother whose fervent allies would have happily seen Muntadhir strangled in his sleep, and dealing with a tyrant of a father.

  A dangerous man. Muntadhir might not wield a zulfiqar like his brother, but Dara briefly wished it was Alizayd in his place. An armed duel, Dara could fight, but in this realm, he was not Muntadhir’s equal.

  The former emir seemed to be studying Dara in the same way. “Manizheh is going to have to embrace me as her son-in-law. At least publicly. It will look like she’s attempting to preserve something of the old order and making a true outreach to the djinn.”

  “And if Nahri does not wish to remain married to you?”

  “One problem at a time, Afshin.” Muntadhir gestured to his rags. “Though on that note, you’ll need to clean me up. I can hardly visit my dear mother looking like this.”

  “That may present its own difficulty.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning this has been mostly hypothetical. I’ve been demoted and Banu Manizheh doesn’t wish to see me.”

  Muntadhir sighed. “You’re really going to make me work for this, aren’t you?” He set down his wine. “Let’s get started, then.”

  20

  NAHRI

  In the dim light of the ship’s tiny cabin, Nahri pressed her fingers against the pulse in Ali’s wrist.

  “Your heart sounds okay,” she murmured, moving her examination up to study the bruised knot on his temple where she’d hit him with the oar. “How’s the bump?”

  Ali’s groggy eyes rolled up to meet her gaze. “Well, there’s no longer two of you.”

  Guilt rushed over her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. You were fighting us, and I was so worried that if you went overboard—”

  He touched her wrist. “It’s all right. Really.” It looked like Ali was trying to smile, but then he winced, the movement clearly pulling at the sizable swollen egg still rising on his face. “I’ll take getting knocked out over being lured into the sea by mysterious voices any day.”

  Nahri went to move her hand to his heart. “Do you want me to try and heal—”

  “No.” His fingers instantly tightened on her wrist. “Don’t heal me. I don’t think we should be doing any healing magic while we’re still at sea. Not after the way Sobek spoke about the Nahids. I don’t want any new marid learning about you, especially not while we’re floating in their realm.”

  She sat back. “So you do think it was the marid who possessed you last night?”

  “I think it was the marid, but I’m not sure they possessed me.” Ali shivered, water beading on his brow. “When the marid took me on the lake, when Sobek rooted through my memories, I knew what was happening. I could feel their intrusion. Last night wasn’t that. I was myself the entire time. I wanted to throw myself in the ocean. I wanted to drown al Mudhib and his men. To devour them,” he whispered, sounding sick. “When I looked at you, it was like you were a stranger.” He met her gaze, and the open fear in his eyes sent ice flooding through every inch of her body. “I don’t know what that means, Nahri.”

  She had never seen him sound so afraid—and she and Ali had faced a lot together. Nahri suddenly saw him falling to his knees as Manizheh tortured him, heard him crying out as he vanished beneath a mob of ravenous ghouls.

  She took a sharp breath against the dread barreling through her chest. “It means no more marid magic. Not at sea and not when we get back to shore. Don’t use it again. Not ever.”

  Ali sighed. “We’re at war, and it’s the only power I have.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter. We have an entire city to—”

  “It doesn’t matter. You don’t want any more marid learning about me? Well, I don’t want any more luring you to your death. We’ll find another way to fight, okay?” Still seeing reluctance in his expression, Nahri added more urgently. “Please.” She leaned forward, pulling a blanket she’d borrowed from the crew over Ali’s body and tucking it in place around his shoulders. “I don’t want to lose you. I can’t.”

  The fervor in her response seemed to take Ali aback. This close, Nahri could feel the steamy heat rising from his skin beneath the thin blanket. He tried to smile again. “You really never are letting me out o
f your debt, are you?”

  It was clearly a joke, but Nahri felt like she’d just been kicked in the heart. The sight of him attempting to smile, sick and weak, made her feel helpless.

  It made her feel something she was not ready to, like she’d unknowingly taken a couple steps on a path Nahri realized only now was unsteady, with no way to go back.

  No. Don’t do this. Not again. Not now.

  Nahri shot to her feet. “I’m going to see if I can’t steep some willow bark,” she said, forcing a strained professionalism into her voice. Work, her most favored distancing technique. “It will help with your pain. No, don’t talk—” she added, raising a hand when Ali opened his mouth. “Just rest. Doctor’s orders.”

  Then she slipped out of the cabin, shut the door, and leaned against it, closing her eyes. It was fine. Everything was fine. Her heart was a goddamned unreliable traitor, but that was fine too—Nahri was well experienced at ignoring its foolish, irrational impulses. She opened her eyes, hoping the sight of the bright, sunlit sea might help clear her head.

  Everything was not fine.

  The water was unnaturally still, a flat plain of pale glass that reflected broken slivers of sky. Broken, because as far as the eye could see, clumps of seaweed choked the tropical water, gnarled mats of rotting vegetation that had ensnarled cracked shells, rotting crabs, and the bleached skeletons of fanged fish.

  Nahri inhaled, smelling death on the salty air. She didn’t know much about the sea, but she suspected, deep in her bones, this wasn’t normal.

  A surge of protectiveness burned through her, laced with anger. Good. Nahri knew anger. She trusted anger, preferred it.

  “I’ll kill you,” she warned under her breath, glaring at the ocean. Maybe it was time she leaned into the fire and brimstone part of her Nahid heritage. “Come for him again, and I’ll kill you all.”

  “Well, isn’t that just the kind of level headedness I like to hear from people on my ship.” Nahri glanced up to see Fiza perched on the roof of the tiny cabin, a smoking pipe in hand. “How’s your lover?”