The Empire of Gold

by S. A. Chakraborty

  He hadn’t earned it. Not yet.

  But with that revelation, more clarity. The slow settling of a decision that seemed almost obvious in retrospect.

  Dara returned his gaze to Jamshid. “Because there is still something I need to do.”

  OF THE FORTY-TWO WARRIORS DARA HAD BROUGHT to Daevabad, eight were left, another loss for which Dara would do penance. Studying the wan, scarred faces of his paltry band made him only more aware of who was missing. Loyal Mardoniye, who’d fallen first while protecting Banu Manizheh, and Bahram, whom Dara had last spoken to when the blushing young man was trying to steal a few moments alone with Irtemiz. Gushtap, who’d always been grinning, and Laleh, one of Dara’s quietest, who’d apparently been executed by Manizheh when it was discovered she’d helped some of the elderly noblewomen escape the arena.

  They had all been so young. So earnest and full of life and promise.

  Now they looked broken, despair in their slumped shoulders and angry mouths. Dara recognized that feeling—it was the same kind of grief and resentment that had once fueled him.

  So he was going to do what he could to make sure it didn’t end them. He’d found a quiet place in the Temple gardens for them to meet, a grove of shade trees surrounded by manicured rosebushes. They were not entirely concealed—there was the occasional curious face peeking through and the sound of pilgrims—but Dara suspected the sight of his group was sufficiently intimidating to scare off interlopers.

  Nor did his warriors interrupt as Dara spoke; they were too well-trained. But there was no missing the growing horror and disbelief on their faces as he detailed what Manizheh had done, from executing the Daeva nobles for blood magic and enslaving him, to letting the ifrit sack the Temple for vessels and conjuring the devastating attack on the palace that had killed as many of their own people as djinn.

  There was silence when he was done. Irtemiz was so pale that he almost wanted to check her pulse.

  “But—but we followed her orders,” Piroz finally replied. “She said all those people were guilty. Afshin, she had me dragging parents away from their children.”

  “I know,” Dara said. “And I am so, so sorry for not having stopped her sooner. You were my responsibility, and I failed to see what she had become until it was too late. I failed to teach you how to see it.” He swallowed hard. “For a very long time, I thought my only role was to obey. To teach you all to obey. I was wrong.”

  “But she was a Nahid,” Irtemiz protested. “One of Suleiman’s blessed. She performed miracles!”

  “She performed magic,” Dara countered. “There was nothing miraculous about the way she murdered the Geziris or brought me back to life under her thrall.”

  “This is nonsense.” Noshrad, the warrior Manizheh had replaced Dara with at court, shot to his feet. “There were already whispers you were going astray. Now the Nahid everyone knows you truly wanted is back, so how convenient that Banu Manizheh was corrupt.” His face twisted in fury. “You killed her. Your own Banu Nahida. Were there any decency left in this city, you would be strung up from the Temple walls.” He spat at Dara’s feet. “I am finished with this conversation.”

  Irtemiz opened her mouth, looking upset, but Dara was already shaking his head. “Let him go.” Noshrad wouldn’t be the only angry Daeva. Manizheh’s supporters had been dwindling, but she’d had plenty of true believers, Daevas who’d been thrilled to see their tribe rise and would not take kindly to Nahri’s ideas of “power sharing.” Dealing with them would be a priority for the people rebuilding the city.

  But Dara was not going to be one of those people.

  “Listen to me,” he continued, taking a moment to look at each of them directly. “Because I am going to teach you a final lesson, one I wish had been taught to me. There is a time to fight, and you are all fierce warriors, students I am deeply proud of. But there is also a time to put down your weapons and make peace. A time to recognize that a new kind of fight has started, and it may be even harder. You may have to battle with words and with your very beliefs. But it is worth it. Your lives are worth it. Don’t let them be made into fodder for those who will never be in the trenches. Make something of yourselves. Find happiness, and if you cannot find that here, make fresh starts in outer Daevastana.”

  Irtemiz spoke. “They will want to punish us, these new rulers. You don’t think Muntadhir al Qahtani remembers the soldiers who held him as Manizheh cut out his eye?”

  “I will take the blame for you. For all of you. I have already spoken to Baga Jamshid and Kartir. You will be safe.”

  “But then they will hate you.”

  “They have always hated me. I thrive on djinn hate.” Dara smiled. “Now go. It is a lovely day, and there is rebuilding to do. Do not waste your time listening to the sermons of an old man.”

  They obeyed his last order with obvious reluctance, but they did leave. Dara watched them go, his heart feeling a twinge. No matter the circumstances, he had found companionship with his warriors. Training them had saved him and given him a purpose in the bleak first years in which he’d been brought back to life and was going mad with fear over Nahri. Dara loved them.

  He was going to miss them terribly.

  He closed his eyes, soaking in the chatter of Divasti and the smell of the fire altars. He wanted to remember this place, to imprint it upon his soul.

  “What do you mean, your final lesson?”

  He opened his eyes. Irtemiz had returned, her dark gaze filled with apprehension. Of course she had disobeyed. In a way, he had counted on it.

  Dara took her hand. “My friend, I must beg a favor of you.”

  46

  NAHRI

  Nahri ran her hands down the little girl’s shattered arm, dulling the nerves as she rebroke the parts of the bone that had healed incorrectly and then urged them to knit back together.

  The Geziri girl watched with enormous gray eyes. “That’s so neat,” she enthused. She glanced back at her father. “Abba, look!”

  Her father was slightly green. “I see.” He turned to Nahri. “And she’ll be okay after this?”

  “As long as she rests for a couple of days.” Nahri winked at the girl. “You’re very brave. If you still think this is neat in a decade or so, come look me up, and maybe I’ll take you on as a student.”

  “That would be amazing!”

  She tugged one of the girl’s braids. “I’ll see if someone can’t rustle up a couple of bandages for you to take home and practice with.”

  Nahri ducked out of the examination chamber, immediately on alert. She was light enough on her feet to avoid being trampled by the bustling crowd in the corridor, but only just barely. “Busy” didn’t come close to describing the hospital. Between injured soldiers, civilians hurt in the city’s destruction, and the general magical maladies that had gone untreated for weeks, the place was bursting at the seams. Subha had called in everyone she knew with the barest medical training, and Jamshid was getting a crash course in Nahid healing on the spot. But even so, it was chaos. Nahri had barely slept, barely eaten.

  She didn’t care. The hospital was the only place Nahri wanted to be. The work might have been grueling, but it was all that was required of her. She didn’t have to think about politics or what had gone down during the brutal last fight with the woman she’d thought was her mother. She didn’t have to have feelings. All Nahri had to do was fix people; her patients needed her so desperately that to even contemplate anything else would be selfish.

  She headed for the apothecary. In the courtyard, Elashia was tending to a flock of children, having taken it upon herself to watch over the offspring of the hospital workers and patients. The kids were a brightly colored mess, laughing as they played with finger paints and squealing with delight as Elashia made their drawings come alive in squiggles of sea monsters and flying cats.

  Nahri opened the apothecary door to cursing.

  “Suleiman’s eye,” Jamshid wailed. “You’re not supposed to be yellow! Why do you
keep turning yellow?”

  “Problems?” Nahri asked.

  “Yes,” Subha answered from the other side of the room, where, in true multitasker mastery, she was feeding her daughter and going over inventory rolls. “Your impatient apprentice thinks ‘chopped’ and ‘minced’ are interchangeable.” She eyed the churning and indeed very yellow potion threatening to escape the glass vial Jamshid was holding as far away from him as possible. “Zahhak hide,” she said dismissively. “You know what doesn’t have a violent mind of its own? Human ingredients.”

  “And we bow to your superiority at every turn,” Nahri said, touching her heart.

  “I don’t think you’ve voluntarily bowed to anyone in your life,” Subha replied. “Especially not the way you’ve been brandishing your new powers. There really is no reason to heal bones from across the room. Surely sitting by the bedside is equally effective.”

  “It’s more efficient.”

  “Damn it!” Jamshid dropped his flask in a metal bowl. “Now even the bowl is yellow.”

  Nahri crossed to his side and moved the tray of ingredients. “Why don’t I work on potions for a bit, and you do a round in the surgical wing? Let me know if there are any emergencies.”

  Relief filled his face. “Have I told you that you’re the best sister?”

  Nahri’s good mood faded a bit. “Cousin, actually.”

  “Sister,” he insisted. “I don’t care what blood says.” Jamshid pressed a kiss on the top of her head and then left.

  Subha sighed, setting her quill down on top of her papers. “We’re running low on, well, everything. Alizayd had his ships bring as many medicinal herbs and supplies as they could carry, but we still need to find a way to get more, and soon.”

  “We will.” Nahri took a moment to study the other doctor. Subha looked like she might have aged five years, stress lines around her eyes and new strands of silver in her hair. “When’s the last time you went home and slept?”

  “Before Navasatem.”

  Nahri sat across from her. “A wise woman once warned me that I wouldn’t be helping my patients if I overexhausted myself.”

  “That woman had no idea what it would be like to run a hospital during a war.” Subha rubbed her eyes and resettled her daughter in her lap.

  “Why don’t you let me take Chandra for a moment?”

  The doctor gave her a skeptical look. “Much experience with babies?”

  “I’m a woman of innumerable talents.” Nahri set Chandra against her shoulder and rubbed the baby’s back. She was warm, her soft weight unexpectedly pleasant.

  “Don’t be doing any Nahid tricks to summon up burps,” Subha warned and stood, stretching her neck.

  “Never.” Nahri paused. “I’m sorry, by the way. For leaving you here all on your own.”

  “I didn’t get the impression magically vanishing through the lake was a conscious choice.”

  “No, probably not. But still, it’s hard not to feel guilty.”

  “You returned. You helped set things right. Though if we’re speaking honestly, I have another question. I’ve heard the story going around about what Manizheh told you regarding your parents. Is it true?”

  The question didn’t surprise her. Nahri knew that rumor was circulating—she was letting it, taking advantage of the opportunity to declare her human heritage. “As far as I know, yes.”

  “So you’re shafit.” Subha gazed at her. “Did you know?”

  That question Nahri was less prepared for, but she wasn’t going to lie, not to Subha. “Yes. I didn’t know the truth about my parents—I really did think I was Manizheh’s daughter. But Ghassan told me years ago that I was a shafit, and I believed him.”

  Subha’s face was unreadable. Not angry, not judging. Just waiting. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I was afraid.” It wasn’t brave, but it was the truth. “I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t think I could. I was terrified the Daevas would turn on me, and Ghassan would use it to destroy me.”

  “I see.”

  A new type of guilt snarled in Nahri, this one edged with shame. She had lived a difficult life in Daevabad under Ghassan, but it hadn’t been a shafit life. She’d traded on her supposedly pureblood privilege to survive and knew it was a thing she’d be rightfully called to account for. “Do you hate me?”

  “For keeping yourself alive in a foreign, hostile city of magic? No. I also don’t speak for all the shafit. No one does. But make it right, Nahri. Don’t let us stand alone again. That’s better than any apology you could offer.”

  “I will,” Nahri promised. “I swear—ouch!” she yelped when Chandra grabbed a handful of her hair. “Are you your mama’s enforcer now?”

  There was a knock at the door, and Razu stuck her head in. “Do you need saving, Banu Nahri?”

  “Yes. I am thoroughly outmatched.”

  “No doubt.” But Razu’s tone turned serious. “Could we speak alone a moment?”

  Subha was already taking her daughter back, expertly untangling Nahri’s hair. “We’ll talk more later.”

  Razu stayed quiet until the shafit doctor left and then entered the apothecary. “How are you feeling?” she asked. “Truthfully?”

  Nahri managed a smile. “I’m exhausted and would like to no longer experience emotions, but besides that, I’m fine.”

  The older woman joined Nahri to lay a hand on her shoulder. “I couldn’t help but hear some of your conversation as I approached. I’m sorry—I must confess that I suspected you might have been Rustam’s. When we first met, I felt a shadow of the bond I’d had with him. I never had that with Manizheh, and it did make me wonder.”

  “Was he like her?” Nahri couldn’t keep the fear from her voice.

  Razu reached out, sweeping one of the curls Chandra had mussed out of Nahri’s eyes. “No. Rustam never had the drive his sister had or her darkness. He was very kind and very skilled, but the Qahtanis had defeated him long ago, and I think he was just trying to survive.” She gestured at the courtyard garden beyond the apothecary door. “He would have loved this place. He was incredibly talented with plants and pharmaceuticals. He’d be sitting outside, and flowers and vines would start crawling over him like pets.”

  “That happens to me sometimes,” Nahri realized, fresh sorrow twisting through her. “God, there’s just so much I’ll never know.”

  Razu gave her a hug. “I’ll help you piece together what I can. I have my stories, and I’m sure others do as well. Rustam didn’t take many confidantes, but he was a well-liked man.”

  Nahri tried to smile. But in truth, it wasn’t just her father she wanted to know about. She wanted desperately to know who her mother had been. To fill in the blank spaces in her mind and memory that had been wrenched open even further with Manizheh’s cruel admission. Nahri wanted to know about the Egyptian who had come to Daevabad and crossed the path of a Baga Nahid. The woman who had defied death and Manizheh’s wrath to return to her country and make a pact with the lord of the Nile himself.

  Razu released her. “I haven’t only come to talk about Rustam, however. I came with a message.” Her bright green eyes met Nahri’s. “The Afshin would like to see you.”

  DESPITE HAVING LIVED IN DAEVABAD FOR YEARS, Nahri had spent little time in the forests on the other side of the island. Besides well-guarded Daeva farms, the remaining wilderness was said to grow wild and unchecked. There were whispers that it was haunted, of course. That the fields of waist-high wildflowers and impenetrable woods were thick with the spirits of star-crossed lovers and wailing huntsmen, with the lost souls who’d fled to the forest and taken their lives rather than surrender to Zaydi al Qahtani’s original forces.

  Nahri wasn’t sure she believed that, but it was remarkable how quickly the sounds of the city vanished once she and Razu crossed through the ancient cedar doors that separated the Daeva Quarter from the woods. A well-worn road cut deep in the rocky soil, leading through a tunnel of greenery, but otherwise nature ran unche
cked: vines crawling up the brass walls and the trees so thick their depths melted into darkness. Beyond, the mountains that had always been so distant now loomed close, Daevabad’s island freshly nestled in their heart.

  “Dara wanted to meet me here?” Nahri asked.

  “I did.”

  She and Razu both jumped at Dara’s voice, the Afshin suddenly on the road behind them as if he’d been there all along.

  He must have seen the looks on their faces. “Forgive me. I did not mean to startle you.”

  Nahri stiffened. He was both the Dara she had known—his distinctly old-fashioned accent and the utterly unapologetic-sounding apology—and a stranger, the enemy general she had until just a few days ago been planning to kill. Though it was healed, her shoulder suddenly ached, a shadow of the wound his arrow had struck.

  “That’s all right.” Nahri could hear the chill in her voice, the distance she was already trying to force between them, her body protecting itself from a future hurt.

  Razu touched her wrist. “Would you like me to stay?” she asked in Tukharistani.

  “No, I’m fine,” Nahri insisted, feeling anything but.

  Razu gave Dara a look of fierce warning and then departed. But the moment she was gone, the tension in the forest seemed to soar. It was the same wall that had reared up between them at the hospital—Nahri simply did not know how to feel about the man before her.

  She stared at him, not missing that Dara was doing the same to her. Out of the splendid uniform he’d worn as Manizheh’s slave, he was dressed plainly in a midnight-colored jacket that fell to his knees and baggy trousers tucked into dusty boots. His head was bare, his black curls hanging loose around his shoulders.

  And yet there was something so alien about him. A feeling of otherness that Nahri had noticed back on the roof, but not given much thought to in the madness of restoring magic and moving an entire island.