The Empire of Gold

by S. A. Chakraborty

  “You remember those things you said to me on the roof?” Nahri asked. “About knowing how Ghassan had controlled me? About how much you were like me?” Manizheh gave her a wary look, and Nahri continued. “You were right, you know. You were exactly right. And for that I’m sorry. I’m sorry you and I didn’t grow up in a time of peace, where we could have lived happily together. Where you could have raised Jamshid and me and taught us the Nahid sciences. I mourn, truly, the kind of relationship we could have had.”

  Manizheh’s expression grew guarded. “Please think very carefully about what you’re getting ready to say, daughter. There will not be another chance.”

  Nahri steeled herself, reaching for her magic. “Ghassan didn’t break me.” Like he clearly cracked you, she was tempted to add. “You won’t either. I will never surrender to you. I would rather die than see you possess Suleiman’s seal.”

  Genuine sorrow swept over Manizheh’s face. “You have your father’s spirit,” she said softly. “It got him killed too.” She turned to Dara. “Rip that ring off her finger right now.”

  Nahri didn’t even have a chance to react to the words about her father before Dara rose shakily to his feet, taking a stunted step forward.

  She backed away, quickly appraising her situation. Nahri had the seal ring and the palace magic, but Mishmish was badly injured, and Manizheh had the peri’s blade. If she was smart, she’d use the palace magic to try and take Dara out, but watching him even now visibly fight the slave curse, ash beading off his skin …

  “Afshin,” Manizheh warned as Dara grunted. “I can alter the wish to have you remove her entire hand if the ring alone is too much trouble.”

  With a groan, Dara lunged for Nahri.

  An arrow went straight through his wrist.

  Dara gasped as it was followed by two more, arrows punching into his arm and chest and knocking him back.

  “You were wrong, Mother,” Nahri said. “I’m not alone.”

  Jamshid came soaring over the garden wall.

  An enormous bow in hand, her brother made for an alarming sight on the ghoulish flying simurgh, but Nahri had never been so happy to see him.

  She also didn’t waste a moment—taking advantage of Manizheh and Dara’s shock to dart past the wounded Afshin and through the burning trees to Mishmish’s side. One of his wings was tattered, a gash across his flank deep enough to reveal bone. Nahri laid her hands on his bloody fur, commanding the wounds to heal. The laceration vanished, his wing stitching back together.

  Jamshid landed, the stench from the half-dead simurgh hitting her hard. “Nahri!” He jumped from the ensorcelled firebird, sprinting to her side. “Are you all right?”

  Nahri waved a hand in front of her face, coughing on the fumes. “Your timing couldn’t be better.”

  Jamshid grinned back, a mix of fear and pride on his face. “See what happens when guilt gets the better of you?”

  Nahri flushed, because that was indeed what had happened.

  She hadn’t been able to abandon Jamshid, not after he’d thrown her own words back at her. She’d gotten close—but in the end, Nahri couldn’t do it. Instead, she’d returned to where she’d drugged him, waited until the poison was out of his body, and then wept as she begged for forgiveness.

  Jamshid had been furious, rightfully betrayed and hurt.

  But then he’d helped her plot.

  And now they were here. Nahri grabbed him by the shoulder. “Were you able to find—”

  She shut her mouth. Dara was coming for her again.

  Jamshid shoved Nahri behind him and drew his sword. “Stop where you are, Afshin!”

  “He can’t. He doesn’t have a choice!” Nahri said in a rushed explanation. “Manizheh enslaved him.”

  “She exaggerates.”

  Their mother had joined them.

  “Dara, stand down,” Manizheh continued tersely, and Dara swayed, falling back. With Jamshid’s arrows still sticking out of his back, he looked like a puppet with cut strings.

  But the woman controlling those strings had eyes for only one person.

  “It’s you, isn’t it?” Manizheh whispered, the ghost of hope in her voice. “Jamshid.”

  Jamshid was gazing at their mother with a look of open, fragile wonder. “Yes,” he said hoarsely.

  Manizheh stepped closer, seeming to drink him in. A lifetime of longing flickered in her eyes, a wave of regret not even their mother, normally so careful, could conceal. “You were in their custody for so long … Are you all right? Have they hurt you?”

  “I’m—I’m okay,” Jamshid stammered out. “But my father …” Grief edged his voice. “Is what your messenger said true?”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “I’m so very sorry, my child. I wished you to be here when we returned him to the flames but didn’t want to delay his soul’s rites.” She nodded at his sword—Jamshid hadn’t lowered it. “You can put that down. I’m not going to hurt you. I would never hurt you.”

  Nahri opened her mouth, having a number of very rude responses to that, but Jamshid beat her to a reply.

  “You have hurt me,” he choked out. Something seemed to have broken inside him, words and emotions he must have locked away long ago. “You left me. You took my magic away, magic that might have healed me when I couldn’t walk. You, Baba, you all lied. My entire life is a lie.”

  “I had no choice.” Manizheh moved closer still, looking like she wanted nothing more than to touch him. “I knew you’d be freer and happier in Zariaspa than you could have ever been trapped in Daevabad as my son.”

  Jamshid was shaking. “I don’t believe you.” But even so, he’d slightly lowered his sword.

  “I understand. And I’m sorry.” Manizheh took a deep breath. “I can only imagine how many questions you have. How angry and frightened you both must be,” she added, looking at Nahri as well. “I would even understand if you hate me. But I promise that I’ll explain everything in time. We’re together again now, and that’s all that matters.”

  Nahri watched anguish roll over Jamshid’s face. “It’s not. I’m sorry. But there was a reason Nahri arrived here before me.”

  The earth began to tremble.

  It was a slight movement initially, no more than a shudder. But then a second tremor came, enough to provoke a shower of smoldering leaves from the burning branches above. It must have rained recently, for the garden was pocked with puddles, and the one nearest began to ripple. The water rose and fell as though a great plunger were thrusting in and out.

  “Banu Manizheh!” A very out-of-breath scout raced down the path. He skittered to a stop, looking hastily at Mishmish and the two young Nahids. But not even the presence of a shedu and Manizheh’s estranged children stopped his warning.

  “There’s something wrong with the lake,” he panted. “These mists—they appeared from nowhere. And the water is rising, the waves breaking over the walls.”

  Hope rushed through Nahri so fast it left her breathless.

  Manizheh clearly didn’t miss Nahri’s reaction, her eyes narowing at her children. “The top of the palace, Afshin,” she ordered. “Now.”

  With a burst of magic smelling like decayed viscera, the garden beneath them abruptly rose as though the patch of grass had been carved out and shoved upward. Jamshid grabbed Nahri’s arm to steady her. His simurgh didn’t make it, tumbling into the rain of falling rocks and twisted roots, but Mishmish flew clear, flapping his wings to follow as they tumbled unceremoniously to the top of the palace ziggurat.

  The sky was dimming, great walls of fog rising to veil the sun. Nahri rushed to the edge of the parapet, her heart in her throat.

  Please, she prayed. Let me have this.

  Vast clouds of mist blossomed across the surface of the lake, dancing over the dark water. Pale shapes swam just below—jagged spikes and great billowing fins. Curves that might have been sails and enormous bristling spears.

  And then the boats began to emerge.

  First there wer
e just a handful. Then dozens. Scores. Calling them boats might have been a kindness, for they were more like the cobbled-together skeletons of hundreds of different shipwrecks with barnacle-encrusted booms and massive rusted anchors set as battering rams. More slipped out of the fog as Nahri watched, dhows and galleons, ancient triremes and the pleasure boats of forgotten sun kings. Banners flew from their masts, hastily painted with vibrant colors and sigils.

  Tribal sigils. Nahri exhaled as Jamshid joined her. “So Fiza wasn’t lying,” she whispered.

  “Fiza definitely wasn’t lying.”

  He’s building an army. The unbelievable words came back to Nahri, the words Fiza had shouted when she came soaring out of the sea on a skiff of teak and sandblasted glass, sailing so fast along an unnatural wave that it looked like she was flying, landing on Shefala’s beach literally the morning Nahri and Jamshid had planned to leave for Daevabad. The shafit captain, dressed in clothes that looked like they had been taken from an Agnivanshi noble—and they had been, Nahri had learned: a noble in Agnivansha—had seemed like a hallucination, her words even madder. “He’s tied up in negotiations with some sand-dragon riders out in Tukharistan, but the prince is coming, I swear!” Fiza had insisted.

  Ali had apparently survived his submission to Tiamat.

  But Fiza’s breathless tale of flitting through rivers and streams, over vast oceans and underneath icy lakes in the blink of an eye to gather djinn from around the world, had not changed the ultimatum Manizheh’s envoy had made: in three days, the Qahtani siblings would be executed if Jamshid was not returned to her.

  Which meant he had three days to find Ali and his mysterious army and get them back to Daevabad before Nahri faced their enemy alone. It had been more than a gamble, it had been a fleeting shot in the dark, a prayer.

  Nahri supposed then it wasn’t always bad to have a little faith.

  Yet her relief was edged with dread now. Because no matter Fiza’s rushed words, this … this fleet of drowned ships was not what Nahri had expected. Sobek had made damn clear how he felt about mortals, and the marid did nothing for free; there was always a price.

  What price had Ali paid for all this?

  Then make it worth it. Because Nahri could see opportunity in the awe-inspiring sight below them. Maybe this didn’t have to end in bloodshed.

  She turned to face her mother. Manizheh’s mask was back in place as she assessed the vast array of resurrected warships like it was a group of children armed with sticks, paddling canoes.

  “You’ve already gotten your victory, Mother,” Nahri said. “Ghassan is dead, and our people are free of Qahtani rule. So stand down. We’re not here to quibble over the throne or the past. We’re here, all of us,” she emphasized, pointing to the tribal sigils, “united to save the one home we share. Jamshid and I—we’ll take it from here. You know we’ll look out for the Daevas. Let us. Stand down.”

  “Please, Mother,” Jamshid said softly, the familiar word falling from his lips too as he reached out to touch Manizheh’s hand. “We don’t want to hurt you. We just want peace and for the fighting to stop. Surrender, I beg you.”

  Manizheh didn’t look even slightly swayed. Instead she shot a look at Nahri. “You’re the one who keeps harping on what Dara did to your djinn and shafit neighborhoods … surely you must realize all you’ve done is deliver everyone on those ships to their deaths? With but a few words, I can command him to annihilate your prince and his army.”

  Oh. No, Nahri hadn’t quite realized that fact as immediately, not seeing the potential for mass murder as readily as her mother.

  She thought fast. “I’m guessing that kind of devastation isn’t too precise?”

  Jamshid interrupted. “There doesn’t need to be any devastation!”

  Oh, big brother, you keep trying to love people who don’t deserve you. And Nahri would know, because as Manizheh opened her mouth to give Dara his next command, and Mishmish flew by, Nahri was already moving to use Jamshid yet again.

  “Stay with the ships,” she hissed. “She won’t risk you.”

  His eyes went wide. “Wait, what are you—”

  “You’re the better rider.” Nahri shoved him off the wall.

  Manizheh cried out, reaching for her son, but Jamshid had already landed on Mishmish’s back. He swore, giving Nahri a look that promised the worst of sibling retribution, but then rolled, grabbing Mishmish’s mane and soaring for the lake.

  Manizheh didn’t waste any time. “Get him back, Dara. Now!”

  The Afshin was gone the next moment, on a conjured winged horse of smoke.

  There was murder in Manizheh’s eyes when she whirled on her daughter. Well, that was how it felt when someone called out your weaknesses. And it had been clear since the moment he landed in the garden that Jamshid occupied a far dearer spot in their mother’s heart than Nahri. Her firstborn, her son. The child she shared with the man she had loved and lost.

  No, there would be no orders to annihilate Ali’s army while Jamshid was among them.

  Nahri tried to pull on that tie again. “You’re outnumbered, Manizheh. Don’t make Jamshid watch you die. He’s been through enough. Surrender.”

  “I’m not worried about him watching me die.” Manizheh glanced back at the fog again, as though hoping to see her son, and then beckoned to the Daeva scout who’d had the bad luck to get dragged up along with them and had been cowering since delivering his news. “You—come forward and lend me your knife.”

  Trembling, the scout nonetheless complied, drawing near and handing Manizheh his knife. “Of course, my lady.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Yexi.”

  “Yexi.” Manizheh smiled. “Thank you.”

  She slit his throat.

  Nahri cried out, rushing forward, but Manizheh had already shoved the blade deep, killing the scout before Nahri could get close enough to lay her hands on him. She grabbed her mother’s shoulder.

  Manizheh spun out and slashed Nahri across the cheek.

  It was not a mortal wound. Indeed, Nahri had no sooner fallen back in shock than it was already healing, the sting fading. But though they were facing each other as enemies, though they’d just threatened each other plenty, there was something about actually being cut—intentionally hurt, by her own mother—that sent Nahri reeling. She touched her cheek, her fingers coming away bloody.

  There was a trace of regret in Manizheh’s eyes. “I truly did want things to be different between us.” She was still holding the knife, now wet with Nahri’s blood. More poured from the murdered scout, his lifeblood steaming and boiling as a column of sick haze rose from his body like a flare.

  From the sky, two crashes of thunder returned it.

  Nahri was backing away before the lightning even flashed, leaving two figures against the bright explosion.

  This time it was the ifrit.

  AESHMA GRINNED, LICKING HIS FANGS AS HE STROLLED nearer. The ifrit leader was decked out for battle in a battered bronze chest plate, his massive bloodstained mace resting on one shoulder and chains looped around the other. Behind him, Vizaresh looked no less malevolent, twirling an ax.

  “I was wondering when you would call for us,” Aeshma said in greeting. “Such exciting things happening below. You know, I could be wrong, but I do believe the marid have returned to avenge themselves on you.”

  “Those boats will be the grave of everyone upon them.” Manizheh turned to Vizaresh. “You told me you could make those slain on the lake rise, yes?”

  “For a price.”

  “Your price awaits in the Grand Temple. There’s a small pavilion on the third level facing the south. Behind that is the room you seek.”

  “And my price?” Aeshma asked sharply.

  Manizheh handed over the knife, still wet with Nahri’s blood. “Consider our pact complete. I want my enemies destroyed. Those on the lake. Those in the city. Those in the palace. Any who would dare stand against me.”

  Nahri was moving fo
rward before her mother had even finished her genocidal demands. The room in the Grand Temple … she knew that room. Knew what was kept in the room. And Nahri would be damned if the ifrit were getting in there.

  Aeshma struck the bloody knife against the chains he was holding and then turned to her with a wicked smile. “Banu Golbahar e-Nahid, won’t you stand down?”

  Nahri’s hold on the palace magic vanished.

  As though she’d drunk an entire carafe of wine, Nahri was suddenly unbalanced, her mind fuzzy and her body heavy. She tripped, trying to steady herself on the parapet.

  “What …” Her tongue was thick in her mouth. “What did you call me?”

  Aeshma was working the knife against the chains like a blacksmith’s hammer, sparks flying. “Your true name,” he replied. Blood flowed from the knife, coating the links, far more blood than could have possibly stained it. With every surge, Nahri felt weaker, as though it were being drawn from her very own veins. “Unlucky girl. The fewer people who know your true name, the more power it holds. A name that only one person knows and not even its bearer? Oh, the magic in that.”

  He snapped the chains. “I’ve been forging these for weeks, chanting your name—Golbahar! Golbahar!—adding all the bits you Daevabadis are too cloistered in your city to beware leaving out. A brush with a bit of hair, silk cut from the sheets of your marriage bed, the incense you would have touched in prayer … just needed one last spice,” Aeshma added, chuckling as he tossed away the bloody knife.

  Golbahar. Golbahar. Nahri felt like she’d just been thrown into a realm of dreams, a dozen voices whispering the name to her.

  “Golbahar, finish your letters!”

  “Golbahar—such a strange foreign name. That mother can’t be trusted—”

  “Gol-love, just ahead. The Nile, do you see it?”

  She was vaguely aware of the ifrit moving for her. Nahri tried to fight back, but her movements were labored and then the chains were wrapping around her, robbing her of the rest of her senses. She collapsed, falling heavily to the cold stone. Her eyes fluttered, half-closing as drowsiness smothered her mind.

  Manizheh was suddenly there, although blurry. “The seal ring is mine.” She seized Nahri’s hand, only to hiss in pain.