The Empire of Gold

by S. A. Chakraborty

  “Were it possible, I’d have us practice twenty times. Again.”

  “All right,” Jamshid muttered, visibly nervous. “We have Ali drop the seal while we’re touching him, and then I manage his pain while you work.”

  “How?”

  “By dulling the nerves like you showed me,” he answered. Ali was gone now, making final preparations, but they had quickly practiced that part, letting Jamshid get familiar with how his magic would feel. “And by talking to him, keeping him calm and awake so he can maintain his link with the seal while you carve into his heart.”

  “While I make an incision in the outer membrane,” Nahri corrected, pointing to the sketch she’d made while examining Ali earlier. “The ring is right beneath it. I suspect our magic will fail the moment I remove the ring, and if that happens, Ali’s going to be in a lot of pain. It will be enough to knock him out, but you should ready yourself for his reaction.”

  “And then you’re planning to suture the incision, correct? Do you think that will be enough to save him?”

  I don’t know. Nahri was skilled, and she suspected that free of Suleiman’s ring, the marid strength swimming in Ali’s blood would help his recovery—it had when he’d been stabbed by an assassin back in Daevabad. But they were so firmly in the realm of the unknown that it seemed foolish to pretend this plan was anything more than hope.

  “It might not be,” she replied. “Which is why we’re going to do something else as well: you’re going to take the seal.”

  Jamshid started. “What?”

  “You’re going to take the seal,” Nahri repeated, hating everything about this. “Because I’m not certain I can. Back in Daevabad, Manizheh claimed doing so would kill me since I’m shafit. That’s why I gave it to Ali.”

  He stared back at her, looking uncertain. “So what the monsoon marid said—”

  “Is true, yes. I have human blood, and it’s very much not the time to discuss it. Manizheh might have been lying, but I’m not going to risk it. Not now. If there’s even a slight chance that taking the ring will give you healing abilities, we’re going to do it.”

  “It doesn’t feel right,” Jamshid protested. “I just found out I’m a Nahid. I have no experience with the magic, and you’ve been serving our tribe for years as Banu Nahida.”

  That line of objection made her feel slightly better—Nahri didn’t think her heart could take it if her brother’s first instinct was to agree with their mother that shafit were weak. “I know. And if we were doing this in circumstances that did not involve Ali’s open chest, I’d entertain the possibility. But we’re not.”

  Jamshid paled even more. “Creator help us.”

  “And here you thought you’d left the priesthood behind.” Nahri looked over the space she’d prepared: a waist-high table covered with clean cloth; her surgical instruments freshly scoured and laid out; suture supplies, boiled water, and linen. Every oil lamp and candle they had was blazing, filling the room with light, and a tin tub of water rested nearby so Ali could use his marid abilities.

  The door to her room opened softly. Ali stepped through, and Nahri’s heart crashed to the floor. She could still feel his hands in her hair and how badly he’d been shaking when their lips finally touched. Nahri hadn’t known she could have that effect on him.

  She hadn’t known until Ali all but begged her to kill him, the effect he had on her.

  He’s your patient, she reminded herself. Right now, Nahri was a doctor first, and they would both be better for the boundary. “Did you speak to Wajed?” she asked.

  Ali nodded, keeping his eyes from meeting hers. “Yes. He’ll get me to Tiamat if I can’t,” he said, dancing around what they both knew he really meant. “He swore to keep you both safe.”

  “Do you believe him?” Jamshid asked.

  “Yes.” Now Ali did glance up, his gray eyes soft with exasperation. “I believe the man who raised me will honor my dying wish.”

  Nahri gripped the table’s edge. “No one’s dying. Are you ready to begin?”

  Ali stared at the table like a man looking down at an executioner. “Of course.” His fingers hovered over a large serrated instrument. “What is this for?”

  Nahri felt sick. “It’s a bone saw. I need to remove part of one of your ribs.”

  “Oh,” he said weakly. “I would have thought I needed those.”

  “If I get my magic back, I’ll reattach the bone. If not, you can live without it.”

  Ali swayed slightly. “I see.” He took a deep breath as if to steady himself, his gaze darting to hers. It looked like he had a hundred more things to say, and Nahri felt the same. Words hovered at her lips, things she wanted him to know, emotions she couldn’t articulate.

  “Take off your shirt,” she said instead. “And lie down.”

  He obeyed. Jamshid placed a drape over Ali’s chest. “Keep your eyes on me,” he said. “She doesn’t need the distraction, and you definitely don’t want to see what she’s doing. We can talk about your brother, if you like, and the hundreds of signs you missed.”

  “So you plan to mock me as I bleed to death?” Ali asked as Nahri scrubbed his chest with disinfectant. “That sounds like a terrible bedside manner.”

  “Whatever it takes to keep you awake and focused,” Jamshid said cheerfully. But when he glanced at Nahri, his expression was serious. “Ready?”

  No. “Yes,” she replied, pressing her fingers over his heart. Jamshid did the same. “Your turn, Ali.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him drop his hand to hover just above the water. He whispered a prayer in Arabic, and then a tendril of water dashed from the tub. The seal fell, and Nahri’s magic flooded back into her, raw and wild and warm. At her side, Jamshid gasped.

  Ali was breathing fast, his heart racing. “Can you … the pain,” he wheezed.

  “Jamshid—”

  “I’ve got it.” Jamshid squeezed his eyes shut in concentration, and Nahri felt a cool wave pass through Ali, numbing his nerves. Despite the circumstances, part of her marveled. It was incredible working with another Nahid like this, as though they were sharing part of themselves.

  “I’m starting,” she said in Divasti. “Keep him awake and calm.”

  “Will do, little sister.”

  Letting Jamshid hold the healing magic, Nahri broke contact to pick up her tools. As feared, her powers fell instantly away, but for this part, she wouldn’t need them. Still, she paused with the scalpel. It felt so incredibly wrong to cut into Ali.

  And yet Nahri had no choice. Because, like he’d said, she was the Banu Nahida.

  Ali twitched as she sank the scalpel into his skin, but she had to hand it to Jamshid; he was doing a good job of keeping the prince oblivious to what was going on below his neck.

  “So let me tell you all the ways in which you have terrible form as a rider,” Jamshid began conversationally. “Because it really is distressing to watch, and Muntadhir never had the heart to tell you. He actually hoped I would tell you, in exchange for you teaching me how to wield a zulfiqar …”

  Nahri let their conversation fade into the background. There was only the job in front of her. Skin and muscle that needed to be carefully cut and clamped back. Blood to be packed with gauze. It wasn’t her doomed friend she was opening up, the man she’d been kissing only hours earlier. It was simply parts, a biological mechanism with a foreign object that needed excising.

  It was only when she started on the bone saw that she felt the others waver. Jamshid’s voice hitched, and Ali trembled beneath her.

  “Al Qahtani,” Jamshid said soothingly, “look at me, all right? Keep your eyes open so I know you’re awake.”

  Ali’s response was too muttered to hear. Nahri worked faster, the chalky smell of bone dust filling her nose. She cut free the rib, setting it aside. And then she stared in awe at his heart.

  Jamshid let out a small sound of surprise. “Is it supposed to look like that?” he whispered in Divasti.

  �
�No,” she breathed. “Not quite.” For Nahri had seen hearts in her work. Djinn hearts were larger than human ones and a rich, dazzling purple. Ali’s was large as well but swirled with bright golden brown and silver-toned blue. Had the marid possession done that?

  Focus, Nahri. The scalpel in one hand, she laid her other one against his pulsing heart and her magic returned even faster. Stronger. The muscles throbbed; the ring was ready to burst through.

  It wants you, Ali had said once. Nahri had found that ridiculous, and yet it was hard to shake the feeling now. With magic burning through her veins, it seemed such an easy matter to pluck the ring from his heart and heal him right up.

  One step at a time. Closing her eyes to tease out the different levels of the membrane protecting his heart, Nahri saw the ring in her mind’s eye, nestled in the walls of undulating tissue.

  “I’m opening the heart now,” she warned Jamshid. “Get ready.”

  Ever so gently, she cut through the membrane, teasing it back with the edge of her scalpel. Bright amber fluid flowed out, and then it was there, Suleiman’s ring, the gold band and black pearl gleaming wetly.

  Creator, if you have ever listened to my prayer, I beg you now. Nahri took a deep breath. “Ali, this might hurt, but it will only be for a moment, I promise you.”

  He was breathing fast, his heart pumping in response. “Go.”

  Nahri hooked the ring with her scalpel and pulled it free.

  Her magic, Jamshid’s magic, everything instantly fell. The water splashed down from Ali’s fingers, and then he screamed, a raw, wrenching howl as his entire body spasmed. His hands flew toward his open chest, and Nahri grabbed them before he could hurt himself, dropping her scalpel and the seal ring to the ground in her haste.

  Ali’s eyes were already rolling up, the lids fluttering shut as he slumped back against the table. But the movement had jarred his chest, the trickle of blood giving way to thicker gushes.

  She fought panic, quickly stanching the blood with gauze and reaching for her suture supplies. “Jamshid, get that damn thing on your finger.” It seemed like the passing of Suleiman’s seal to a Nahid for the first time in centuries should have been marked by something a bit more ceremonious than the last Baga Nahid scrambling on the floor while his sister desperately pinched shut a heart membrane, but the time for that was lost. Jamshid bumped the table, cursing as he crawled after the rolling ring. He did as she asked, though, grabbing and shoving it on his finger without a second’s pause.

  Ali’s heart was slowing. Nahri bent over his bloody chest, carefully pulling through her first suture. If she could just close the incision … “Jamshid, what’s happening?” she called over her shoulder.

  “Nothing! It’s—it’s just staying on my finger. It’s not vanishing like you said it would.”

  “What?” Her own heart dropped. “Can you feel your magic?”

  “No, I don’t feel—”

  Every flame in the room soared higher. Jamshid cried out, and Nahri risked a glance back to see him fall to his knees.

  “Suleiman’s eye, this burns.” He raised his hands, fire swirling through them. “I can’t control this.”

  “I need you to try.” Nahri added a second stitch. Why in God’s name was Ali’s heart still slowing? The bleeding was under control, and it was only the outer membrane she’d pierced. “Can you use Nahid magic?” she asked, switching to Arabic. “Can you understand me?”

  “Aywa,” Jamshid responded automatically and then gasped. “Oh, that’s strange.”

  Ali’s heart gave a gentle push beneath her fingers. Still holding the membrane closed, Nahri drew her needle through a third suture. Ali, please hang on. “Test your healing abilities on yourself.”

  “But there’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “Then make something wrong with you. We’re in a room full of knives!”

  Jamshid muttered something rude but then plucked up another of her razor-sharp medical tools. He pierced his skin, drawing a deep cut on his forearm.

  It healed instantly.

  Her brother’s eyes went wide. “Oh.”

  “Now get over here.”

  Jamshid staggered to her side. “I feel like I just ate a firebird and washed it down with a dozen bottles of wine,” he said, clutching his head. “I … everything is so loud. The hearts of everyone in the castle, your breathing … I feel like my brain is going to explode.”

  “Just breathe.” Nahri finished her stitch and then glanced up to see Jamshid squeezing his eyes shut, his face creased with pain. “Jamshid? Take a deep breath, all right, and try to shut the rest of it out. I know it’s overwhelming, but we don’t have much time.”

  He managed a nod. With a quick prayer, Nahri removed one of her hands from Ali’s chest and reached out to take Jamshid’s. Like he said, the ring was still there, bloody and glittering from his pinky. Nahri pressed her thumb against the band.

  She felt nothing but the metal. There wasn’t even a hint of her magic sparking to life.

  Ali’s heart shuddered against her other hand, the faintest pulse yet, driving her to another decision. “Jamshid, I need you to heal him. I still can’t use my magic.”

  His eyes shot open. “But your sutures …”

  “It’s not working. I’ll walk you through the healing magic, I promise. But we need to be fast.” Her voice cracked in fear. “Jamshid, I can’t lose him. Please.”

  “Tell me what to do.”

  “Place your hands on his heart. Gently,” she added, guiding his fingers. “And try to open your mind. Tell me what you see.”

  Jamshid was trembling. “I don’t know. I feel like I’m seeing ten things at once. There’s his heart in front of me, but there’s also liquid beneath and movement and buzzing—”

  “Concentrate on his heart. His pulse is failing. Tell me what’s going on with the blood.”

  Jamshid shut his eyes again. “It’s coming through here,” he whispered, gesturing to the right side of Ali’s heart. “Then going out to—to something billowing open and shut …”

  “His lungs,” Nahri explained. “What then?”

  “It pumps back through here.” Jamshid’s finger moved across Ali’s heart, hovering just over the membrane she’d stitched closed. “And then …” He frowned. “It slows. There’s some sort of block, a clot.”

  “Can you dissolve it?” she urged. “Visualize it falling apart, and then command it to heal. It’s like any other magic; you need to focus. You can even say the words aloud.”

  He swallowed loudly. “I’ll try.” He shifted his hands. “Heal,” he whispered in Divasti. Ash beaded from his furrowed brow. “Heal … I think it’s working—”

  Ali’s heart abruptly shuddered and swelled, and then the membrane Nahri had carefully sutured shut burst apart with a spray of black blood that drenched them both.

  “No!” Jamshid cried, reaching with both hands for Ali’s heart. “Creator, no! I didn’t mean to do that!”

  Blood was gushing from Ali’s chest with each pulse, filling the cavity and obscuring his heart as it poured over the table.

  “Nahri, I don’t know what to do!”

  Nahri stared at the bloody table, her brother’s shouts suddenly distant. But it wasn’t a patient she was looking at, a body that needed fixing and one where she could divide her head and her heart.

  It was Ali. The obnoxious young prince she’d fought with on her first day in Daevabad and the man who’d held her as she wept on the beach and made her feel like she could be open in a way she was with no one else. It was the Geziri elder in the infirmary, the first patient Nahri had killed. It was Nisreen, dying in her arms. Muntadhir, the zulfiqar poison leaving her useless.

  Manizheh’s words washed over her. You cannot take the seal. Possessing it will kill you. You simply aren’t strong enough.

  Nahri grabbed Jamshid’s hand, slipped the seal ring from his finger, and shoved it over her thumb.

  She had barely drawn a breath when the world burst i
nto flame around her. Pain and power—raw and unbridled, as if she’d stuck her hands in a bolt of lightning—ripped through her and Nahri fell to her knees, choking as she tried to scream. The ring scorched her skin, so hot Nahri was certain she was about to combust, to be ash in the next moment. Black dots blossomed against her vision, and then everything flooded in. The stomach gurgles of a hungry guard across the palace squirmed in her belly, her temples thudding in time with a woman in the village having a headache.

  Nahri couldn’t breathe. She clutched the floor, the boards warping and smoking at her touch. Her heart felt like it was about to explode.

  No. Nahri refused to let Manizheh be right. To let every so-called pureblood in Daevabad who had ever snubbed a shafit as lesser be right. To allow the worst of her ancestors—the ones who would have killed her as a child—have their prejudices confirmed. That magic was dangerous in the hands of the shafit. That they were reckless and weak, people to be wiped out or controlled.

  Nahri was not weak.

  She grabbed the edge of the wet table, sucking in air, and then hauled herself to her feet. She plunged her hands back into Ali’s chest. More practiced than Jamshid, Nahri found his heart immediately, the ruptured valve standing out like the last ember of a charred piece of wood.

  Heal, she commanded it.

  Darkness engulfed her, a clammy chill crawling over her skin like she was being seized by unseen tendrils of ice. Nahri fought the instinct to let go, the taste of salt filling her mouth.

  Not salt. Blood. She coughed, the spray that came from her lips as black as bitumen.

  “Nahri!”

  She was dimly aware of Jamshid calling her name, but it seemed from a great distance. Heal, she urged again, pulling at the frayed tissue and gushing blood. HEAL.

  The room vanished, a memory that wasn’t hers stealing her away. Nahri floated in a midnight blue lake, her eyes just above the surface as she watched rocks and sand erupt from the water, swirling beneath a young woman in a faded chador and muddy dress. An island, growing larger and larger as the woman made her way down a forming path. She knelt to run her fingers through the dust, a gold-and-pearl ring glittering from one hand.