But he caught himself before he let a certain word slip. “My king,” he greeted Ghassan solemnly. “Peace be upon you.”
“And upon you peace, my child,” Ghassan replied.
Ali straightened up, taking in the sight of his father as he approached. Ghassan had aged far more than Ali expected. Stress lines bored deep around the king’s eyes, echoing the gaunt shadows under his cheeks. A heaviness seemed to have settled on his shoulders, making him appear, if not frail, at least older. He suddenly seemed like a man who’d lived two centuries, a king who’d seen and done far too much.
Ghassan stared back, gazing at Ali with open relief. He stepped closer, and Ali dropped to one knee, reaching out to take his father’s hand and press it to his brow. It wasn’t a thing the Qahtanis did in private, but Ali suddenly found himself retreating into formality, wanting the distance that ceremony and ritual provided. “May God preserve your reign,” he murmured.
He stood and stepped back, but Ghassan grabbed his wrist. “Stay, boy. Let me look at you a moment longer.”
Aware of Muntadhir watching them, Ali tried not to cringe. But when his father touched his face, he could not help but stiffen.
Ghassan must have noticed; there was a brief moment of hurt in his lined eyes, gone in the next instant. “You can sit, Alizayd,” he said softly. “I know you’ve had a long journey.”
Ali sat, crossing his legs underneath him. His heart was racing. “I pray you can forgive my sudden return, my king,” he rushed on. “Bir Nabat could not sustain the Ayaanle caravan, and when that wretched trader abandoned it, I had little choice. I was the only man who could handle the untreated salt.”
“You could have butchered the animals for food and stolen the cargo,” Muntadhir suggested casually. “The djinn of Bir Nabat are raiders like the rest of the north, no?”
“No,” Ali said, matching his brother’s even tone. “We are farmers, and it was a small fortune due to the Treasury. I didn’t want the village to land in any trouble.”
Ghassan raised a hand. “No explanation is necessary, Alizayd. I suspected your mother’s people would cook up some trick eventually to get you back here.”
Muntadhir looked at his father in disbelief. “And you really think he played no part in this, Abba?”
“He looks ready to leap from his cushion and jump on the first carpet that will whisk him back to the desert. So no, I do not think he played any part.” He poured a cup of wine. “He also sent me a letter from every caravanserai between here and Am Gezira suggesting different ways he could avoid this very encounter.”
Ali flushed. “I wanted to be thorough.”
“Then let us be thorough.” Ghassan motioned to the long-healed scar high upon Ali’s cheekbone—the spot where the marid had carved Suleiman’s seal into his skin. “That looks worse.”
“I took my khanjar to it before I reached Am Gezira,” Ali explained. “I didn’t want anyone recognizing it.”
Muntadhir blanched, and even his father looked slightly taken aback. “That wasn’t necessary, Alizayd.”
“Being exiled made me no less loyal to maintaining our family’s secrets,” Ali replied. “I wished to be discreet.”
“Discreet?” His brother scoffed. “Alizayd the Afshin-slayer? The hero out battling muwaswas and turning Am Gezira green while his relatives laze about Daevabad’s palace? That’s what you consider discreet?”
“It was just one muwaswas,” Ali defended, recalling the incident with the rampaging magical sandfish quite well. “And I’m hardly turning Am Gezira green. It’s simple irrigation work, searching for springs and digging canals and wells.”
“And I wonder, how did you find those springs, Alizayd?” his father mused idly. “Those springs locals had never managed to discover themselves?”
Ali hesitated, but there was no lie his father would believe. “I have myself under control. What happened in the infirmary . . . I haven’t been like that in years.”
Ghassan looked grim. “Then it is a side effect of the marid possession.”
Ali pressed his palms against his knees. “It’s nothing,” he insisted. “And no one there cares. They’re too busy trying to survive.”
His father didn’t seem convinced. “It is still risky.”
Ali didn’t argue. Of course it was risky, but he hadn’t cared. The sight of dying Bir Nabat, the thin bodies of its people, and the children whose hair was streaked with the rust of famine had driven those concerns from his heart.
He met his father’s gaze. “Northern Am Gezira had been suffering for years. I wanted to do some good for the people who sheltered me before I was murdered by assassins.”
He let the charge lie, and though Ghassan’s calm expression slipped slightly, his voice was even when he replied. “And yet you still live.”
Resisting the urge to offer a sarcastic apology, Ali responded simply. “All praise is due to God.” Muntadhir rolled his eyes, but Ali continued. “I have no desire to play politics in Daevabad. My companions need only a short time to rest, and I intend to make the Ayaanle provision us in exchange for the transport of their goods. We can be gone in a week.”
Ghassan smiled. “No. As a matter of fact, Alizayd, you cannot.”
Dread snared Ali’s heart, but Muntadhir reacted first, straightening up like a shot. “Why not? Do you hear him? He wishes to leave.”
“It will look suspicious if he goes back too soon.” Ghassan took another sip of his wine. “He hasn’t been home in five years and leaves in days? People will talk. And I won’t have rumors of our rift spreading. Not with the Ayaanle already meddling.”
His brother’s face shuttered. “I see.” He was gripping his knees as though resisting the urge to throttle someone. Ali, most likely. “Then when is he leaving?”
Ghassan tented his hands. “When he has my permission to do so . . . permission I’m granting to you now, Muntadhir. Ask the servant at the gate to retrieve the case from my office on your way. He will know what you mean.”
Muntadhir didn’t argue. He didn’t say another word, in fact. He got to his feet smoothly and departed without looking at Ali again. But Ali watched his brother until he vanished, a lump rising in his throat that he couldn’t quite swallow.
Ghassan waited until they were alone before he spoke again. “Forgive him. He’s been fighting with his wife more than usual lately, and it puts him in a foul mood.”
His wife. Ali wanted to ask after her, but he dared not make the situation worse.
But his father had clearly noticed his reticence. “You used to speak far more freely. And loudly.”
Ali stared at his hands. “I was young.”
“You are young still. You’ve not even reached your first quarter century.”
Silence fell between them, awkward and charged. He could feel his father studying him, and it sent a prickle down his spine. It wasn’t the fear of his youth, Ali realized, but something deeper, more complicated.
It was anger. Ali was angry. He was angry about the cruel sentence his father had handed him and angry that the king was more worried about gossip in Am Gezira than its people going hungry. He was beyond angry at what was happening to Daevabad’s shafit in the ghastly ruins of Anas’s mosque.
And he was angry that feeling this way about his own father still filled him with shame.
Fortunately, a servant came in at that moment, bearing a plain leather box about the size of a turban case. He bowed and set it at Ghassan’s side. As he turned to leave, the king motioned him close and whispered an order in his ear Ali couldn’t make out. The man nodded and left.
“I will not keep you, Ali,” Ghassan said. “It’s a long journey and I can only imagine how eager you are for a hot bath and a soft bed. But I have something that should have been given over to you long ago, in keeping with our traditions.” He motioned to the box.
Apprehensive, Ali took it. Aware of his father’s keen gaze, he opened it carefully. Nestled inside was a beautifully crafted strai
ght blade—a Daeva blade.
A familiar blade. Ali frowned. “This is Nahri’s dagger, isn’t it?” She had often worn it at her waist.
“It actually belonged to Darayavahoush,” his father replied. “He must have given it to her when he first left Daevabad.” Ghassan leaned back in his cushion. “Her room was searched after his death, and I wasn’t eager to allow such a weapon to remain in her possession. You killed him. You earned it.”
Ali’s stomach gave a violent turn. They’d stolen this from Nahri to give to him? As though it was some sort of prize?
“I don’t want this.” Ali closed the box with a snap and shoved it away. “The marid killed him. They just used me to do it.”
“That is a truth not to be repeated,” Ghassan warned, his words quiet but sharp. When Ali made no move to touch the box, he sighed. “Do with it as you please, Alizayd. It is yours. Give it to the Daevas if you don’t want it. They’ve a shrine to him in the Grand Temple they think I don’t know about.” He rose to his feet.
Ali quickly followed. “What Muntadhir asked . . . when can I go back to Am Gezira?”
“After Navasatem.”
Ali swayed on his feet. His father had to be joking. “Navasatem is not for seven months.”
Ghassan shrugged. “There is not a soul in Daevabad who would believe my youngest son—one of the best zulfiqari in our world—would leave before the grandest martial competitions in a century if things were amicable between us. You will stay and celebrate Navasatem with your family. Then we will discuss your leaving.”
Ali fought panic. There was no way he could stay in Daevabad that long. “Abba,” he begged, desperation pulling the word from him. He had not intended to use it with the man who’d sent him to die in the desert. “Please. I have responsibilities in Am Gezira.”
“I’m sure you can find responsibilities here,” Ghassan said breezily. “There will be plenty to go around with the holiday approaching. And Wajed could always use you in the Citadel.” He gave his son a pointed look. “Though he was instructed to thrash you should you get too close to the city gates.”
Ali didn’t know what to say. He felt like the walls were closing in on him.
Ghassan seemed to take his silence as acquiescence. He touched Ali’s shoulder—and then pressed the box containing the Afshin’s dagger into his hands. “I intend to hold a feast at the end of the week to welcome you properly. For now, rest. Abu Sara will take you to your quarters.”
My quarters? Ali remained speechless. I still have quarters? Numbly, he headed for the door.
“Alizayd?”
He glanced back.
“I’ve arranged to have some other property returned to you as well.” There was a note of warning in Ghassan’s voice. “Take care not to lose it again.”
9
Ali
Ali glanced around his old quarters, dazed. The room looked untouched, books laying haphazardly on the desk where he’d left them five years ago, the clothes he’d rifled through while packing for Am Gezira still strewn across the floor. A crumpled sheet of paper—a letter he’d intended to write Nahri and then abandoned for lack of words—was balled up next to his favorite quill and the nub of candle wax he remembered meaning to replace. Though everything was dusted and freshly swept, it was otherwise clear nothing had changed.
Nothing except Ali. And if Ghassan thought to slip his youngest son back into his old life so easily, he was wrong.
Ali took a deep breath, and as he did, smelled a hint of frankincense and the sour tamarind wine his father preferred. A well-worn cushion sat on the floor where Ali once performed his prayers, and Ali recognized one of his caps laid neatly on its surface. He picked it up, and his father’s particular scent came more strongly. The cap was well worried, with creases marring the linen from where it had been repeatedly folded.
He shivered as he continued into the inner room, his sleeping area still as sparse now as it had been five years ago. It was beginning to feel like he was visiting his own grave. He glanced at the bed. He blinked.
Resting on the neatly folded quilt was his zulfiqar.
Ali was across the room in the next moment, dropping the Afshin’s knife box to the bed. The zulfiqar was indeed Ali’s, the heft and hilt as familiar as his own hand. And if he’d had any doubts, the contracts he’d signed had been resting beneath it.
Marked by a royal scribe nullifying them.
Ali collapsed on the bed as though his knees had been cut out from under him. He scanned the pages, hoping he was wrong, but the evidence was spelled out in clear legal terms before him. The shafit father and daughter had been returned to the Geziri trader.
He shot to his feet. No. Those people had been innocent. They weren’t Tanzeem fighters, they were no threat to anyone. But as he reached for his zulfiqar, his father’s warning came back to him. Ghassan had done this to teach him a lesson. He’d destroyed the lives of two shafit because Ali had dared to interfere.
What would he do if Ali fought?
Ali closed his eyes, nausea rising in his chest as the little girl’s tear-streaked face sprang to his mind. God forgive me. But it wasn’t just her. Sheikh Anas and Rashid, Fatumai and her orphans. The auction block erected from the ruined mosque.
Every person I try to help, he breaks. He breaks us all.
He jerked his hand away from the zulfiqar. His skin was crawling. Ali couldn’t stay here. Not in this carefully preserved room. Not in this deadly city where every wrong move of his got someone else hurt.
Abruptly, he thought of Zaynab. Ali dared not get further entangled with his mother, but surely his sister could help him. She could get him out of this.
Muntadhir’s warning echoed in his ears, and the flicker of hope that had sparked in his chest at the thought of his sister sputtered out. No, Ali could not risk her. He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting despair. Water was pooling in his hands, a thing that hadn’t happened in years.
Breathe. Pull yourself together. He opened his eyes.
His gaze fell on the box.
Ali was across the room in the next breath. He threw open the box, grabbed the dagger, and slipped it into his belt.
To hell with his father’s commands.
He was halfway to the infirmary before he started to wonder if he wasn’t being a bit rash.
Ali slowed on the path, one of the many that meandered through the heart of the harem garden. It wasn’t as though he was actually planning to visit Nahri, he reasoned. Ali would wait for a servant outside the infirmary and then ask to speak to her assistant, Nisreen. He could give Nisreen the dagger and a message, and if Nahri didn’t want to see him, that was fine. Completely fine. Hell, maybe Muntadhir would find out and murder him for trying to speak to his wife, and then Ali would no longer have to worry about staying in Daevabad through Navasatem.
He took a deep breath of the humid air, rich with the smell of rain-soaked earth and dew-damp flowers, and his chest unknotted slightly. The mingled sounds of the rushing canal and the water dripping off leaves were as soothing as a lullaby. He sighed, taking a short moment to watch a pair of small, sapphire-colored birds dart through the dark trees. If only the rest of Daevabad could be so peaceful.
A surge of cool moisture wove through his fingers. Startled, Ali glanced down to find a ribbon of fog swirling around his waist. As he watched, it curved over his shoulder like the embrace of a long-missed friend. His eyes went wide. This had certainly never happened in Am Gezira. And yet he grinned, enchanted by the sight of the water dancing upon his skin.
His smile vanished as quickly as it had come. He glanced quickly at the greenery around him, but thankfully the path was deserted. The whispers on the boat came back to him, the strange tug of the lake and the speed with which water had beaded from his skin in his room. Ali had not given thought to how much harder it might be to hide his new abilities in misty, water-rich Daevabad.
Then you’d better figure it out. He couldn’t get caught. Not here. The villagers of B
ir Nabat might be willing to overlook his occasional strangeness—Ali had saved them, after all—but he couldn’t take the risk with Daevabad’s far more mecurial population. The marid were feared in his world. They were the monsters djinn parents evoked in frightening bedtime stories, the unknowable terror djinn travelers wore amulets to ward against. Growing up, he’d heard a dark tale of a distant Ayaanle relative who’d been thrown in the lake after being unjustly accused of sacrificing a Daeva child to his supposed marid lord.
Suppressing a shudder, Ali continued toward the infirmary. But when he reached the grounds, he stopped short again, amazed at the transformation. The formal gardens for which the Daevas were famous made a beautiful sight, with raised beds of bright herbs bordering trellises heavy with flowers, and fruit trees shading glass birdhouses and gently burbling fountains. At its very center, between two rectangular pools, was a striking orange grove. The trees had been planted close together, the branches carefully manicured and coaxed to intertwine as if to form a ceiling. A little enclosure, he realized, the foliage so thick with plump fruit and snowy white flowers one couldn’t see through it.
Charmed, he kept walking, drawn to the place. Whoever had planted it really had done an extraordinary job. It even had an archway pruned from the leaves to create . . .
Ali halted so fast, he almost fell backward. Nahri was very much not in the infirmary. She was here, surrounded by books, as though she’d stepped straight out of his fondest memories.
And more—she looked like she belonged here, the royal Banu Nahida in the palace of her ancestors. It had nothing to do with jewels or rich brocade; on the contrary, she was dressed simply in a white tunic that fell to her calves and loose purple trousers. A raw silk chador in shimmering umber was pinned just above her ears with diamond clips, thrown back over her shoulders to reveal the four black braids that fell to her waist.
Are you surprised? What had Ali expected of Nahri? That she’d be a faded version of the sharp woman he’d known, grieving for her lost Afshin, pale from being trapped for long hours in the infirmary? That had not been the Banu Nahida he’d once called a friend.
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