He was distracted. So was Manizheh.
Nahri made her move. With every thief-honed instinct, with the protection of the palace, she slipped from the doorway, raised her knife, and rushed at her mother.
Jamshid’s eyes went wide. He shouted no warning, but it was tell enough.
Manizheh whirled around, seizing Nahri’s wrist as she tried to bring the knife down. But Nahri had not spent her time in the company of warriors for nothing. She kicked out Manizheh’s legs, sending them both tumbling to the ground.
“Nahri, don’t!” Jamshid cried. “She’s still our mother!”
Jamshid was right, but that was a fact that didn’t slow Nahri in the slightest. Not after the devastation Manizheh had visited upon Daevabad. Not after she’d enslaved Dara again, given Nahri to the ifrit, and sold out the poor souls who’d been resting in the Grand Temple. It didn’t matter what blood they shared. Nahri’s family was out there on the marid boats. They were working in the hospital and imprisoned in the dungeon.
And there was nothing she wouldn’t do to save them.
But Nahri had underestimated how strongly her mother felt about her own goals.
Manizheh’s grip tightened on Nahri’s wrist, and then it was Nahri’s turn to cry out, a burning pain scorching where her mother touched. As they wrestled for the knife, boils erupted across her skin, rolling out in waves from Manizheh’s fingers. Then, with a strength she shouldn’t have possessed, her mother threw her off. Nahri went flying, losing her grip on the knife and smashing the back of her skull against the stone of the parapet.
“You unworthy little brat,” Manizheh snapped, climbing to her feet. “I have been nothing but patient with you. I’ve extended mercy multiple times, been willing to embrace you as my own, and now you think to put a knife in my back like a common street thug?”
“Mercy? You gave me to the ifrit!”
If Nahri had ever considered herself a talented liar, the scornful toss of Manizheh’s head put her to shame. “Yes! To be held until after the battle since you clearly can’t be trusted!”
“Liar!” Nahri clutched her wrist. The boils had stopped spreading, but the imprint of Manizheh’s fingers could be seen in the burned flesh. “You gave them my name and told them to use me to free themselves from Suleiman’s seal!”
Still bound in irons, Jamshid had lurched to Nahri’s side. “Are you okay?” he asked, trying to check her wrist.
Resentment flashed in Manizheh’s face. “Your affection is wasted on her.” Bitterness laced into her voice. “Our ancestors were right. The shafit are a disease. Their blood is tainted—her blood is tainted. And I will not see another Nahid brought down by a dirt-blooded liar.”
Dara moved as if to interfere, but then another pair of Manizheh’s hellish blood beasts descended—one a winged serpent and the other an oversize rotting vulture—and he turned back with a groan.
Which was fine. This was between Nahri and her mother.
“You black-hearted bitch,” Nahri shouted. “It wasn’t a shafit who told Vizaresh where to find the vessels in the Temple. It wasn’t a shafit who enslaved Dara and used him to slaughter thousands.”
Manizheh’s eyes flared. “How dare you judge me? You know nothing of our world. You think your pathetic human existence was anything compared to the suffering the Daevas have endured? You think a few paltry years here makes you one of us?” Her voice hardened as she glanced back at Dara. “I’ve had enough. Afshin, I wish for you to—”
“No!” Jamshid shoved himself in front of Nahri. “Don’t hurt her!” He sounded close to tears. “Mother, please. I don’t want either of you to die. Nahri is my sister. She saw me through the darkest years of my life—”
“Before or after she pushed you off the wall in the hopes you’d land on a shedu? She’s not worthy of your loyalty, Jamshid. And she’s not your sister. That’s a piece of protective fiction I’ll end right now. She’s Rustam’s mistake,” Manizheh hissed. “An error in judgment in the form of a wretched kitchen girl from Egypt. Another thief. One who couldn’t keep her legs closed or her hands off things that didn’t belong to her.”
Nahri felt the entire palace shake. The complex was in chaos, fire and water raining from the choked sky, and beasts of various elements and states of death rampaging around them. Her people were dying, Daevas and djinn and shafit all, the acrid air thick with wails.
But everything suddenly seemed very distant.
“My mother was an Egyptian?” she whispered.
She wasn’t the only one to react. Dara decapitated the serpent and then spun around, still fighting back-to-back with the other Daeva soldier.
“Rustam? She is Rustam’s daughter? But you told me—”
“I told you to be silent,” Manizheh commanded, and Dara’s mouth snapped shut. “Unless it has to do with keeping Daevabad safe from the horde breaking through the walls, you will keep your counsel to yourself, Afshin.”
But Nahri was already putting the pieces together. Rustam, the quiet shadow to Manizheh’s bright star. The uncle she knew so little of, whose orange grove she used to take shelter in.
Her father. Manizheh’s brother. The accusations the ifrit had been hurling as they argued …
“You—you killed Rustam,” Nahri stammered out. “Aeshma said you killed him.”
Manizheh rolled her eyes. “So I’ve enslaved Daevas, given Temple vessels to the ifrit, and murdered my own brother? Are there any other wild accusations you’d like to make, or do you need a few moments to think of your next lie?” She turned to her son. “Jamshid, listen to me. I know you’re a good man. I know you love her as your sister. But she is shafit, and her loyalties will always lie with the djinn first. She was just willing to murder the woman she believed her own mother! She was willing to let you be killed by Ghassan to save her djinn prince!”
Now it was Jamshid who stiffened. “What are you talking about?”
“Did she not tell you?” Manizheh goaded. “Ghassan wanted her to convince his lunatic son to lay down arms. He told Nahri and your father that he’d kill you if she didn’t agree. And faced with the choice of your brother or Alizayd, who did you choose to save, Nahri?”
The vulnerability in Jamshid’s eyes tore at Nahri’s heart. Manizheh had read him just as clearly—Nahri knew how fragile and new his sympathies toward the shafit were.
She knew he believed Ali a weakness for her.
Nahri swallowed. “Ghassan would have slaughtered half the city if the coup failed. Ali stood a good chance of taking him down, of getting rid of the man oppressing our people. Jamshid,” she cried as he swore. “Please! I was just trying to put Daevabad first!”
Jamshid looked like he’d been punched. “I know. Your husband used to say the same.”
Manizheh swept in. “He’s still alive, my son. Leave her side, tell me what you know of the enemies invading, and I’ll let Muntadhir live.”
Jamshid was breathing fast, his hands in fists.
But Manizheh had underestimated her son.
“No,” he said grimly. Jamshid stepped back, again putting himself between Nahri and Manizheh. “I stand with my sister. I stand with my people and my city. And it is clear you are an enemy to all three.”
His words went straight to Nahri’s heart. To the vulnerability and fear that had so long left her in knots when it came to her identity. She could have hugged him.
Except she was fairly certain he’d just doomed them both.
Manizheh stared at him. Flames flickered in her eyes, whether a reflection of the lethal rain she was using to scorch their home or something deeper, Nahri didn’t know.
“You were all I wanted,” Manizheh said. “I dreamed of seeing you again every night. When things were at their worst, I would close my eyes and envision you one day upon the throne, grandchildren at your feet. I imagined teaching you to heal.” Her voice was eerily steady, and when she turned her attention back to Nahri, Manizheh’s expression was still glowing, as though she were lost
in that future that would never come. “I will make you suffer a hundred years for taking him from me.”
At that, Dara stepped away from his warrior, looking like he was very done with the Nahid family feud.
It was a mistake. Because he’d no sooner left the young man’s side—too far to help—when a smoldering globule of blood came hurtling from the sky.
It struck the soldier directly in the chest.
What happened next was almost too horrific for words. The foul sludge burned straight through the other man, leaving a diseased, pustule-ridden cavity where his chest had been. If there was any mercy, it was that the onslaught was quick. The soldier had time only for a short hair-raising wail before he was dead, another life cut short in a night that had already seen too many of them extinguished.
Dara cried out, rushing to his warrior. Manizheh glanced back, and Nahri shot free of Jamshid. She grabbed the knife Aqisa had given her and whirled on her murderous aunt.
Ah, but she’d forgotten how fast her Afshin was. There was a glimpse of his bow and a flit of silver. A whistle on the wind …
And then a punch of searing pain that knocked the breath from her lungs.
Dazed by the blow, Nahri looked numbly at Dara as she stumbled, not understanding right away that the bow still pointed in her direction and the silver shaft protruding from her chest were connected. They couldn’t be.
Jamshid let out a bellow of outrage, but he hadn’t taken two steps toward the Afshin when Dara snapped his fingers, instantly wrapping her brother in thick, binding tendrils of smoke.
“Enough,” Dara said quietly, and the lethal command in his voice seemed to silence even Manizheh. He closed the eyes of his dead warrior, his gaze still on the man as he spoke again. “You could have surrendered, Nahri. She offered you a fair deal. A life. And instead you chose to bury our home in more death.”
Nahri was speechless with pain and betrayal. He’d shot her. Dara had looked her in the face and put an arrow through her body.
And it hurt. It hurt so much. There was blood in her mouth when she spoke, trying to deny his words. “I didn’t … that was blood magic. Manizheh—”
“There are marid ships in the palace!” The words exploded from him, and then Dara spun back on her, grief raging in his eyes. “We always wondered, you know, how Zaydi brought his army through the lake so quickly. All the survivors had the same story, ships rising through the mists like magic.” He jabbed a finger at a ghastly dhow of bones and broken timbers beached on the opposite wall. “A ship like that brought the army that slaughtered your ancestors. The army that hunted and tortured and murdered my family. My little sister.” His voice broke. “And you brought them back here. You fight with them.”
Manizheh spoke up. “Afshin …”
“No.” Dara was trembling, his eyes wet with tears, but his tone was firm. “No. You told me I could speak when it came to defending our home, and I am. You’re not the only one who gets to use Tamima’s memory.” He turned back to Nahri. “I loved you. I would have served you to the end of my days, and you chose a Qahtani.”
Nahri had never truly been afraid of Dara until that moment as he slowly rose to his feet, uncurling like a cornered, beaten tiger. One about to maul his way through the world that had trapped him. She reached for the arrow. If she could just pull it free, she would heal. She could fight.
But Nahri had no sooner given it a tug than she nearly blacked out with pain. Her knees gave out, and she fell.
“I’m not your enemy,” she tried to protest. “Dara, please …”
“If you led those creatures to my home, you most certainly are.” Dara gave her a look so cold it stole what was left of Nahri’s breath. “I remember, you know. I remember the night I told you of the war, of the djinn who massacred my family and your ancestors. I remember how you said you were glad.”
She gasped. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I do not believe you. Because I know you. And you are a liar. A thief.” He met her gaze. “A trickster and a dirt-blood who twists words only to land her mark. And I am done being deceived. I am done listening to a bunch of Nahids bicker over power while their city burns.” Dara crossed to Manizheh.
And then he knelt at her feet.
“My lady,” he started, “you and I have battled, and we have warred, but I have never doubted for a moment that you wanted to save your people. To give the Daevas the freedom we deserved and make a world in which your son could hold his head up high.”
Manizheh flinched at that, her eyes going to Jamshid, who was visibly fighting the bonds holding him. “I’ve already lost him. She took him, poisoned him against me.”
“You haven’t lost him,” Dara said firmly. “He just needs time. The peace that distance and time will bring. The peace that you brought us so close to before the djinn betrayed you. I would bring you that peace now. But I cannot protect us from your magic, navigate my curse, and fight all at the same time.”
Her expression turned guarded. “What are you asking, Afshin?”
“Let me fight the way I know best.” Dara reached behind him, plucking an arrow from his quill and holding it up. “You told me once I should be proud to be a weapon of the Nahids. You begged me to understand. I do. I wish I did not, but I do. You offered mercy, and they turned you down. She turned you down,” he added, jerking his head back at Nahri. “You were correct. This only ends in violence. But then it will end. Let me be Daevabad’s weapon. Let me give you peace.”
Manizheh glanced again at Jamshid. “I didn’t want it to happen like this,” she said, her words so low Nahri barely heard them. They weren’t for her, she knew. They were for Manizheh’s Scourge, her partner in death and destruction.
“I know.” Dara gave her a broken smile of bitter understanding. “I wish I could say it gets better.”
Manizheh exhaled. “I just wanted him to be safe. I wanted to stop being afraid to lift my head.”
“And he will be,” Dara said softly. “Let me help you, like you dreamed I would when you were a child. Let me save the Daevas.”
No. Nahri made a strangled sound of protest, more blood dripping from her mouth.
The sound must have caught Manizheh’s attention, for her aunt briefly glanced away from her Afshin, to the niece she’d accused of betraying her. The woman Dara had loved, now bleeding on the dirty ground for having tried to attack her.
When Manizheh looked at Dara again, the doubt in her gaze was gone.
“Save the city, Afshin,” Manizheh said softly. “Save our people.”
Dara’s eyes glimmered with new wetness. “Thank you, my lady.” He drew back the arrow.
And then he plunged it through Manizheh’s throat.
Nahri choked, not believing her own eyes.
But Dara was already reaching for the knife at his waist, his sorrow-filled gaze for Manizheh alone.
“I am sorry,” he whispered as Manizheh rocked back, her hands going to her gushing throat. “I truly am.”
He thrust the knife through the side of her chest, a clean blow straight to the lungs.
Manizheh didn’t make a sound. She looked bewildered, her black eyes wide with pain.
Then she fell. The smoke holding Jamshid burst and he rushed over, just in time to catch Manizheh as she collapsed.
“Mother, wait … just wait.” Jamshid was frantic, reaching to stem the wound.
And now Dara was coming for Nahri.
Still not comprehending what was going on, knowing only that someone who had hurt her was growing nearer, Nahri tried to crawl back and let out a guttural moan as the motion jarred the arrow still speared through her shoulder.
“Forgive me, little thief. I knew not of another way.” Dara knelt at Nahri’s side, placing one hand on her shoulder and the other on the arrow. “Close your eyes. It will be fast.”
Entirely uncertain whether he meant to kill her or save her, Nahri gritted her teeth as Dara snapped off the silver fletching as though it were made o
f kindling. But she couldn’t help the scream that tore from her mouth as he pulled the arrow out of her chest.
“I am sorry,” he said again, his hushed words a mirror of what he’d just told Manizheh, bleeding to death in Jamshid’s arms. “She was unraveling, and I saw an opportunity …”
“… to trick her,” Nahri finished, understanding the intent behind Dara’s brutal denouncement. And what better way than by tearing down Manizheh’s enemy and appealing to the most vicious things she believed? Tears rolled down Nahri’s cheeks, not all due to physical pain. Her wound was already healing. “Okay.” She didn’t know what else to say.
“Nahri …” It was Jamshid, his panicked gaze darting to hers. “Nahri—I can’t heal her! I don’t know how.”
Nahri didn’t move. This was all too surreal. And yet there was one thing she still clung to. Nahri was a Nahid, and Daevabad was her responsibility.
She would not save its foe. “No,” she said simply.
Her brother—her cousin—gave Nahri a look torn between anguish and understanding, and then Manizheh reached out with a shaking hand to touch his face. Jamshid turned back to her, still cradling her body, seeming to think if he prayed enough, he could save her.
But it had been some of the first advice Dara had given Nahri—the throat and lungs, a sure way to kill a daeva. And he was a weapon.
It was what he did best. Nahri could sense Manizheh’s heart slowing, one lung already collapsed. Her hand fell from her son’s face, leaving a smear of blood on his cheek.
Then she was gone, the most powerful of them since Anahid, dead at the hand of her Afshin.
Dara moved again, stumbling for Manizheh’s body like a drunk. He took her hand. He did so gently, reverently, still bowing his head, but there was no denying the urgency with which he removed his ring from Manizheh’s finger and then picked up one of the broken chunks of stone.
“Dara,” Nahri started to speak, trying to find her words. “I don’t think—”
He smashed the ring.
The Empire of Gold Page 62
