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The Kingdom of Copper
S. A. Chakraborty
Return to Daevabad in the spellbinding sequel to THE CITY OF BRASS.S. A. Chakraborty continues the sweeping adventure begun in The City of Brass—"the best adult fantasy I’ve read since The Name of the Wind" (#1 New York Times bestselling author Sabaa Tahir)—conjuring a world where djinn summon flames with the snap of a finger and waters run deep with old magic; where blood can be dangerous as any spell, and a clever con artist from Cairo will alter the fate of a kingdom.Nahri’s life changed forever the moment she accidentally summoned Dara, a formidable, mysterious djinn, during one of her schemes. Whisked from her home in Cairo, she was thrust into the dazzling royal court of Daevabad—and quickly discovered she would need all her grifter instincts to survive there.Now, with Daevabad entrenched in the dark aftermath of the battle that saw Dara slain at Prince Ali’s hand, Nahri must forge a new path for herself, without the protection of the guardian who stole her heart or the counsel of the prince she considered a friend. But even as she embraces her heritage and the power it holds, she knows she’s been trapped in a gilded cage, watched by a king who rules from the throne that once belonged to her family—and one misstep will doom her tribe.Meanwhile, Ali has been exiled for daring to defy his father. Hunted by assassins, adrift on the unforgiving copper sands of his ancestral land, he is forced to rely on the frightening abilities the marid—the unpredictable water spirits—have gifted him. But in doing so, he threatens to unearth a terrible secret his family has long kept buried.And as a new century approaches and the djinn gather within Daevabad's towering brass walls for celebrations, a threat brews unseen in the desolate north. It’s a force that would bring a storm of fire straight to the city’s gates . . . and one that seeks the aid of a warrior trapped between worlds, torn between a violent duty he can never escape and a peace he fears he will never deserve.
Copyright (#u3b6feb82-a687-52d4-9a80-8fd2ce4907b1)
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2019
Copyright © S.A. Chakraborty 2019
Cover design Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com (http://www.Shutterstock.com)
Designed by Paula Russell Szafranski
Map copyright © Nicolette Caven
S.A. Chakraborty asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008239442
Ebook Edition © February 2019 ISBN: 9780008239466
Version: 2019-01-07
Dedication (#u3b6feb82-a687-52d4-9a80-8fd2ce4907b1)
FOR SHAMIK
Contents
Cover (#u126f2126-9bfa-54c3-b571-574c1cf1860c)
Title Page (#u8610d38e-34ef-5c0b-bdf3-a077ca02e4b0)
Copyright
Dedication
Maps
Prologue
Chapter 1: Nahri
Chapter 2: Ali
Chapter 3: Nahri
Chapter 4: Dara
Chapter 5: Ali
Chapter 6: Nahri
Chapter 7: Dara
Chapter 8: Ali
Chapter 9: Ali
Chapter 10: Nahri
Chapter 11: Ali
Chapter 12: Nahri
Chapter 13: Nahri
Chapter 14: Dara
Chapter 15: Ali
Chapter 16: Dara
Chapter 17: Nahri
Chapter 18: Nahri
Chapter 19: Dara
Chapter 20: Ali
Chapter 21: Nahri
Chapter 22: Ali
Chapter 23: Nahri
Chapter 24: Dara
Chapter 25: Ali
Chapter 26: Nahri
Chapter 27: Ali
Chapter 28: Nahri
Chapter 29: Ali
Chapter 30: Nahri
Chapter 31: Ali
Chapter 32: Nahri
Chapter 33: Ali
Chapter 34: Nahri
Chapter 35: Nahri
Chapter 36: Ali
Chapter 37: Dara
Chapter 38: Nahri
Chapter 39: Dara
Chapter 40: Nahri
Chapter 41: Dara
Epilogue
Cast of Characters
Glossary
The Six Tribes of the Djinn
Acknowledgements
Also by S. A. Chakraborty
About the Publisher
Maps (#u3b6feb82-a687-52d4-9a80-8fd2ce4907b1)
PROLOGUE (#u3b6feb82-a687-52d4-9a80-8fd2ce4907b1)
ALI
Alizayd al Qahtani didn’t make it a month with his caravan.
“Run, my prince, run!” the sole Ayaanle member of his traveling party cried as he staggered into Ali’s tent one night when they were camped along a southern bend of the Euphrates. Before the man could say more, a blood-dark blade burst from his chest.
Ali flew to his feet. His weapons already at hand, he slashed the back of the tent open with a strike of his zulfiqar and fled into the darkness.
They pursued him on horseback, but the Euphrates glistened close ahead, black as the star-drenched night reflected in the river’s coursing surface. Praying his weapons were secure, Ali plunged into the water as the first arrows flew, one whistling past his ear.
The cold water was a shock, but Ali swam fast, the motion as instinctual as walking, faster than he ever had, with a grace that would have taken him aback had he not been preoccupied with saving his life. Arrows struck the water around him, following his path, and so he dived deep, the water growing murky. The Euphrates was wide, and it took him time to cross, to push through waterweeds and fight the fierce current trying to drag him downstream.
It was only when he was staggering up the opposite bank that the sick realization swept over him: he had not needed to emerge for air the entire time.
Ali gulped, shivering as a cold breeze stole through his wet dishdasha. Nausea rose in his chest, but there was little time to contemplate what had happened in the river—not when mounted archers were pacing on the other side. His tent was aflame, but the rest of the camp looked untouched and eerily still, as though a quiet command had been passed among the other travelers in his party to ignore the screams they might hear tonight.
Ali had been betrayed. And he was not waiting around to find out if either the assassins or his traitorous companions could cross the river. He stumbled to his feet and ran for his life, racing headlong toward the opposite horizon.
Dawn had broken by the time his legs finally gave out. He collapsed, landing hard on the golden sand. The river was long gone. In every direction was desert, the sky a bright, hot bowl turned upside down.
Ali’s gaze darted across the still landscape as he fought for breath, but he was alone. Relief and fear warred through him. He was alone—with a vast desert before him and enemies at his back, his only possessions his zulfiqar and khanjar. He had no food, no water, no shelter. He hadn’t even had time to grab the turban and sandals that might have protected him from the heat.
He was doomed.
You were already doomed, you fool. Your father made that clear. Ali’s exile from Daevabad was a death sentence, one obvious to anyone with knowledge of the politics of his tribe. Did he really think he could fight it? That his death would be easy? If his father had wanted to be merciful, he would have had his youngest son strangled in his sleep within the city’s walls.
For the first time, a twinge of hate clawed up in Ali’s heart. He didn’t deserve this. He had tried to help his city and his family, and Ghassan wasn’t even generous enough to give him a clean death.
Angry tears pricked his eyes. Ali wiped them away roughly, feeling disgusted. No, this wouldn’t be how things ended for him, weeping tears of self-pity and cursing his family as he wasted away in some unknown patch of sand. He was Geziri. When the time came, Ali would die dry-eyed, with the declaration of faith on his lips and a blade in his hand.
He fixed his eyes southwest, in the direction of his homeland, the direction he’d prayed his entire life, and dug his hands in the golden sand. Ali went through the motions to cleanse himself for prayer, the motions he’d made multiple times a day since his mother had first shown him how.
When he finished, he raised his palms, closing his eyes and catching the sharp scent of the sand and salt clinging to his skin. Guide me, he begged. Protect those I was forced to leave behind and when my time comes—his throat thickened—when my time comes, please have more mercy on me than my father did.
Ali touched his fingers to his brow. And then he rose to his feet.
Having nothing but the sun to guide him through the unbroken expanse of sand, Ali followed its relentless path across the sky, ignoring and then growing accustomed to its merciless heat upon his shoulders. The hot sand scorched his bare feet—and then it didn’t. He was a djinn, and though he couldn’t drift and dance as smoke among the dunes the way his ancestors had done before Suleiman’s blessing, the desert would not kill him. He walked each day until exhaustion overtook him, only stopping to pray and sleep. He let his mind—his despair at how completely he’d ruined his life—drift away under the white, bright sun.
Hunger gnawed at him. Water was no problem—Ali had not thirsted since the marid took him. He tried hard not to think about the implication of that, to ignore the newly restless part of his mind that delighted in the dampness—he refused to call it sweat—beading on his skin and dripping down his limbs.
