The Empire of Gold

by S. A. Chakraborty

  A warning shivered through her blood. And then a root dashed up from the soft earth underfoot. It wrapped around her ankle, and yanked her out of the path of an arrow that zipped over her head.

  “Surrender!” Dara was atop a pile of debris that used to be a gazebo, another arrow drawn back. “Nahri, please!”

  “No, I don’t think so, my love.” He’d shot her shedu, so she’d hurt him in turn. And judging from the pain that sparked in his eyes, the words cut deep. Nahri called to the magic burning in her blood once again, and the tree nearest Dara swayed wildly before ricocheting back and knocking him to the ground.

  She paid for it. In the next breath, the garden had burst into flames, a ring of fire surrounding her and Mishmish. From the billowing black smoke rushed twisting forms: a massive viper, a screeching rukh, a sharp-horned karkadann, and a fire-breathing zahhak.

  Mishmish knocked her aside, putting himself between Nahri and the monsters. But her shedu was outmatched, unable to fight four at once, and even as he dragged down the viper, biting it clean in half, the zahhak tore at his golden flank. He roared in pain, narrowly avoiding the charging karkadann.

  The rukh landed between them, hissing and snapping its sharp beak. Nahri scrambled back. Panicked, she called upon the palace magic for protection, but the giant bird simply dodged the tree swinging at it and then seized Mishmish with its talons.

  “No, stop!” she cried.

  “Surrender, and he is free.” Dara was already back on his feet, stepping through the line of flames like a demon striding through hellfire. “Keep fighting, and my beasts will tear him apart.”

  Of all the things he had threatened her with … Nahri would rather have been shot and bound with the scourge.

  “You would do that to me again?” she asked, her heart breaking. She would not have thought Dara could keep finding ways to accomplish that. “Was the first time not enough?”

  “I must obey my orders.”

  “Oh, fuck your orders.” And this time, Nahri launched herself at him.

  It was a supremely foolish move, one that caught Dara unaware as expected—she had literally no chance of defeating the legendary Afshin in hand-to-hand combat—but it was enough to startle him, knocking him off-balance. They wrestled to the ground, Dara easily thwarting her feigned efforts to grab the sword at his waist.

  “Nahri, stop,” he said, sounding exasperated. “I do not wish to hurt you!”

  “You won’t,” she hissed. “I’ve learned the garden is very protective.”

  And with that, the roots beneath her surged up and seized him by the arms.

  Nahri rolled free, climbing to her knees. Mishmish had slipped from the rukh’s grip but was still struggling to hold his own against Dara’s conjured beasts, silver blood gushing from his wounds. Dara was swearing, trying to twist free as more roots wrapped around his body.

  Do it. Now! It wasn’t the plan, but Dara was at her mercy for a moment. His monsters were about to kill Mishmish. She had no choice.

  Nahri drew the peri’s dagger.

  Dara’s bright eyes went wide, locking on the icy blade. The roots holding him were already smoldering, cracking as new ones raced to replace them in a race Nahri knew she would eventually lose.

  He’d saved her life in a Cairo cemetery. He’d jested and grinned and stolen her heart as they flew across the world on a journey plucked from a fable. He loved her.

  She was shaking. “Let my shedu go.”

  Dara thrashed against the tightening vegetation. “I cannot disobey Banu Manizheh.”

  “Stop saying that!” Nahri gripped the dagger, the handle so cold it hurt. “Call off those beasts, or I’ll kill you!”

  He met her gaze. The emerald eyes that had once terrified her. The ones she’d watched crinkle when he smiled and grow soft with longing in a cave above the Gozan. The eyes of perhaps the first person she’d ever trusted in her life.

  Dara looked at her—and then a dozen more conjured beasts rose from the smoke to surround Mishmish.

  Nahri choked. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Because I cannot disobey her,” Dara repeated, tortured begging in his voice. “I cannot speak against her. Do you understand? Nahri, I need you to understand!”

  Mishmish screeched in pain.

  You made a deal. He made a choice.

  Nahri closed the space between them and raised the dagger.

  There was a crack of thunder, and then lightning burst before her eyes, striking the nearest tree, a towering cypress. Heat seared her face, the tree trunk splitting …

  Nahri threw herself across Dara, calling on her magic as the cypress crashed to the ground. It turned to ash before it crushed her, falling like snow upon them both.

  And in the few seconds she took to protect him, Dara tore himself free of the roots.

  He knocked the dagger from Nahri’s hand, sending it flying into the undergrowth. Then he grabbed her by the collar and lifted her to her feet.

  Briefly blinded by the burst of light and the smoke from the burning tree, Nahri blinked, trying to clear her vision. She expected to see the mocking grins of ifrit before her, their fiery eyes bright with heartless amusement. They were the ones who used blood magic to travel upon bolts of lightning, after all.

  It wasn’t the ifrit.

  Manizheh smiled gently. “Daughter,” she greeted Nahri. “You’ve returned home.”

  MANIZHEH LOOKED LIKE THE QUEEN SHE WAS, DRESSED in a dark silver gown dashed through with crimson insets and embroidered with rubies and pale opals. Ink-dark gloves covered her hands, but her face was unveiled, a copper-colored chador flowing over her long black braid like liquid metal. The color took Nahri aback, the allusion to the vapor Manizheh had used to kill the Geziris so bold that Nahri at first thought it had to be a mistake.

  But she suspected Manizheh was not the kind to make such mistakes. It was a reminder.

  No, it was a point of pride.

  Manizheh’s gaze was calm and very nearly warm as it moved from a brawling Mishmish to Dara holding Nahri by the collar. It dropped to linger on the seal ring glittering from her daughter’s hand before finally rising, her black eyes settling on Nahri’s face. She’d swear her mother looked almost impressed.

  “I must admit, this was not how I saw you returning.” Manizheh returned her glance to Mishmish. “Though if you’ve exchanged Ghassan’s son for a shedu, I’d say you made a good trade. Dara, would you call off your beasts? I’d rather not have the first shedu to visit Daevabad in millennia be savaged. You can let her go as well.”

  Dara dropped Nahri to the ground. In the same instant, the smoky monsters surrounding Mishmish fell apart, smoldering embers showering the grass. Nahri lunged for the bushes in which he’d tossed the dagger, but Dara was faster, snatching up the peri’s blade before dutifully crossing to Manizheh’s side.

  “You wished her disarmed,” he murmured, his voice again uncharacteristically muted. He handed over the peri’s dagger. “This was all I saw.”

  Manizheh examined the blade, and Nahri watched her shiver as she ran her fingers down the icy length. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

  “No.”

  She glanced up, eyeing him carefully. “Tell me the truth, Afshin.”

  “No.” The word seemed to tear itself from Dara’s mouth. “I know nothing about a blade like that.”

  “A shedu and a dagger as cold as ice.” Manizheh turned back to Nahri. “Tell me, dear daughter, where did you ever come upon such things?”

  Nahri brushed herself off, contemplating tackling Manizheh for the blade. “Luck.”

  “I doubt that very much. Another lie. Two you’ve told me now.” Manizheh tilted her head. “But then you’ve always been good at that, haven’t you? A thief, Dara tells me. Some sort of two-bit criminal.”

  Dara told her I was a thief. Betrayal resounded in her, but Nahri glared back. “I wasn’t the only liar that night. A shafit couldn’t take the seal without being killed?�
� She raised her hand, summoning a pair of flames and letting them dance through her fingers and around the ring. “Interesting.”

  “And yet despite it being on your hand and returned to Daevabad, our magic is still broken. A coincidence, I’m sure.” Manizheh’s gaze turned more appraising. “Did you kill Alizayd for it?”

  Nahri had known in advance that was not a lie she’d be able to sell. “No. I removed it from his heart and healed him with my own hands. He is with the marid now, beyond your grasp.”

  “Is he?” If her mother was surprised, it didn’t register. “A shame. Had you killed him, I might be more inclined to welcome you back.”

  “I’m not interested in your welcome. I came back because I received that foul present you sent to Ta Ntry. You’ve taken to murdering and enslaving our people now, have you?”

  “I’ve taken to executing traitors. I have no choice; that’s the only law this city recognizes. Believe it or not, I tried to reach out to the djinn. They responded with deception, as they always do—which you must know if you were there when my envoy arrived. Did he tell you about the coup your sand fly husband instigated? The way they murdered Kaveh?”

  “Kaveh chose his path when he let that vapor free. Or you did, giving it to him.”

  That landed. “Kaveh was fighting for our people decades before you were even born,” Manizheh snapped. She steadied her voice. “You’re angry; I understand. But you’re also very young, Nahri, and new to our world. I offered you mercy once, and you threw it in my face. Don’t make that mistake again.”

  “I told you, I’m not looking for your mercy. I’m here to save our people.”

  “‘Save our people.’” Manizheh pinched the bridge of her nose in an expression of pure frustration. “Do you hear yourself, child? Do you have any idea how naive you sound?”

  Nahri bristled at the condescension in her mother’s remark. “I’m no child.”

  “You are,” Manizheh exploded. “An ignorant, self-righteous child who has no idea what she’s talking about and is lucky to be alive. One who is very alone and exceedingly outmatched. But never mind all that. Where is your brother? He is the one my envoy was actually intended to escort back.”

  “I left him behind. Jamshid is safer in Ta Ntry than with you.”

  “Safer? Do you have any idea what Ghassan’s wife threatened to do to him?”

  Nahri shook her head. “Hatset won’t hurt him. We made a deal.”

  Her mother didn’t look reassured by that—indeed, she looked even angrier. “So you make deals with djinn but not your own family? Why is that? All I hear about you is your supposed pragmatism. How willing you were to work with the djinn and the shafit, with the Qahtanis. You went to Muntadhir’s bed, called Ghassan father—”

  “You think I had a choice?” Nahri raged at the judgment in her mother’s voice. “I had no one and nothing! They were hanging Daevas from the palace walls!”

  “Which is why I killed them! You think you didn’t have a choice? Try living under your enemies for a century, Nahri, instead of five years. Watch your brother beaten for your defiance and have it be Ghassan, not Muntadhir, trying to touch you. Burn a mark into your newborn child’s shoulder, stealing his heritage and abandoning him forever. Then you can lecture me about choice. I did not want this violence. It will haunt me to the end of my days, but I will be damned if it was for nothing.”

  Manizheh’s calm was gone, the words bursting out of her as if they had been penned up for far too long. And what was worse was that Nahri understood.

  But that didn’t justify it.

  “I saw what the two of you did out there,” Nahri agrued. “You’ve gone too far.”

  “And because you’ve somehow wrangled up a shedu and cut a gem from your prince’s heart, you think you’re capable of removing me?” Her mother’s voice was sarcastic and annoyed, and it hurt, because despite everything, Nahri could hear the undercurrent of familiarity beneath it, a parent dealing with a wayward child.

  But Manizheh wasn’t done.

  “Enough of this.” She sighed. “Nahri, please. I will offer you this chance again, but only once. You’re my daughter. You are, by all accounts, an extremely promising healer. Surrender. Call off your shedu and hand over the ring. You won’t be free, but I will see to your comfort and your education, and you’ll be permitted to return to the infirmary. Play your part, and you could have a life here, a family—the kind of opportunities I never had.”

  Dara had remained at Manizheh’s side, a silent sentinel. His gaze was downcast, and in his dazzling uniform, he was the perfect picture of obedience.

  And that was what Manizheh would make her—the daughter who’d gone astray but returned to the fold, living proof of Manizheh’s beneficence. Nahri would be a healer again, quiet and dutiful, dragged out and decorated for festivals, expected to keep her mouth shut about whatever new atrocities her mother committed to keep the gilded illusion of their power.

  It wasn’t an opportunity Manizheh was offering, it was a nightmare.

  “No,” Nahri replied. “Never. You call me outmatched, and yet you have a single Afshin and a pair of unreliable ifrit. I have the seal, our magic, and the city itself.”

  “You have a broken ring, a bleeding shedu, and a handful of angry trees. But you clearly don’t want to listen to me. Fine. Let’s see if someone else can make you see reason. Darayavahoush—” Dara’s head snapped toward Manizheh. “You had to be brought more forcibly back into line. Speak freely. Tell my daughter how that’s been.”

  Dara … broke.

  The consummate Afshin—so obedient, so strong—crumpled to the ground. He ripped away his helmet, revealing the jagged lines of light breaking over his face.

  “Nahri.” Dara fell weeping at her feet, pressing his brow to the dirt as his entire body shook with sobs. “I am sorry. I am so sorry. I did not want to hurt you. She gave me no choice. She made me destroy the city,” he blurted out, pushing himself up on his knees to look at her. His eyes were wild, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Please.” He clutched at Nahri’s dress. “Surrender. I cannot watch her kill you. I cannot—” He broke into louder sobs, his words incoherent, and then simply threw his arms around her knees, holding her tight.

  Nahri was speechless. Lost for words—for any explanation as to what could have rendered the legendary warrior, the man who looked like death incarnate, into the shattered Afshin at her feet, she glanced up.

  Manizheh met her gaze, raised her hand, and pulled free a black glove.

  An emerald ring glittered on one of her fingers.

  I cannot disobey her. I cannot speak against her.

  No, that wasn’t possible. It wasn’t. Nahri grabbed Dara’s hands, wrenching them away from her legs to search his fingers.

  His ring was gone.

  “No,” she whispered. “Oh, Dara, no …” But in his miserable, wet green eyes Nahri saw the awful, impossible truth.

  He tangled his fingers in hers, pressing them to his face. “I am sorry. I am so sorry.” His skin scorched her knuckles. Still on his knees, she might have been a queen, a goddess Dara came to beg for intercession.

  Nahri looked to her mother again. Her mother. “You enslaved him.” Her voice was still hushed, the words too repulsive to say any louder.

  “I saved him. He would have died of iron poisoning after the coup failed, had I not found a way to preserve his life. So I tied it to mine. Gave up my own blood and the remnants of our ancestors.”

  “On your own or with the assistance of the ifrit?” Manizheh’s eyes flashed in response, but she had nothing on Nahri’s anger now. “Call it what you will, you still enslaved him. Your own Afshin. With blood magic. Ifrit magic.” Nahri was trembling. “He spent fourteen hundred years as their prisoner, and you—his Nahid—stole his freedom yet again. The Creator curse you,” she breathed, having nothing else to say. There was no cutting remark now, no sarcastic refrain. It was a perversion of their family’s role, of the relationship between the
Nahids and the Afshins, deeper than anything Nahri had imagined possible.

  “He betrayed his vows,” Manizheh said. “He was straying from the path of loyalty. I set him back upon it in a way that empowers us both.”

  “In a way that empowers you both,” Nahri repeated weakly. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

  “In this—form”—Nahri didn’t miss how Manizheh avoided the word “slave”—“Dara is even more powerful than he was before. He can level cities and take on entire armies.” She smiled at Dara, still weeping into Nahri’s hands. “And it’s easier for him this way. He’s already been through so much; his heart can’t take what this last war requires. When we’ve finally won and enjoy peace, I will release him. He’ll understand.”

  Nahri stared at her traumatized Afshin. So this was why the peris had sent her to kill him—the final act that had pushed them over the edge. Manizheh’s act, for which Dara would suffer.

  But the reminder of her bargain sent Nahri’s mind spinning in a different direction. “And what kind of deal did you cut with the ifrit for this assistance?” she demanded. “Was it the souls of the Daevas you executed? Something else?”

  Her mother’s gaze dimmed. “A price I’d rather not pay. And one I won’t need to, not if you stand at my side.”

  “Surrender.” Dara said the word with defeat, with aching regret, but he said it. “Nahri, please, you don’t want this.” He pressed her fingers to the jagged line of fiery light cracking over his temple. “Surrender. You cannot defeat her. It will be easier.”

  Nahri briefly let herself cradle Dara’s face in her hands, stroking back a lock of his hair. Not in a thousand years, even in the depths of her worst anger, had she wanted this for him.

  “Oh, Afshin,” she murmured. “You always did underestimate me.”

  “Nahri …”

  But she’d already stepped away. This was between Nahri and her mother now.