They say I did what? Oh, but Ali was feeling murderous. Maybe Sobek had rubbed off on him. Because the thought of drowning al Mudhib beneath the Nile was suddenly terribly tempting.
Ali held his tongue, however, letting Nahri reply. “And you believe that story?” she asked.
“Some of it.” Al Mudhib gestured to the downed ship. “You may notice my crashed boat. Clearly something ripped away our magic, and the Ayaanle villages we’ve been raiding have been consistent in their stories of Navasatem tourists sent fleeing home. Unless you have another explanation?”
“I do. My mother is a lying murderer who broke magic herself, killed thousands, and will give you over to the ifrit to be enslaved as your ‘reward.’”
If the cocky pirate was taken aback by Nahri’s fiery words, it was only for a moment. He shot an amused look at the shafit girl at his side. “Nobles. What did I tell you? No family loyalty.”
The girl didn’t smile. Her ears were a human round beneath curly red-black hair gathered in braids that fell to her waist, tied off with leather bands and decorated with cowrie shells and glass coins. A pattern of inky blue dotted triangles was tattooed across her brow and chin. Besides her bloody nose, a nasty gash marked one check.
She crossed her arms. “I don’t like this.” For the first time, Ali noticed a trace of familiarity in her accent. “We should take them to Shefala,” she declared, sending his heart soaring. “The queen’s family is there and would probably pay as handsomely as the Daevas. We could be there and gone in a week and wash our hands of this whole business.”
“Yes,” Ali urged, wishing he could hug her. “That is exactly what you should do. My family has enough gold to pay whatever ransom you desire.” He wasn’t normally one to boast of his family’s wealth, but he’d personally shower these two with coins if it kept him and Nahri safe.
“Enough gold to buy back my magic?” al Mudhib retorted. “You claim Manizheh is lying? Fine. Lift that seal on your face, give me a taste of my abilities, and I will consider taking you to Shefala.”
Ali hesitated, not wanting to reveal how powerless he was. “I’m not going to do that. For all I know, if I give you your magic, you’ll snap your fingers and have this ship halfway to Daevabad. But if you bring us to Shefala, I promise—”
“Your promise doesn’t carry weight anymore, al Qahtani. I’m a sailor, and I can see which way the wind is blowing. Your family has lost this round, and hers is ascendant. I don’t only want gold. I want to sail the dunes of my homeland again, and I’ll need magic for that—magic I suspect you’re not actually capable of returning to me.”
“Captain.” The shafit girl’s voice was thick with warning. “It will take us months to get to Daevabad without magic. We’ll be on the ocean for half of it, with a man they say is an ally of the marid. The crew is already whispering—”
“The crew will do as it’s told,” al Mudhib ordered, the humor gone from his voice. “As will you, Daevabadi. I’ve been sailing this ocean a hundred years and never seen a hint of any marid. Don’t tell me you’re frightened of a bunch of Ayaanle fairy tales after only a few seasons on their coast.”
Daevabadi. No wonder the girl’s accent was recognizable. But a Daevabadi shafit? Did that mean she’d escaped? Ali had never met a shafit who’d successfully fled the city they were bound to by law.
Nahri spoke up again. “You’re making a mistake.”
“We’ll see.” Al Mudhib turned back to the shafit girl. “We’ve been tarrying here too long anyway. It’s time to get the ship down, even if we need to break it into pieces and reassemble them on the shore. Tell your fellows to get started.” He jerked a thumb at Nahri and Ali. “And watch these two. If the prince starts whispering with his gilded Ayaanle tongue, feel free to cut it out.”
“And the Nahid?”
Al Mudhib looked supremely unworried. “Keep the princess fed and make sure none of the men get her alone. I don’t mean to deliver a half-starved royal weeping in her veil to the fire-worshipping lunatics running Daevabad.”
He strode off without another word.
Ali swore. “Pirates. Of all the people we could have run into.”
The shafit girl had watched al Mudhib leave, and Ali didn’t miss the relief that passed over her face when he was gone. “My captain told me to take your tongue if you talk too much,” she reminded him.
“I am going to take his head, so he can damn well say what he likes.”
She turned to regard him, a playful smile on her lips. “I’d heard Geziris were hot-tempered.”
Ali didn’t rise to the insult. He could see how badly he’d injured her and felt guilty despite the circumstances. “I’m sorry about your face.”
“Sorry you didn’t kill me, you mean.”
“I wasn’t fighting to kill.” He lifted his shackles. “But I was outnumbered.”
“You were indeed.” Curiosity lit in her eyes. “They teach you how to fight like that at the Citadel?”
“They did. And I take it you’ve seen it, if you’re Daevabadi. When were you last home?”
“A long time ago.” Her eyes dimmed. “Let me get you both some food. And please don’t do anything that would require us to kill you. This is the most excitement we’ve had in weeks.”
“Terrorizing and stealing from the local Ayaanle isn’t entertaining?”
She tapped her round ears. “I haven’t terrorized any Ayaanle, prince. Al Mudhib doesn’t let those of us with human blood out of his sight. He staked a boy to the beach last week and let the tide drown him for trying to run out on his indenture. Yes,” she added when Ali failed to mask his shock. “So you can keep your judgment to yourself.”
She strode off, and Ali waited until she was gone to speak again. “So. Apparently I kidnapped you.”
“Of course.” Rancor laced Nahri’s voice. “Even the lies Dara and Manizheh spin make me into someone who needs to be saved.” She slumped back against the deck, exhaustion creasing her face. “I’m not being delivered to them in chains. I’ll throw myself into the sea first.”
“It’s not going to come to that,” Ali insisted. When Nahri’s expression only grew more doomed, he went on. “Come now. Where is the woman who once braggingly picked a lock in Daevabad’s library?” He rattled his chains. “I’d think you delighted by the challenge.”
“Have you an actual plan or just wild fantasies that will end with our deaths?”
“Something in between.” Ali tried to study their surroundings without being too obvious. The prow of the sandship jutted over the cliff, the rest of it settled in its bed of broken trees. The creek was a good distance below, even the high-tide line at least a body length away. And though the ocean wasn’t far, the creek wasn’t deep enough to carry such a large boat.
At least not now, it wasn’t.
“Ali …” Nahri’s voice was low. “Why do you look like you’re considering something very reckless?”
God, they really had been spending too much time in each other’s company. “It would need to be tonight,” he said softly. “Before they start breaking the ship down.” He gazed at the sprawling sandship and their chains. “And we’d need help.”
“Help to do what?” Nahri prodded. “Al Qahtani, talk.”
He inclined his head to the glistening ocean. “Sail to Shefala.”
Her gaze darted between the creek and the ocean, following his path, and alarm crossed her face. “No. You shouldn’t even be using this marid magic anymore. It’s too dangerous.”
Ali didn’t disagree. Between Sobek’s cryptic warning and his own unease, he didn’t like this line of thinking any more than Nahri did. But the prospect of being delivered to Manizheh in irons was worse. And they were close, so close, to his family. To resources and safety that they wouldn’t find trapped at sea with al Mudhib and his men.
“Do you have a better suggestion?” he asked.
Nahri seemed grim. “Are you even capable of something like that?”
“I
t’s going to hurt, I won’t lie.” It was going to do a lot more than hurt—throwing off the ghouls with his marid magic had taken but a fraction of the effort freeing the ship would require, and that pain had nearly caused Ali to black out. “But maybe if you’re by my side, we can lift the seal, and you can use your abilities to keep my heart from exploding.”
“Nothing you just said made me feel any more confident.”
“Still waiting for a better idea.”
She took a deep breath, and then exhaled. “Fine. But you’re going to need to get that girl on our side when she returns.”
Nahri’s response threw him. “Me? You’re the more convincing one.”
“Yes, but I’m not the half-naked prince she couldn’t take her eyes off.”
Ali abruptly tried to cover his chest, an impossible task in chains. “I broke her nose.”
“Danger can be appealing.” Nahri’s expression grew shrewder. “Keep talking when she comes back. Flirt. Find out what she meant about shafit being indentured. There was anger there—it might work.”
Ali fought rising panic. Risking his life using marid magic to provoke an insurrection among pirates was one thing. Flirting was another. “I don’t know how to do that.”
Exasperation tightened her face. “Try. Do that thing where you act all earnest and talk about justice. It’s endearing.” Nahri straightened up. “She’s coming back.”
Flustered, Ali kept his mouth shut when the shafit girl returned. She carried a battered tin bowl, a ceramic canteen, and a net containing small vivid yellow fruits resembling tiny apples. “Food for our royal captives,” she announced, offering the bowl to Nahri.
Nahri eyed it with hungry regret. “Is that meat?”
The girl shrugged. “Turtle, maybe. I don’t ask, I just eat. We’re not all fancy people here.”
Nahri shook her head. “I can’t eat it. I’m Daeva. I don’t eat meat.”
“Then if you’d like to survive on fruit alone, be my guest.” The girl tossed a handful of fruit and the canteen into Nahri’s lap. “Drink.” She offered the bowl to Ali. “You?”
His stomach growled, but Ali demurred out of solidarity. “Fruit is fine, thank you.” He swallowed nervously. “May I ask your name?”
A little surprise entered her copper-brown eyes. “Fiza.”
When Ali didn’t respond, Nahri threw the canteen at him with what seemed unnecessary force before she turned to Fiza. “You’ll need to clean that cut on your face. And it’s deep. It could probably use a stitch or two.”
Fiza snorted. “I’ve seen that bag of yours, Nahid, and half the tools could cut my throat. I’ll take my chances with a scar.” She was dressed simply in a length of linen wound around her torso; Ali could see her stomach when she moved to depart. She looked strong but thin. Hungry.
“Stay,” Ali insisted, nodding at the bowl. “Eat that quickly, and no one will know it wasn’t us.”
She shot him a guarded look. “I don’t need mercy from a dead man.”
Flirting was going well. Ali racked his brain, trying to think of something else to say.
Do what Dhiru would do. Summoning his courage, Ali smiled as broadly as he could, trying to draw on whatever charm he might have picked up from his brother. “Then grant me your own mercy. This dead man could use some company.”
An amused glint entered her expression. “You are being rather obvious, prince.”
“I’m desperate. And you don’t need to call me prince. Alizayd is fine.”
Fiza narrowed her eyes and then dropped, perching on a broken log like a seabird. “All right.” She brought the bowl to her mouth, slurping back the soup. “At least give me a good story to take back to my companions. Has the Scourge truly returned? People say he flies on a shedu and split the Gozan like the Prophet Musa.”
Ali didn’t miss Nahri’s flinch. Hating what he knew he had to do, he scoffed. “He is a man half dead. He and Manizheh won through trickery and are hardly the all-powerful lords your captain is so frightened of.”
“Then why did you run from him?” Fiza laughed. “Did they find you in bed together?” she teased, tossing her head at Nahri. “Because let me tell you, there have been a great number of creative additions to this tale Manizheh has concocted of you stealing her daughter.”
“Of course not,” Ali stammered. “She’s married to my brother.”
“Does that matter?” Fiza drank more of the soup. “When I was a kid, people said the nobles in Daevabad all cheated and slept with each other.”
“Not all of us.” Ali tried to pull the conversation in a more useful direction. “So … when do you think you’ll start breaking down the ship?”
“Why?” Fiza asked, her eyes wide with feigned innocence. “Are you planning something?”
“Would you be interested if I was?”
Beyond Fiza’s shoulder, Nahri threw up her hands in visible frustration.
Ali changed tactics, preferring honesty. “Help us,” he implored. “Please. You know your captain is being a fool. Take us to Shefala, and my kinsmen will weigh you down in enough gold to escape all this.”
“That took less time than I thought it would.” Fiza put down the soup, the remnant sloshing about. “There’s no running, Alizayd. You should get that out of your head. You’re outnumbered, the forest is too sparse to hide in, and I’m definitely not helping you.”
“I don’t plan to run. All I ask is that you make sure the hull is sound until the next high tide and that anyone you trust is onboard.”
“High tide?” she repeated. “If you’re imagining the boat floating off the next time the water rises, let me be the first to puncture that dream. The creek goes barely halfway up the cliff.”
“Tonight it’s coming higher.”
“Implying you cause the sea to rise doesn’t make me want to trust you. What’s to say I don’t report all this to al Mudhib, watch as he cuts out your tongue, and then break down the hull myself?”
Nahri took over. “Because you know he’s wrong. Come on—one conversation with your captain, and I’m ready to mutiny. You’re a good fighter; you seem clever. Why serve him?”
The other woman glanced quickly over her shoulder and then with a swift, discreet motion, swept her braids behind her head and pulled down her collar. Stretching across her jugular was what looked like a dull gray tattoo of a snake.
“It’s an iron alloy,” she explained, barely above a whisper. “Al Mudhib is—was—a metal mage. He bewitches the liquid metal to dig under our skin. It subdues our magic and can’t be removed without killing us.”
Nahri had paled. “He’s done that to all the shafit here?”
Fiza nodded, adjusting her collar. “Ten years indenture, and he lets you go with enough silver to start a new life. It hurts, but trust me when I say there are worse options for shafit. I’m five years in,” she added more fiercely. “And you’re asking me to throw that away and risk my life for a pair of purebloods?”
Ali didn’t know what to say. Every time he thought he’d heard the worst of what the shafit were subjected to, the bar was lowered yet again.
But Nahri had only grown more determined. “I’ll get it out of you. I’m a surgeon, a Nahid healer. When I get my magic back, I’ll get that abominable thing out of you and anyone else who comes with us.”
“And why should I trust some exiled Daeva? Your people aren’t exactly known for looking fondly on mine.”
“Maybe because I don’t enslave shafit with poisoned metal scraps!” Nahri hissed. “Would you rather spend six months traveling to a war zone? My mother is likely to kill all of you, especially if she doesn’t want whatever information we might have shared getting out. And even if she doesn’t kill you, you’ll still belong to al Mudhib.”
“Or you could be free in a night,” Ali offered. “Rich in a week. If magic comes back, Nahri gets that brand out of your neck. If we fail and magic never returns, you can still take your gold, your ship, and live in the human world.”
“Or I get a knife to the gut when we get caught twiddling our thumbs on a stuck boat going nowhere. Because like I said, the tide doesn’t—”
Ali made the soup in her bowl shoot into the air.
The movement was small and quick, not enough to be noticed by anyone except them, but Fiza shoved backward, her eyes going wide.
“I can do it,” he declared. “And I will.” Ali lowered his voice. “You’re Daevabadi, and, Fiza, what happened to our home is bad. If we’re returned to Manizheh, if she gets Suleiman’s seal, there may be no fighting back.” He looked at her earnestly. “Please. If you still have loved ones there …”
“Fiza!” The shafit girl stilled, and Ali glanced up to see one of the pirates scowling their way from where he was lounging next to a spitted haunch of meat smoking over a low fire. “Al Mudhib isn’t feeding you to whore around. Go get some more wood for the fire.”
Fiza’s eyes flashed. Ali saw her gaze briefly flicker to the camp of idle men and then over to the shafit servants scrubbing pots and making rope. She glanced at the ocean, her expression shifting.
Then she threw back her head and laughed.
“Can you blame me?” Without warning, she dropped onto Ali, straddling his waist. “I’ve never seen a real prince before.” Fiza pressed against him, running her nails down his chest.
Ali jumped as her fingers slid lower. “Whoa, wait—”
A thin metal object slid under his belt. “Should be all you need if the two of you are as skilled as you believe yourselves to be,” Fiza whispered in his ear, her breath hot against his neck. She laughed again, louder this time, and then slapped his cheek. “Maybe I’ll come back for you after midnight, pretty man. They say you’re touched by the marid. Be curious to see what the tide may bring.”
She was gone the next moment, sliding from his lap to tend to the man who’d called her.
Leaving only Nahri staring at him, her black gaze as even and inscrutable as ever.
“I told you,” she said. “The earnest, soulful thing.”
The Empire of Gold Page 26