Nahri felt the blood drain from her face. “Is that a dragon?”
At her side, Ali gulped. “It . . . it looks like a zahhak actually.” His panicked eyes met hers. “They are not usually that big.”
“Oh,” Nahri choked out. The zahhak shrieked again and set the lecture alcove next to them ablaze, and they both jumped.
Ali raised a shaking finger at a row of doors on the other side of the massive library. “There’s a book lift just beyond there. It goes to the pavilion we want.”
Nahri eyed the distance. They were several stories up and the floor of the library was in complete chaos, a maze of broken, burning furniture and fleeing djinn, the zahhak diving at everything that moved.
“That thing will kill us—no,” she said, seizing Ali’s wrist when he went to lunge in the direction of a young scribe the zahhak had just snatched up. “You run out there now and you’re no good to anyone.”
A crack drew her attention. The serpent was still bashing the barricaded door and the metal was starting to strain.
“Did anything in your Citadel training prepare you for fighting giant monsters of smoke and flame?”
Ali was staring intently at the eastern wall. “Not at the Citadel . . .” He looked pensive. “What you did to the ceiling back there . . . do you think you can do it to that wall?”
“You want me to bring down the library wall?” Nahri repeated.
“The canal runs behind it. I’m hoping I can use the water to extinguish that thing,” he explained as the zahhak veered a little too close.
“Water? How do you expect to control . . .” She trailed off, remembering the way he’d summoned his zulfiqar while fighting Dara and registering the guilt in his expression now. “The marid did nothing to you, right? Isn’t that what you told me?”
He groaned. “Can we fight about this later?”
Nahri gave the shelves on the eastern wall a forlorn last look. “If we live, you’re taking the blame for destroying all those books.” She took a deep breath, trying to focus and pull upon the palace’s magic like she had in the corridor. It had been a surge of rage and grief over Muntadhir that had finally pushed her abilities.
Across the room, a knot of scholars hiding behind an overturned table on the second floor caught her eye. Entirely innocent men and women, many of whom had fetched her books and patiently instructed her in Daevabad’s history. This was her home—this palace now filled with the dead she hadn’t been able to protect—and she’d be damned if she was going to let that zahhak take another life under her roof.
Her skin prickled, magic simmering through her blood, tickling at her mind. She inhaled sharply, almost tasting the old stone. She could feel the canal, the cold water pressing hard against the thick wall.
Ali shivered as though she’d touched him. “Is that you?” A glance revealed his eyes had once again been swept by the oily dark film.
She nodded, examining the wall in her mind. The process felt suddenly familiar, much like the way she’d examine an arthritic spine for weak spots, and there were plenty here; the library had been built over two millennia ago. Roots snaked through crumbling bits of brick, rivulets of canal water stretching like grasping tentacles.
She pulled, encouraging the weak spots to crumble. She felt the wall shiver, the water churning on the other side. “Help me,” she demanded, grabbing Ali’s hand. The touch of his skin, cold and unusually clammy, sent an icy jolt down her spine that made the entire wall shake. She could see the water fighting its way in and worked to loosen the stone further.
A small leak sprang first. And then, in the time it took for her heart to skip, an entire section of the wall came down in a burst of broken bricks and surging water.
Nahri’s eyes shot open. Had she not been concerned for both her life and the priceless manuscripts being swiftly destroyed, the sudden appearance of a stories-high waterfall in the middle of the library would have been an extraordinary sight. It crashed to the floor, rushing in a turbulent whirlpool of broken furniture and cresting whitecaps.
The spray caught the zahhak as it flew too close. It screeched, aiming a torrent of flames at the thundering water. Ali gasped, lurching back as if the fire caused him physical pain.
His movement attracted the zahhak’s attention. The creature abruptly spun in the air and flew straight for them.
“Move!” Nahri grabbed Ali, pulling him out of the way just as the zahhak vaporized the shelves they’d taken shelter behind. “Jump!”
They jumped. The water was cold and swiftly rising, and Nahri was still struggling to her feet, hampered by her wet gown, when Ali shoved her head back under the water just as another fiery plume shot at them.
She emerged, gasping for breath and ducking a broken wooden beam that rushed by. “Damn it, Ali, you made me break my library. Do something!”
He rose to face the zahhak, moving with a deadly grace, drops of water clinging to his skin like honey. He raised his hands, fixing his gaze on the zahhak as it came flying back at them. With a thunderous crack, the waterfall spun out like a whip across the air and cut the zahhak in two.
Their relief was short-lived. Ali swayed, sagging against her. “The door,” he managed as she sent another burst of her own healing magic through him. “The door!”
They hurried on, wading as fast as they could through the makeshift river. Nahri lunged for the handle as the door came into reach.
A spray of arrows thudded into it, narrowly missing her hand.
“Suleiman’s eye!” She whirled around. A half-dozen riders on smoky steeds were coming through the library’s main entrance, silver bows drawn and ready in their hands.
“Just go!” Ali wrenched open the door and shoved her through. He slammed it shut behind them, piling various pieces of furniture to block it as Nahri caught her breath.
They’d entered a small, perfectly circular chamber. It resembled a well, the ceiling disappearing into the distant gloom. A rickety metal staircase climbed in a spiral around two softly glowing columns of amber light. Baskets overflowing with books and scrolls drifted in their midst, one column taking the baskets up while the other brought them down.
Ali nodded to the steps. “That goes straight to the pavilion.” He unsheathed his zulfiqar. “Ready?”
Nahri took a deep breath, and they started climbing. Her heart raced with every shuddering groan of the staircase.
After what seemed like hours but was surely only minutes, they drew to a stop in front of a small wooden portal. “I hear voices,” she whispered. “It sounds like Divasti.”
He pressed an ear to the door. “At least three men,” he agreed softly. “And trust me when I say the Afshin trained his soldiers well.”
Nahri quickly considered their options. “Take me captive.”
Ali looked at her as though she’d gone mad. “Excuse me?”
She shoved herself into his arms, bringing his khanjar to her throat. “Just play along,” she hissed. “Give them a rant about fire worshippers and sin. Your reputation precedes you with my people.” She kicked open the door before he could protest, dragging him with her. “Help me!” she cried pitifully in Divasti.
The Daeva warriors whirled around to stare at them. There were three, dressed in the same dark uniforms and armed to the teeth. They certainly looked like men Dara might have trained; one had an arrow aimed at them in a second flat.
Thankfully, Kaveh was nowhere to be seen. “Drop your weapons!” she begged, writhing against Ali’s arm. “He’ll kill me!”
Ali reacted a bit more smoothly than Nahri found comfortable, pressing the blade closer to her throat with a snarl. “Do it, fire worshippers!” he commanded. “Now! Or I’ll gut your precious Banu Nahida!”
The closest Daeva gasped. “Banu Nahri?” he asked, his black eyes going wide. “Is that really you?”
“Yes!” she cried. “Now put down your weapons!”
They glanced at each other uncertainly until the archer swiftly lowered his bow. “D
o it,” he ordered. “That’s Banu Manizheh’s daughter.”
The other two instantly complied.
“Where is my father?” Ali demanded. “What have you done with him?”
“Nothing, sand fly,” one of the Daevas spat. “Why don’t you let go of the girl and face us like a man? We threw the bodies of your father’s men in the lake, but you still have time to join your Abba.”
He stepped aside to reveal the dead king, and Nahri recoiled in horror. Ghassan’s body had been abused, bloody boot marks staining his clothes, his jewelry and royal turban stripped away. His glassy, copper-hued gray eyes stared vacantly at the night sky, his face coated in blood.
Ali abruptly released her, and a look of rage unlike any she’d seen from him before, twisted his face.
He’d thrown himself at the Daeva soldiers before she could think to react, his zulfiqar bursting into flames. They moved fast, but they could not quite match the speed of the grief-stricken prince. With a cry he cut through the man who had spoken, yanking the blade free and swinging back to behead the archer who had recognized her.
And with that, Nahri was catapulted back into the night of the boat. The night she’d seen firsthand what Dara was truly capable of, the way he’d torn through the men surrounding him like some instrument of death, impervious to the blood and screams and brutal violence that surrounded him.
She stared at Ali in horror. She couldn’t see anything of the bookish prince, the man who was still sometimes too shy to meet her eyes, in the raging warrior before her.
Is this how it starts? Was this how Dara had been undone, his soul stripped away as he watched the slaughter of his family and his tribe, his mind and body forged into a weapon by fury and despair? Is this how he’d been made into a monster who would visit that same violence on a new generation?
And yet Nahri still found herself lunging forward when the last Daeva raised his sword, preparing to strike. Nahri grabbed the man’s arm, throwing him off balance as he spun to look at her, his expression one of utter betrayal.
Ali plunged the zulfiqar into his back.
Nahri stepped away, her hand going to her mouth. Her ears were ringing, bile choking her.
“Nahri!” Ali took her face in his hands, his own now wet with the blood of her tribesmen. “Nahri, look at me! Are you hurt?”
It seemed a ludicrous question. Nahri was beyond hurt. Her city was collapsing and the people dearest to her were dying or turning into creatures she couldn’t recognize. And suddenly she wanted more than anything to flee. To race down the steps and out of the palace. To get on a boat, a horse, any damn thing that would take her back to the moment in her life before she decided to sing a zar song in Divasti.
The seal. Retrieve the seal and then you can sort all this out. She jerked back from his hands, pulling free one of her daggers as she moved automatically toward Ghassan’s body.
Ali followed her, kneeling at his father’s side. “I should have been here,” he whispered. Tears came to his eyes, and something of the friend she knew returned to his face. “This is all my fault. He was too busy trying to deal with my rebellion to anticipate any of this.”
Nahri said nothing. She had no assurances to offer right now. Instead, she cut a slit in Ghassan’s bloody dishdasha, straight across the chest.
Ali moved to stop her. “What are you doing?”
“We have to burn his heart,” she said, her voice unsteady. “The ring re-forms from the ash.”
Ali dropped his hand as if he’d been burned. “What?”
She was able to summon up enough pity to soften her voice. “I’ll do it. Between the two of us, I’ve a bit more experience carving into people’s bodies.”
He looked sick but didn’t argue. “Thank you.” He shifted away, taking his father’s head in his lap, closing his eyes as he began to softly pray.
Nahri let the quiet Arabic words wash over her—reminding her of Cairo, as always. She worked quickly, cutting through the flesh and muscle of Ghassan’s chest. There wasn’t as much blood as she would have expected—perhaps since he’d already lost so much.
Not that it mattered. Nahri had been bathed in blood today. She expected its stain would never completely fade.
Even so, it was grim work, and Ali looked ready to pass out by the time she finally plunged her hand into Ghassan’s chest. Her fingers closed around his still heart, and Nahri would be lying if she said she didn’t feel a small twinge of dark pleasure. The tyrant who had toyed with lives as though they were pawns on a game board. The one who had forced her to marry his son because her own mother had denied him. The one who had threatened her brother’s life—more than once.
Unbidden, a burst of heat bloomed in her palm, the dance of a conjured flame. Nahri quickly pulled her hand free, but his heart was already ash.
And clenched in her hand was something hard and hot. Nahri uncurled her fingers, her own heart racing.
The seal ring of the Prophet Suleiman—the ring whose power had reshaped their world and set their people at war—glistened in her bloody palm.
Ali gasped. “My God. Is that really it?”
Nahri let out a shaky breath. “Considering the circumstances . . .” She stared at the ring. As far as jewels went, Nahri wouldn’t have necessarily been impressed by this one. There were no fancy gems or worked gold; instead a single battered black pearl crowned a thick dull gold band. The pearl had been carefully carved, something she didn’t think possible, the eight-pointed star of Suleiman’s seal gleaming from its surface. Etched around it were minuscule characters she couldn’t read.
She trembled and she’d swear the ring vibrated in return, pulsing in time with her heart.
She wanted nothing to do with it. She shoved it at Ali. “Take it.”
He leapt back. “Absolutely not. That belongs to you.”
“But you . . . you’re next in line for the throne!”
“And you’re Anahid’s descendant!” Ali pushed her fingers back over it, though she saw the flash of longing and regret in his eyes. “Suleiman gave it to your family, not mine.”
A denial so strong it neared revulsion ran through her. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m not Anahid, Ali, I’m a con artist from Cairo!” And Cairo . . . Muntadhir’s warning flashed through her mind. He said the ring couldn’t leave Daevabad. “I have no business touching something that belonged to a prophet.”
“Yes, you do.” His expression turned fervent. “I believe in you.”
“Have you met you?” she burst out. “Your belief is not a mark in my favor! I don’t want this,” she rushed on, and suddenly it was damnably clear. “If I take that ring, I’ll be trapped here. I’ll never see my home again!”
Ali looked incredulous. “This is your home!”
The door crashed open. Nahri had been so focused on her warring heart that she hadn’t heard anyone approaching. Ali yanked his father’s robe over the ghastly hole in his chest, and Nahri stumbled back, slipping Suleiman’s ring into her pocket just before a group of Daeva warriors burst in.
They abruptly stopped, one holding up a fist as he took in the sight before him: the dead king and the very bloody young people at his feet. “He’s up here!” he shouted in Divasti, directing his words to the staircase. “Along with a couple of djinn!”
A couple of djinn . . . no, Nahri supposed right now there was little to mark her out. She rose to her feet, her legs wobbly beneath her. “I am no djinn,” she declared as another pair of warriors emerged. “I’m Banu Nahri e-Nahid, and you’ll put your weapons down right now.”
The man didn’t get to respond. Her name was no sooner uttered than a slight figure pushed through the door. It was a Daeva woman, her eyes locked on Nahri. Dressed in a dark uniform, she made for an arresting sight, a silky black chador wrapping her head underneath a silver helmet. A steel sword, its edge bloodied, was tucked into her wide black belt.
She pulled the cloth away from her face, and Nahri nearly crumpled to the ground. It was a
face that could be her own in another few decades.
“Nahri . . . ,” the woman whispered, black eyes seeming to drink her in. She brought her fingers together. “Oh, child, it has been too long since I’ve looked upon your face.”
The Daeva woman came closer, her gaze not leaving Nahri’s. Nahri’s heart was racing, her head spinning. . . .
The smell of burning papyrus and cries in Arabic. Soft arms pulling her into a tight embrace and water closing over her face. Memories that didn’t make sense. Nahri found herself fighting for air, tears that she didn’t understand brimming in her eyes.
She raised her dagger. “Don’t come any closer!”
She immediately had four bows trained on her. She stepped back, stumbling against the stone parapet, and Ali grabbed her wrist before she lost her balance. The parapet was low here, the knee-high stone wall all that kept her from plunging into the lake.
“Stop!” The woman’s curt command snapped like a whip, belying the softness in her voice when she’d spoken to Nahri. “Stand down. You’re frightening her.” She glared at the warriors and then jerked her head toward the door. “Leave us.”
“But, my lady, the Afshin won’t be happy to learn—”
“It is I you take orders from, not Darayavahoush.”
Nahri did not know men could move so fast. They were gone in an instant, clattering down the steps.
Ali pressed closer. “Nahri, who is that?” he whispered.
“I . . . I don’t know,” she managed. She also didn’t know why every Cairo-honed instinct in her was screaming at her to get away.
The woman watched the warriors leave with the sharpness of a general. She shut the door behind them and then pricked her finger on the sharp metal screen.
It surged together, instantly locking.
Nahri gasped. “You’re a Nahid.”
“I am,” the woman replied. A soft, sad smile came to her lips. “You’re beautiful,” she added, seeming to take Nahri in again. “Marid curse be damned—you still have his eyes. I wondered if you would.” Grief filled her face. “Do you . . . do you remember me?”
The Kingdom of Copper Page 56
