The Empire of Gold

by S. A. Chakraborty

  “The only thing Hatset wants to find in these books is a way to magically compel Ali to stay in Ta Ntry forever. And I wouldn’t trust Nahid secrets to any djinn she hires. No, this is on you and me alone.”

  “So me alone.”

  “You know, you’ve gotten very rude now that you know you’re fallen royalty.” Nahri lay back on her cushion to admire the carved coral ceiling above her. It was stunning, a masterpiece of geometry and art that spread out in intricate diamonds and whorls. Everything in Shefala’s library was similarly beautiful. Though smaller than the vast cavern of books back in Daevabad’s palace, the library was well stocked and elegant with soaring mahogany shelves and curved floor desks that allowed for small nooks of privacy beside the long windows. On sunny days, light streamed in, but with the approaching monsoon, the sky had darkened, and Nahri and Jamshid had resorted to well-guarded oil lamps. Banked fires kept the damp chill away, and save for their voices, the place was silent as a tomb.

  Tomb might have been an accurate word, because it was difficult not to feel trapped. Jamshid and Nahri were guarded day and night, delivered to the library after a sunrise breakfast and staying through the evening. It was ostensibly their choice to spend every minute scouring the Nahid texts for ways to take down Manizheh and Dara, but it still felt too much like Daevabad. Nahri hated needing guards, but she feared the stares—both curious and hostile—of the castle’s soldiers more.

  Then perhaps you should protect yourself and marry the prince they all adore.

  It was not the first time the thought had occurred to her. Hatset’s offer had buried itself under Nahri’s skin as it had most certainly been meant to. And Nahri hated it. She couldn’t look at Ali, whose company she badly missed, without worrying about the whispers it would provoke. Without wondering whether Hatset had suggested such a marriage to him, and if he found himself just as torn between duty and politics and useless, messy feelings.

  “Oh … oh, this is interesting,” Jamshid said, excitement rising in his voice.

  Happy to be pulled from her thoughts, Nahri sat up. “Does it tell us how to immobilize overly powerful Afshin warriors and restore magic to the entire djinn world?”

  Jamshid’s face fell. He’d long abandoned his serious scholar pose of sitting at the desk and was now lying on his stomach, propped up on bent elbows. “Well, no. But it mentions that the Nahids were beginning to have trouble controlling the marid and traveling through the lake.” He frowned. “It says the marid asked to be released, but that doesn’t make sense. We weren’t controlling them. The stories say they helped Anahid build the city and brought tribute, but …”

  “Dear brother, if there is anything I have learned since summoning a daeva, it’s that those in power have a rather biased view of how they treat the people who ‘bring’ them tribute.”

  “Fair point.” Jamshid glanced up with a grin. “I like when you call me that. Awful, awful extenuating circumstances aside, I’m glad to have learned of at least one secret relative.” He sighed. “Though the fight I’m going to have with my father when I see him again …”

  You will answer for the choice you just made. Not tonight. Not to me … but you will answer. Kaveh’s words played in Nahri’s memory—the threat he’d voiced after she refused to lure Ali to his death to save Jamshid.

  Her throat caught. “I’m sure.”

  Jamshid glanced down at his book and then blanched. “Suleiman’s eye … apparently they stopped traveling through the lake because Nahids who tried ended up washing up on the beach with their body parts rearranged—sometimes still alive. It says the water was entirely cursed shortly after, and that was the last time anyone heard from the marid.” He turned the page. “Oh. There’s a drawing. How … thorough.”

  Nahri held her tongue. Another secret. She hadn’t spoken to Ali about the marid since they arrived in Ta Ntry—mostly because she was avoiding him, but she wasn’t spilling his most dangerous secret, not even to her brother.

  She changed the subject. “I wonder if that’s how we ended up in Egypt. If I unknowingly transported Ali and myself using the lake’s magic.”

  “It might have been, if Egypt was on your mind,” Jamshid said distractedly. He turned another page, handling the delicate parchment as though it were the wing of a butterfly. “I still can’t believe these books have been here all this time. When I think of the good they could have done back in Daevabad, actually being read and studied in the Grand Temple instead of being locked up to gather dust …” He shook his head, bitterness creasing his face. “What else doesn’t our tribe know about its history and culture because our enemies robbed us of our heritage?”

  “Probably a lot.”

  Jamshid sat up, quickly glancing at the door. “Then can I ask you something?” When Nahri nodded, he continued. “Are you sure, really sure, that we’re going down the right path?”

  “Jamshid, we’ve discussed this. And you agreed—”

  “I didn’t. I said that I’d listen, and I’m trying, Nahri. I’m really trying. But every day we’re locked in here like prisoners, and I read about our stolen past …” He turned to her, his eyes seeking understanding. “You are the cleverest person I know, and I trust you. But when I look at our guards, I see Ghassan’s thugs. I see soldiers who broke into Daeva homes and beat Daeva men when they were drunk and didn’t like the look of someone passing them on the street.”

  “And do you not think they feel the same? That some of them look at us and see the ‘fire worshippers’ who murdered their friends in the Citadel? This was never going to be easy.”

  “I know, but …” Jamshid ran his hands over his face. “My whole life, I never imagined there could be anything different. The Daevas had been crushed by the Qahtanis for centuries before I was born. It would continue for centuries after. It was inevitable. Even Muntadhir—the man I loved, who I prayed might be kinder—was getting pulled into it. And now?” he whispered. “It’s under Daeva rule again. Like it was in the glory age of these books. It feels like maybe we’re fools to consider undoing that.”

  A chill raced down Nahri’s back. “It wasn’t a glory age for everyone, Jamshid. You speak as though there are only djinn and Daevas in Daevabad. What about the shafit? How do you think they feel about a Nahid ruling over them, about the Scourge of Qui-zi returning?”

  “It’s not like the last few Qahtani kings treated them much better.”

  “Yes, but a central tenet of their religion didn’t teach that they were vermin.”

  Now her brother looked openly annoyed. “That’s not what our texts teach. I’m not going to pretend we don’t have bigots willing to twist our faith, that there are plenty of Daevas who look down upon the shafit, but Creator, sometimes …”

  “Sometimes what? What?” Nahri demanded when he trailed off.

  “Sometimes you sound just as angry as them, okay?” Jamshid seemed embarrassed but continued. “And I understand, I do. I know you grew up in the human world, and you’re close to Subha—”

  “You understand nothing.”

  Jamshid blinked, looking taken aback by the fury Nahri couldn’t keep out of her voice. But not for long. “Then maybe you could tell me? It feels like you’re keeping all these secrets, like you still don’t trust me.”

  I don’t. And that made Nahri feel awful. But she could barely breathe right now. She didn’t have it in her to personally walk her brother through dismantling whatever prejudices he still held toward the shafit, while managing everything else tearing up her life.

  “I think I’m done for the day,” she announced. “I’m not feeling well.”

  “I … all right.” Jamshid sighed. It was obvious they both knew she was lying. “Why don’t I stay here and keep reading so I don’t bother you?”

  Nahri gritted her teeth, fighting back a sarcastic response. You wanted a family. Now she had one, thorns and all. “Fine. Then I’ll see you at dinner.”

  29

  ALI

  Ali examined th
e silver coins in his palm. “And these are the coins you were given?” he asked the shafit carpenter in front of him.

  “The very ones, my prince.” The carpenter gestured angrily at a pair of djinn across from him: a Sahrayn ship captain and his Ayaanle trading partner. “My people and I worked from dawn until dusk on their sandship, and the bastards still cheated me.”

  Ali chipped a coin with his nail, a few silver flakes breaking off to reveal the copper beneath. “Paint?” he asked, giving the traders an annoyed look. “Really?”

  The Ayaanle merchant crossed his arms. “Copper is the rate for shafit laborers anyway.”

  “Wages don’t vary based on your nonsense ideas about blood. Not in Shefala.” Ali put the coins back in the small cloth sack. “Where is the rest of the money you owe them?”

  The merchant glowered. “We don’t have it right now.”

  “Alas, then you don’t have a ship either.” Ali glanced at Fiza, who stood beside him. “Captain … surely there are ways to ensure a ship doesn’t leave our coast until its debts are paid?”

  She grinned wickedly. “I can think of a few.”

  “Then it’s settled. The ship stays here until you’ve paid your workers, with an additional dirham for every day the pair of you delay.” Ali glanced at the carpenter. “Does that sound fair?”

  The carpenter still looked upset but nodded. “Yes. Thank you, Prince Alizayd.”

  “I’m happy to help.”

  He and Fiza left, winding through the forest of boats dragged up on the sand for repairs. Their variety was a marvel to behold: sandships and luminescent mirrored glass skiffs sitting alongside human dhows with intricately carved wooden prows and a small dugout loaded with fishing nets. The beach was the most crowded Ali had seen; it was an overcast day, and he supposed people were taking advantage of the cool weather to work and prepare their boats for the coming monsoon rains.

  “So how many meetings left today?” Fiza asked conversationally. “Fifty? Sixty?”

  “I’ve stopped counting,” Ali replied. Word had spread like wildfire that he and Nahri were in Shefala looking for allies interested in taking back and building a new kind of Daevabad. But for every new arrival who seemed earnest, there was another digging for money, a future post, or score-settling, and it was as maddening as it was time-consuming. Their people were at war, tens of thousands at the mercy of Manizheh and Dara, and yet here Ali was, spending hours settling unrelated squabbles just to get this clan or another to join his side.

  Then declare yourself king and command them, his mother’s voice whispered in his head. Though Ali hadn’t exactly jumped up on the minbar and announced the dissolution of the nobility—despite what Hatset thought, he was taking this slow—he’d made clear no one would be forced to fight. He was careful to speak of what they were pulling together as a rescue mission instead of just another war of conquest; a mission to save their kin, restore their magic, and shape a new kind of future for Daevabad. He’d kept to his mornings at the mosque, trying to gently lay out some of his ideas and make sure he was accessible to those who wanted to speak with him.

  It turned out there were many people who wanted to speak to him. Many. And though Fiza and Wajed were helping Ali as much as they could, his grandfather’s mind wandered, and Ali and his mother had remained in a testy détente since their argument in the library. Hatset was offering material support and shelter—and providing the public perception that all was well between them—but she wouldn’t speak with him until he promised to declare himself king. “You want my counsel?” she’d asked. “I have given it. Stop acting like a starry-eyed fool and be the man your name implies.”

  As for Nahri, they’d barely spoken. She spent all her time in the library with Jamshid and seemed exhausted and distant when he did track her down. “I’m just tired,” she insisted when Ali had finally broken the other evening and begged to know what he had done wrong. “You try spending all day attempting to decipher ancient texts while being glared at by soldiers.”

  He and Fiza emerged from the thicket of boats, climbing the sandy slope that led back to the town. With every step Ali took away from the ocean, he could feel it entreating him back, making him yearn for the touch of the surf twining around his ankles, the promised ease of floating in the warm, buoyant water and letting his muscles unwind.

  No t a chance. Ali hadn’t set as much as a toe in the sea since arriving in Shefala, and he had no intention of doing so anytime soon.

  “It’s going to rain,” Fiza said, tugging him from his thoughts. She was looking at the gray sky with open displeasure. “I hate the monsoon. That much water should not fall from the sky.”

  But Ali’s attention was still on the boats crowding the beach. “I wish I had a navy,” he mused.

  “Excuse me, you wish you had a what?”

  “A navy. Or perhaps that’s not the right word.” Ali’s crash course in sailing down the Nile aside, he knew little about ships. “A fleet, then, like the one Zaydi was said to have brought to Daevabad’s lake. With ships and djinn from all over the magical world.”

  “And how long did it take Zaydi to assemble such a fleet?”

  “Decades,” Ali admitted. “But still, could you imagine such a thing?”

  “Alizayd, I’m learning your grasp on reality isn’t the firmest, but you do know there’s no way to simply conjure up a hundred ships, sail them to dozens of different djinn ports, convince people to follow you, and then arrive in a landlocked lake, yes?”

  He shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. I once convinced the most fearsome, cunning pirate on the Ntaran coast to mutiny.”

  Fiza broke off a twig and threw it at his head. “You didn’t convince me of anything. I took advantage of your desperation.”

  “What if I put you in charge? You could be an admiral.”

  “The only thing more unlikely than you getting your hands on a fleet is thinking you’d get that many djinn to take orders from a shafit criminal.”

  Ali clucked his tongue. “You underestimate yourself. Your crew greatly admires you, and you’ve got an excellent mind for details and management—”

  Fiza groaned. “Was another man complimenting me so, I’d think he was trying to get in my bed, but you’re worse—you’re trying to properly recruit me now, aren’t you?”

  “Is it working?”

  “No.” They passed under a pair of shade trees. It really did suddenly seem so much darker, slivers of bruise-colored sky visible beyond the leafy canopy. As if to mock Fiza’s earlier comment, it began to drizzle. “I’m only here because your mother’s kitchens are incredible, and Nahri still needs to find a way to get this out of my neck.” She yanked down her collar, revealing the metal snake below her skin.

  Ali didn’t buy Fiza’s indifference. “Every time I see that brand, it makes me angry. It must make you furious.” He turned to address her properly. “Fiza, I know someone like me has little right to ask you to risk your life, but—”

  A spike of pain cracked his skull.

  Ali gasped, falling to his knees. He reached for his head, and his fingers came away wet—but with rainwater, not blood. It felt like he’d been hit with a hammer, every beat of his heart sending a new ache thudding through his temple.

  “Aye, are you all right?” Fiza asked.

  Ali winced. “I think something hit me.” He touched the spot again. Though it felt like he’d been struck across the brow, oddly enough the pain now felt … deeper, throbbing in waves beneath his skull.

  “I don’t see anything.” When Ali didn’t reply, she knelt at his side. “You don’t look right. Should I get Nahri?”

  “I …” But Ali was having trouble putting words together. He was shivering now, sweat breaking out across his face as the rain began to fall harder. The pain in his head was lessening, replaced by a drumming buzz underneath his damp skin. Each raindrop seemed to ping against something inside him, as though Ali were the surface of a pond, the light patter rippling across him.
>
  I had a pain in my head like this once—moments before the lake rose to swallow the Citadel. “Fiza,” he whispered, “we need to get those people off the beach.”

  Without warning, the rain turned drenching. The wind howled, tearing at Ali’s robe and pulling him in the direction of the sea. Below he could hear sailors cursing and running to secure ropes and tools.

  Fiza hauled him to his feet, ignoring his protests. “Forget the beach. I’m taking you to your Nahid.”

  But they’d only just gone around the bend when it became very clear the direction of the castle offered no refuge.

  The western sky was a cauldron, storm clouds churning and boiling like foam on an unwatched pot. The land was going darker by the moment, as though someone had upset a great well of black ink across the horizon.

  “The monsoon rains,” Ali asked, “are they supposed to look like that?”

  Fiza had paled. “No.” She turned around and then abruptly let go of him. “Your eyes …” Horror swept her expression. “There’s something wrong with them.”

  “My eyes?” On instinct, Ali went to touch his face, but the sight of his hands stopped him. Tendrils of water were dancing over his fingers. It looked like the kind of marid magic Ali himself used to summon.

  But Ali wasn’t doing this.

  No. Oh, no. “Fiza,” he said, dread washing over him. Run.

  But Ali didn’t get to finish the word. A presence burst into his head, both alien and terribly familiar. It seized him, stole him, and then without willing his limbs to move, Ali grabbed Fiza by the arm and smashed her against the nearest tree.

  She crumpled to the ground, blood running down her face and mingling with the rain.

  “YOU BETTER NOT BE DEAD,” THE MARID WARNED, speaking through Ali’s mouth and eyeing the mortal girl lying still in the grass. “My people grow weary of these debts.” They tossed a leafy branch over the girl’s body to better conceal her. One could never take too many precautions.

  The marid closed the eyes of the djinn they’d taken, ignoring the whispers of the wind trying to tempt them back to the clouds. They’d been sent to investigate other whispers, the sightings of worried creek sprites and gossiping ocean swells.