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“He no doubt forced her,” Manizheh said darkly. “As I said, he tried to do the same to me for decades. He was obsessed with uniting our families.”
“Well, he certainly underestimated her. She took Ghassan for everything she could during the marriage negotiations.” Kaveh sipped his wine. “It was actually a bit frightening to watch. But Creator bless her. She ended up signing the bulk of her dowry over to the Temple. They’ve been using it for charitable work: a new school for girls, an orphanage, and assistance for the Daevas ruined in the assault on the Grand Bazaar.”
“That must make her popular with our people. A clever move,” Manizheh assessed softly before her expression turned grim. “And regarding the other part of their marriage … Nisreen is keeping an eye on that situation, yes?”
Kaveh cleared his throat. “There will be no child between them.”
Dara’s insides had been churning as they spoke, but Kaveh’s carefully worded response made his skin prickle. It did not sound like Nahri had much of a say in that either.
The words were leaving his mouth before he could stop them. “I think we should tell her the truth about what we are planning. Your daughter,” he burst out. “She is smart. Strong-willed. She could be an asset.” Dara cleared his throat. “And she did not quite seem to … appreciate being left in the dark the last time.”
Manizheh was already shaking her head. “She is safe in the dark. Do you have any idea what Ghassan would do to her if our conspiracy were uncovered? Let her innocence protect her a bit longer.”
Kaveh spoke up, more hesitant. “I must say Nisreen has been suggesting the same, Banu Nahida. She’s grown very close to your daughter and hates lying to her.”
“And if Nahri knew, she might be able to better protect herself,” Dara persisted.
“Or she might reveal us all,” Manizheh countered. “She is young, she is under Ghassan’s thumb, and she has already shown a predilection for cutting deals with djinn. We cannot trust her.”
Dara stiffened. The rather curt assessment of Nahri offended him, and he struggled not to show it. “Banu Nahida—”
Manizheh raised a hand. “This is not a debate. Neither of you know Ghassan like I do. You do not know the things he is capable of. The ways he finds to punish the ones you love.” A flicker of old grief filled her eyes. “Ensuring that he cannot do such things to another generation of Nahids is far more important than my daughter’s feelings about being left in the dark. She can yell at me about that when Ghassan is ash.”
Dara lowered his gaze, managing a bare nod.
“Perhaps we can discuss our preparations then,” Kaveh said. “Navasatem is approaching, and it would be an excellent time to attack. The city will be caught up in the chaos of celebration and the palace’s attention focused on the holiday.”
“Navasatem?” Dara’s head jerked up. “Navasatem is less than eight months away. I have forty men.”
“So?” Kaveh challenged. “You’re free of Suleiman’s curse, aren’t you? Can you not tear down the Citadel with your hands and let your blood beasts loose on the city? That is what Banu Manizheh has told me you can do. That is the reason you were brought back.”
Dara gripped his cup tightly. He knew he was viewed as a weapon—but this unvarnished assessment of his worth still stung. “It is more complicated than that. I am still learning to control my new abilities. And my men need more training.”
Manizheh touched his hand. “You are too humble, Darayavahoush. I believe you and your warriors are more than ready.”
Dara shook his head, not as ready to concede on military matters as he was on personal ones. “We cannot take Daevabad with forty men.” He looked between them urgently, willing them to listen. “I spent years before the ifrit killed me contemplating how to best capture the city. Daevabad is a fortress. There is no scaling the walls, and there is no tunneling under them. The Citadel has thousands of soldiers—”
“Conscripts,” Kaveh cut in. “Poorly paid and growing more mutinous by the day. At least a dozen Geziri officers defected after Alizayd was sent to Am Gezira.”
Thoughts of besieging Daevabad vanished from Dara’s mind. “Alizayd al Qahtani is in Am Gezira?”
Kaveh nodded. “Ghassan sent him away within days of your death. I thought it might have been temporary, until things calmed, but he hasn’t returned. Not even for Muntadhir’s wedding.” He took another sip of his wine. “Something is going on, but it’s been difficult to discern; the Geziris hold their secrets close.” A little relish filled the other man’s face. “Admittedly, I was happy to see him fall from favor. He’s a fanatic.”
“He is more than that,” Dara said quietly. A buzz filled his ears, smoke curling around his fingers. Alizayd al Qahtani, the self-righteous brat who’d cut him down. The young warrior whose dangerous combination of deadly skill and unquestioning faith had reminded Dara a little too much of his younger self.
He knew quite well how that had turned out. “He should be dealt with,” he said. “Swiftly. Before we attack Daevabad.”
Manizheh gave him a skeptical look. “You do not think Ghassan would find it suspicious should his son turn up dead in Am Gezira? Presumably in whatever brutal fashion you’re currently imagining?”
“It is worth the risk,” Dara argued. “I too was a young warrior in exile when Daevabad fell and my family was slaughtered.” He let the implication linger. “I would strongly suggest you not let such an enemy have a chance to grow. And I wouldn’t be brutal,” he added quickly. “We have time aplenty for me to track him down and get rid of him in a way that would leave nothing for Ghassan to question.”
Manizheh shook her head. “We don’t have time. If we are to attack during Navasatem, I can’t have you spending weeks wandering the Am Gezira wastelands.”
“We are not going to be able to attack during Navasatem,” Dara said, growing exasperated at their stubbornness. “I cannot yet even cross the threshold to enter Daevabad, let alone conquer it.”
“The threshold is not the only way to enter Daevabad,” Manizheh replied evenly.
“What?” Dara and Kaveh said the word together.
Manizheh took a sip of her wine, seeming to savor their shock. “The ifrit think there might be another way to enter Daevabad … one for which you may have Alizayd al Qahtani to thank. Or the creatures pulling his strings anyway.”
“The creatures pulling his strings,” Dara repeated, his voice growing hollow. He’d told Manizheh everything about that night on the boat. About the magic that had overpowered him and stolen his mind. About the prince who’d climbed out of Daevabad’s deadly lake covered in tentacles and scales, whispering a language Dara had never heard, raising a dripping blade. She’d come to the same impossible conclusion. “You don’t mean …”
“I mean it is time we go speak to the marid.” A little heat entered Manizheh’s expression. “It is time we get some vengeance for what they have done.”
(#ulink_cecd5ffb-4ecb-57ce-ab94-9226cc6f9ee2)
“Sheen,” Ali said, marking the letter in the damp sand before him. He glanced up, his gaze turning severe at the sight of two boys tussling in the last row. They immediately stopped, and Ali continued, motioning for his students to copy the letter. They obediently did so, also on the sand. Slates and chalk required resources Bir Nabat didn’t have to spare, so he taught his lessons in the cool grove where the canals met and the ground was reliably wet. “Who knows a word that starts with ‘sheen’?”
“Sha’b!” a little girl in the center piped up while the boy sitting beside her shot his hand into the air.
“I start with sheen!” he declared. “Shaddad!”
Ali smiled. “That’s right. And do you know who you share your name with?”
His sister answered. “Shaddad the Blessed. My grandmother told me.”
“And who was Shaddad the Blessed?” he asked, snapping his fingers at the boys who’d been fighting. “Do either of you know?”
The smaller one shrank back while the other’s eyes went wide. “Um … a king?”
Ali nodded. “The second king after Zaydi the Great.”
“Is he the one who fought the marid queen?”
The grove went dead silent at the question. Ali’s fingers stilled on the damp sand. “What?”
“The marid queen.” It was a little boy named Faisal who’d spoken up, his face earnest. “My abba says one of your ancestors defeated a marid queen, and that’s why you can find our water.”
The simple words, said so innocently, went through Ali like a poisoned blade, leaving sick dread creeping through his limbs. He’d long suspected quiet rumors circulated in Bir Nabat about his affinities with water, but this was the first time he’d heard himself mentioned in relation to the marid. It was probably nothing; a half-remembered folktale given new life when he started discovering springs.
But it was not a connection he could let linger. “My ancestors never had anything to do with the marid,” he said firmly, ignoring the churning in his stomach. “The marid are gone. No one has seen them in centuries.”
But he could already see eager curiosity catching ahold of his students. “Is it true they’ll steal your soul if you look too long at your reflection in the water?” a little girl asked.
“No,” an older one answered before Ali could open his mouth. “But I heard humans used to sacrifice babies to them.” Her voice rose in fear-tinged excitement. “And if they didn’t give them up, the marid would drown their villages.”
“Stop,” one of the youngest boys begged. He looked near tears. “If you talk about them, they’ll come for you in the night!”
“That’s enough,” Ali said, and a few children shrank back, his words coming out sharper than he’d intended. “Until you’ve mastered your letters, I don’t want to hear anything more about—”
Lubayd ran into the grove.
“Forgive me, brother.” His friend bent over, clutching his knees as he caught his breath. “But there is something you need to see.”
THE CARAVAN WAS LARGE ENOUGH TO BE VISIBLE FROM a fair distance away. Ali watched it approach from the top of Bir Nabat’s cliffs, counting at least twenty camels moving in a steady, snaking line toward the village. As they left the shadow of a massive sand dune, the sun glinted off the pearly white tablets the animals were carrying. Salt.
His stomach plummeted.
“Ayaanle.” Lubayd took the word from Ali’s mouth, shading his eyes with one hand. “And with a fortune … that looks like enough salt to pay a year’s taxes.” He dropped his hand. “What are they doing here?”
At his side, Aqisa crossed her arms. “They cannot be lost; we are weeks’ travel from the main trade route.” She glanced at Ali. “Do you think they could be your mother’s kin?”
They better not be. Though his companions didn’t know it, his Ayaanle mother’s kin were the ones who’d truly gotten Ali banished from Daevabad. They’d been behind the Tanzeem’s decision to recruit him, apparently hoping the shafit militants would eventually convince Ali to seize the throne.
It had been a ludicrous plot, but in the chaos following the Afshin’s death, Ghassan wasn’t taking the chance of anyone preying on Ali’s conflicted sympathies—let alone the powerful lords of Ta Ntry. Except, of course, the Ayaanle were difficult to punish in their wealthy, cosmopolitan homeland across the sea. So it had been Ali who suffered, Ali who was ripped from his home and tossed to assassins.
Stop. Ali checked the vitriol swirling within him, ashamed of how easily it had come. It was not the fault of the entire Ayaanle tribe, only a handful of his mother’s scheming relatives. For all he knew, the travelers below were perfectly innocent.
Lubayd looked apprehensive. “I hope they brought their own provisions. We won’t be able to feed all those camels.”
Ali turned away, resting his hand on his zulfiqar. “Let’s go ask them.”
THE CARAVAN HAD ARRIVED BY THE TIME THEY climbed down from the cliffs, and as Ali waded through the crowd of bleating camels, he realized Lubayd had been right about the fortune they were carrying. It looked like enough salt to provision Daevabad for a year and was most certainly some type of tax payment. Even the glossy, bright-eyed camels appeared costly, the decorated saddles and bindings covering their golden-white hides far finer than was practical.
But Ali didn’t see the large delegation he would have expected making small talk with Sheikh Jiyad and his son Thabit. Only a single Ayaanle man stood with them, dressed in the traditional bright teal robes that Ayaanle djinn on state business typically donned, their hue an homage to the colors of the Nile headwater.
The traveler turned around, the gold glittering from his ears and around his neck dazzling in the sunlight. He broke into a wide smile. “Cousin!” He laughed as he took in the sight of Ali. “By the Most High, is it possible a prince is under all those rags?”
The man crossed to him before Ali could offer a response, flabbergasted as he was. He held out his arms as if to pull Ali into an embrace.
Ali’s hand dropped to his khanjar. He swiftly stepped back. “I do not hug.”
The Ayaanle man grinned. “As friendly as people said you would be.” His warm gold eyes shone with amusement. “Peace be upon you either way, Hatset’s son.” His gaze traveled down Ali’s body. “You look awful,” he added, switching to Ntaran, the language of his mother’s tribe. “What have these people been feeding you? Rocks?”
Offended, Ali drew up, studying the man, but no recognition came to him. “Who are you?” he stammered in Djinnistani. The common tongue felt strange after so long in Am Gezira.
“Who am I?” the man asked. “Musa, of course!” When Ali narrowed his eyes, the other man feigned hurt. “Shams’s nephew? Cousin to Ta Khazak Ras on your mother’s maternal uncle’s side?”
Ali shook his head, the tangled lines of his mother’s family confusing him. “Where are the rest of your men?”
“Gone. May God have mercy upon them.” Musa touched his heart, his eyes filling with sorrow. “My caravan has been utterly cursed with every type of misfortune and injury, and my last two comrades were forced to return to Ta Ntry due to dire family circumstances last week.”
“He lies, brother,” Aqisa warned in Geziriyya. “No single man could have brought a caravan of such size here. His fellows are probably hiding in the desert.”
Ali eyed Musa again, growing more suspicious. “What is it you want from us?”
Musa chuckled. “Not one to bother with small talk, are you?” He pulled free a small white tablet from his robe and tossed it to Ali.
Ali caught it. He rubbed his thumb over the grainy surface. “What am I supposed to do with a lump of salt?”
“Cursed salt. We bewitch our cargo before crossing Am Gezira, and none but our own can handle it. I suppose the fact that you just did means you’re Ayaanle, after all.” He grinned as if he had said something enormously witty.
Looking doubtful, Lubayd reached to take the salt from Ali’s hands and then let out a yelp. His friend yanked his hand away, both the salt and his skin sizzling from the contact.
Musa wrapped a long arm around Ali’s shoulder. “Come, cousin. We should talk.”
“ABSOLUTELY NOT,” ALI DECLARED. “WHETHER OR NOT Ta Ntry’s taxes make it to Daevabad is not my concern.”
“Cousin … show some compassion for family.” Musa sipped his coffee and then made a face, setting it aside. They were in Bir Nabat’s central meeting place: a large sandstone chamber in the cliffs, its corners dotted with tall columns wrapped in ribbons of carved snakes.
Musa lounged against a worn cushion, his tale of woe finally complete. Ali kept catching sight of curious children peeking past the entrance. Bir Nabat was extremely isolated; someone like Musa, who flaunted the Ayaanle’s legendary wealth so openly in his sumptuous robe and heavy gold ornaments, was probably the most exciting thing to happen since Ali’s own arrival.
Musa spread his hands; his rings winked in the firelight. “Are you not headed home for Navasatem anyway? Certainly the king’s own son would not miss the generation celebrations.”
Navasatem. The word rang in Ali’s mind. Originally a Daeva holiday, Navasatem was now when all six tribes celebrated the birth of a new generation. Intended to commemorate the anniversary of their emancipation and reflect upon the lessons taught by Suleiman, it had turned into a frenetic celebration of life itself … Indeed, it was an old joke that there was typically a swell in life ten months after because so many children were conceived during the wild festivities. Like most devout djinn, Ali had mixed feelings about a full month of feasts, fairs, and wild revelry. Daevabad’s clerics—djinn imams and Daeva priests alike—typically spent the time clucking their tongues and admonishing their hungover flock.
And yet, in his previous life, Ali had looked forward to the celebrations for years. Navasatem’s martial competitions were legendary and, young age notwithstanding, he’d been determined to enter them, to sweep them, earning his father’s admiration and the position his name had already bought: Muntadhir’s future Qaid.
Ali took a deep breath. “I am not attending Navasatem.”
“But I need you,” Musa implored, sounding helpless. “There is no way I can continue on to Daevabad alone.”
Ali gave him an incredulous look. “Then you shouldn’t have left the main route! You could have found assistance at a proper caravanserai.”
“We should kill him and take his cargo,” Aqisa suggested in Geziriyya. “The Ayaanle will think he perished in the desert, and the lying fool deserves it.”
Lubayd touched her fingers, easing them away from the hilt of her zulfiqar. “People won’t think much of our hospitality if we start killing all the guests who lie.”
Musa glanced between them. “Am I missing something?”
“Just discussing where we might host you for the evening,” Ali said lightly in Djinnistani. He pressed his fingers together. “Just so I’m clear. You left the main route to come to Bir Nabat—an outpost you knew could not afford to host you and your animals—in order to foist your responsibilities upon me?”
Musa shrugged. “I do apologize.”
“I see.” Ali sat back and gave the circle of djinn a polite smile. “Brothers and sisters,” he started. “Forgive the burden, but would you mind giving me a few moments alone with my … what did you call yourself again?”
“Your cousin.”
“My cousin.”
The other djinn rose. Thabit gave him a pointed look. He clearly knew Ali well enough to hear the danger in his voice even if Musa did not. “Do not get blood on the rugs,” he warned in Geziriyya. “They are new.”
The others were barely gone before Musa let out an overwrought sigh. “By the Most High, how have you survived for so long in this backwater?” He shuddered, picking at the goat that had been prepared for him, a goat one of the villagers had been readying for his daughter’s wedding and happily offered when he learned they had a guest. “I didn’t think djinn still lived like—ah!” he cried out as Ali grabbed him by his silver-embroidered collar and threw him to the ground.
“Does our hospitality not please you?” Ali asked coldly, drawing his zulfiqar.
“Not current—wait, don’t!” Musa’s gold eyes went bright with terror as flames licked down the copper blade. “Please!”
