Jamshid shot to his feet before Ali could react. “Absolutely not. That is Muntadhir’s position.”
“Alizayd is as eligible for the throne as his brother. He always has been,” Hatset insisted, glaring so fiercely that Jamshid shut up. She stepped closer to Ali, her expression urgent. “So take it, my son. Declare yourself king. You’ll have the backing of our tribes and can establish a court in Ta Ntry, where you’ll be safe.”
“A court in Ta Ntry where you’ll never see Daevabad again.” Nahri sounded no less fierce than his mother. “You might as well speak freely, Hatset. You don’t think we can beat Manizheh, and you don’t want us to try.”
“I don’t want you to die. The two of you have no idea how weak your position is. You think a band of pirates would have laid hands on Ghassan? Mocked him and chained him up?” His mother turned back to Ali. “Do you understand, Alu? You need to establish yourself as a leader to be followed. A leader to be feared. Because if you don’t rule these people as king, you’re going to be given as a gift to their new queen in Daevabad.”
Ali opened and closed his mouth, fighting for a response. Her words … this was not the mother he knew.
“Amma, you told me that Abba’s mistake was being so afraid of his people that he crushed them. Now you’re counseling me to do the same?”
“Yes.” Hatset didn’t even hesitate. “I want you to live,” she said fervently. “And if you need to borrow from your father to restore order, so be it. When things are more stable, you can lessen your grip.”
And that’s how it starts. King. A court in Ta Ntry where Ali would watch Daevabad fall apart from afar, letting its bloody, starving instability serve as a warning to allies he’d cajole and blackmail into compliance. Served by soldiers he’d conscript.
That wasn’t the kind of leader he wanted to be.
Then what kind of leader do you want to be?
Again Ali saw his father on the shedu throne, only the latest in a long line of Qahtani kings who had slowly abandoned the ideals of the revolution that had once driven them. Kings who had brutalized Daevabad as much as any Nahid. And then it suddenly became clearer, a decision he realized had been a long time coming.
“I’m sorry, Amma.” Ali spoke softly, because he knew he was about to break his mother’s heart. “But there’s not going to be another Qahtani king.”
Hatset stared at him in disbelief. “Excuse me?” Her gold eyes went wide with fury. “If these two have convinced you to put us all under Nahid rule again …”
“They haven’t. I don’t want to be under Nahid rule, though I will not speak over Nahri and Jamshid,” Ali said, glancing at Nahri. She was watching him carefully, her expression guarded. “Our people do need a new government and an organized response to Manizheh. What they don’t need is another tyrant.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Alizayd.” The anger left Hatset’s face, replaced in a fell swoop by vexation. “This is not the time for your idealism.”
“Yes, it is,” Nahri declared. Ali gaped at her, but she pressed on. “The people aren’t ready to be in charge? Because we’ve ruled them so well, have we? Ghassan was preparing to massacre an entire shafit neighborhood, and Manizheh just murdered thousands. I’d say the Qahtanis and the Nahids have lost the right to tell anyone they know better.” She crossed her arms. “I agree with him. None of us should be on that throne.”
Ali gazed at her, something blazing inside him.
No one else seemed pleased. Jamshid was staring at his sister, visibly aghast, and now even Issa got involved, wagging a finger in the air.
“What the two of you are advocating for is no less than revolution. Anarchy! Such a thing is forbidden, Alizayd al Qahtani. Our faith prioritizes order. Stability—”
“Our faith prioritizes justice,” Ali argued. “It tells us to stand for justice, no matter what. We are to be a community that calls for what is right, that stands as witness.”
“We already did!” Issa said, indignant. “My grandfather fought in Zaydi’s war. He labored his entire life to free the shafit and make the tribes equal, and here you are tossing away his legacy without a care. And for what? Perfection? That is for Paradise, not this life.”
Ali shook his head. He felt closer to his ancestor than he ever had; not to the legend, but to the flesh-and-blood man who had fought so hard, who had grieved his slaughtered family, and who in that anguish had made mistakes Ali never wanted to repeat. “I’m not tossing away Zaydi’s legacy. I’m completing it.”
“You’re being a reckless fool,” Hatset said brusquely. “One who’s going to get himself and everyone around him killed.”
“I’m not being reckless, Amma. You want me to listen? I have been. I’ve been trying to listen, to truly listen, to as many people as possible. And they want a voice in their lives and freedom for their children. Do you know the best thing I did for the shafit? I got out of their way. I got them the money and opportunities they should have always had and then watched them build it all. I don’t believe in kings. Not anymore. And if I did, I would still be undeserving of the throne. I have the blood of innocents on my hands and don’t speak the language of a third of the city’s people. I come from a family that has let them down. No more.”
“So you’ll what? Assemble a committee?” Hatset demanded. “Because I can tell you: ask people to vote between two starry-eyed nobles with vague, pretty words about freedom and a Banu Nahida who gruesomely murders her opponents, and you’ll find Nahri in another cage and the Afshin carving out your heart.”
It was a frightening image. And yet it wasn’t enough. This didn’t feel reckless. It felt just. Too many kings before him had sworn to one day be better, to give their people freedom when they earned it. Ali would not. They were facing terrible odds, and he wasn’t going to order people to their deaths without them having some say in it.
He’d just have to convince them not to do the same to him. “I’m not going to take a vote on our lives, Amma. But I won’t claim the throne. And I’ll make clear when assembling whatever resistance we can that we’re all in this together. And that we’re fighting for a different kind of Daevabad.”
“Then you won’t win.” But Hatset must have heard the resolution in his words, because she was looking at him now like he was a ghost. “I have twice been weighed down with the grief of not knowing whether to mourn you.” She stepped back. “If you finally make me do so, Alizayd, I will not forgive you. Not in this life or the next.” She beckoned to Issa. “Come, Ustadh.”
She slammed the door when she left, and Ali recoiled, her vow cutting him to the core.
“Sit, my friend,” Nahri said quietly. “I can see the blood leaving your face.”
“Okay,” Ali murmured, obeying.
The next family feud was not his.
Jamshid was pacing back and forth, looking at his sister as if she’d just suggested they befriend a karkadann. “Nahri, I’ve made clear to you that I’m on your side, but are you sure about this? Daevabad has always been ruled by a Nahid or a Qahtani. Our people don’t know anything else.”
“I think our people are more capable than you give them credit for. But yes.” She glanced at Ali, sounding a little nervous. “This feels right. On the extremely small chance we recover the city, I think we owe it to Daevabad to put things as right as we can and then let the city take it from there. Personally, the only place I want to rule is my hospital.”
“We just have to win a war first,” Ali said bleakly.
Jamshid shook his head. “If you want to convince people not to sell you out to my mother, you’ll stop calling it a war.”
Ali gave him a baffled stare. “It felt pretty warlike, Pramukh. Soldiers fighting, palaces falling.”
“But our peoples are not at war. Not entirely.” Jamshid looked at them. “May I be a politician for a moment, since clearly neither of you is inclined?” When Nahri rolled her eyes and Ali made a sour face, he continued. “You need to discredit them. Don’t call it a war, bec
ause ‘war’ implies there’s leadership and strategy on the other side. Call them criminals instead. Call them monsters. Make the thought of a world under their rule so personally threatening that people feel the only thing they can do is fight.”
There was silence for a long moment. “That’s not actually a bad idea,” Ali finally said.
Jamshid threw him an annoyed glare. “Glad to surprise you.”
“Can you do that, though?” It was Nahri, looking at her brother. “I’ve crossed our mother already, but you haven’t, Jamshid. And it’s going to be both your parents you’re standing up to. The ones you’re calling monsters.”
“They won’t be the only ones in Daevabad we’re calling monsters,” Jamshid warned.
Nahri’s eyes flashed before her expression closed in on itself. “He let Issa go.” She didn’t need to say Darayavahoush’s name—it was clear who they were talking about. “Maybe he’s not as loyal to Manizheh as we think. Maybe he could be an asset.”
Ali forced himself to stay silent. Darayavahoush might not have succeeded in killing Muntadhir, but he’d stood at Manizheh’s side as she planned to massacre Daevabad’s Geziri population. Ali was no innocent and knew plenty of them had blood on their hands, but the Afshin had cities’ worth.
And yet he loves her. Ali didn’t have to speak Divasti to know Darayavahoush had been pleading with Nahri just before she brought the ceiling down on his head. Indeed, the first time the Afshin had tried to steal her away, it had been to stop Nahri from marrying Muntadhir. It might be a controlling, terrible kind of love, but it was there. And it was dangerous.
Perhaps a reminder to you as well, then, to keep your heart from ruling your head.
Thankfully, Jamshid replied. “We have no way to find out, Nahri, and it’s too risky to proceed on the assumption Dara is anything but loyal to Manizheh. If what Issa says is true, it’s the Afshin holding that city for her. He needs to be removed.”
Removed. How careful a word. “The books,” Ali reminded them just as carefully. “There might be information about magic vanishing, about whatever Darayavahoush is now, and about how to stop him.”
Nahri rose to her feet. “Then I guess it’s decided.” There was a new edge in her voice. “Come on, Jamshid. Let’s go search through our family’s stolen books for a way to murder our Afshin yet again.”
Ali stood to follow her. “Nahri—”
“It’s fine.” But Nahri didn’t look fine. She looked like she was clinging to her last brittle veneer of control. “It was always going to be like this.”
“Then let me at least—”
“No. This part, Ali?” Nahri pushed past him. “I think it’s better we’re on our own.”
27
DARA
Dara stalked down the line of sparring men. “No,” he said impatiently, cutting between one pair. “Your shield is not doing you any good down by your knees. Raise it up and then actually hold your sword. What sort of grip is this? A bird could knock it out of your hand.”
The young man’s face went red. “Forgive me, Afshin.”
“I do not wish to forgive you. I wish for you to listen and do as I tell you before you get someone killed.”
Irtemiz made her way over, her cane tapping on the arena sand. “Why don’t I work with these two for a while?” she offered diplomatically. “And it’s been a long, brutal day in this sun. Maybe they deserve a break?”
“They can have a break when they show some improvement.” Dara glowered at his newest and least favorite batch of recruits. At Kaveh’s suggestion, each of the Daeva noble houses had given a youth to military training. In theory, it was a good idea. Daeva military officers had always been pulled from the nobility. They were positions of great honor, ones that would entwine the nobles more closely into Manizheh’s regime, making clear their livelihood depended on her.
But Dara doubted these young men and “great honor” would ever meet. They were merchant brats, and if a few seemed eager, the rest did not.
Irtemiz spoke again, her voice raised in false cheer. “Afshin, could I speak to you a moment about our new arms? The blacksmiths guild sent over an updated design.”
“A moment,” he grumbled, following her to the shaded pavilion.
Irtemiz collapsed into a cushioned bench. “Why don’t you have something to drink?” she suggested, pulling over a pitcher of apricot juice.
“I am not thirsty. Where are these designs?”
She gave him a sheepish smile. “They’ve not actually been delivered yet. I just wanted to give the men a break.”
“That is insubordination.”
“I know, and I’m hoping you can forgive it.” Irtemiz paused. “May I speak as a friend?”
Dara let out a disgruntled sound. “Your generation has no sense of decorum, but fine, out with it.”
“You haven’t seemed like yourself since the feast. You barely speak to us, you’re pushing these men too hard …”
Dara flinched. Irtemiz wasn’t wrong. The brief levity he’d felt at the feast—celebrating with his men, his dalliance with the dancer—had been erased by what he’d learned in the crypt. Worse, it felt like a punishment. Dara had dared to enjoy himself and flirt with the feeling of being normal and instead learned he was nothing of the sort. He’d been enslaved on the order of Zaydi al Qahtani and resurrected as an experiment, an abomination cobbled together by ifrit schemes, marid blood debts, and two Nahids blowing each other apart over whether to murder a baby.
It all had indeed left him in a fouler mood than usual. “If I am tense, it is because of this so-called peace summit,” he lied, mentioning the meeting Manizheh was planning with the handful of djinn representatives her new Daeva allies had managed to intrigue. “I have to include at least a few of these fool boys in my security detail to please their fancy families, and they are useless.”
Irtemiz didn’t look convinced. “You had far more patience with us when we trained.”
“You wanted to learn. It makes all the difference.”
A steward emerged from the shadowed archway leading back into the palace. “Afshin, the Banu Nahida wishes to speak to you.”
“I will be right there.” Dara was still doing what he could to get back into Manizheh’s good graces, determined to recover his place in court. Rising, he nodded to Irtemiz’s leg. “How are you healing?”
“I believe the term is ‘leisurely.’”
“If we went very slowly, would you feel up to getting back on a horse?”
Her eyes lit up. “That would be fantastic.”
“Good. See to these brats, and then after the summit, perhaps we can take a loop of the outer walls. It has been too long since I checked them.”
“Only for security purposes, I assume. Not because it could be in any way construed as an enjoyable activity?”
Dara feigned a scowl. “Go wag your tongue at the boy about to stab himself,” he said, nodding at one of the recruits. “Let me see what the Banu Nahida wants.”
DARA FOUND MANIZHEH IN THE GARDEN—CHIEFLY BECAUSE he followed the sounds of her shouting, an act so unlike her that he ran through the underbrush, nearly knocking over a gardener in the process.
“—I will kill her. I will kill her if she hurts him. I will catch her children, make the blood in their veins boil them alive while she watches, and then I will kill her!”
He rushed around the bend. Manizheh and Kaveh were alone in a small glen encased by rose trellises, the peaceful scene at odds with her furious pacing. She had a broken scroll in one hand and was shaking it so hard Dara was surprised it hadn’t ripped in two.
“Banu Manizheh?” he ventured. “Is everything all right?”
She whirled on him. “No. Ghassan’s crocodile wife has my son and is threatening to kill him if I harm her children. No, forgive me, ‘to take twice as long doing whatever is done to Zaynab or Alizayd’ while perpetuating the same on Jamshid,’” she said, reading the letter aloud. “I will cut out her heart.”
Dara jerked back. “The queen has Jamshid?”
Kaveh nodded, giving Manizheh a nervous look. “It seems Wajed made his way to Ta Ntry.” He pointed at the tree where a scaled pigeon was roosting. “We received a message this morning.”
Manizheh tore the letter in half. “I want Zaynab al Qahtani. This week. Tomorrow, even. If she’s not going to respond to my threats against her brother, then I want you to offer her weight in gold and free passage out of the city to anyone who turns her over. To their families. I will give them horses, supplies, enough to make a comfortable life anywhere.”
Dara hesitated. He still hadn’t told Manizheh he’d seen Zaynab at the hospital. “I can send the message, my lady, but we’ve already offered plenty of incentives. According to rumor, she’s the one who warned the rest of the Geziris to remove their relics. They’re not going to betray her. She’s likely surrounded by loyal, well-trained warriors at all times.”
“Everyone has a price,” Manizheh argued. “Maybe you should start demolishing their little city block by block and see how long it takes until someone wants to get out.”
Kaveh cleared his throat. “My lady, a third of Daevabad is behind those walls. We agreed we were going to try and reach out—”
“We have reached out. And for what? It’s been nearly two months, and all we have to show for it is a half dozen merchants more interested in gold than peace. Meanwhile, there are shafit marksmen shooting any Daeva who tries to enter the midan. They are laughing at us. Laughing while they no doubt make more Rumi fire and bullets. Aeshma tells me he sees their forges burning all night.”
“I would not listen to anything Aeshma says,” Dara warned. Not that Manizheh would heed him. The ifrit was such a consistent presence at her side lately that Dara was surprised not to see Aeshma there now.
“And no one is laughing,” Kaveh assured her. “You just need to be a bit more patient.”
The Empire of Gold Page 38