“I … that’s not—” he stammered. “I mean, it was a very emotional night.”
Zaynab and Muntadhir burst into laughter.
“Once,” Muntadhir agreed, laughing so hard he had to wipe a tear from his eye. “I owe you a dirham.”
“You bet on whether or not I kissed your wife?” Ali was aghast. “What is wrong with the two of you?” When his brother and sister only cackled harder, he drew up. “I hate you. I hate you both.”
Zaynab laid her head on his shoulder. “You love us.”
Ali had to force a disgruntled sound. Because he did love them. And though they were mocking him and planning separate futures, he suddenly felt a spark of pure hope here in the quiet of the forest with his brother and sister, sitting between the river and the city—his river and his city—the worlds and people he would bring together. Ali had more work on his plate than ever before: a new government to establish and a ruined economy to fix. Alliances to knit back together and new family secrets to confide to his dearest of partners. A mother expecting a very long letter and a father to finally say funeral prayers for.
But right now, he simply sat, enjoying the sun on his face, the lake-fresh air, and the company of his family. “Alhamdulillah,” he murmured. God be praised.
Muntadhir glanced up idly from where he was twisting a blade of grass. “What’s that for?”
“Nothing. Everything.” Ali smiled. “I am just so very grateful.”
48
NAHRI
It took surprisingly little time to pack up the life she’d made at the palace.
Of the dozens of silk gowns and gold-embroidered chadors, Nahri took few. They were lovely, but she’d have little need for fine dresses and fancy clothes on the new path she’d set for herself. When it came to her jewelry, though, she took everything she could fit in a trunk. Nahri would never shed her memories of poverty, and while she was happy to contribute some of her belongings to the fund being established to rebuild Daevabad, she wasn’t going to leave herself penniless, especially when her hospital had its own needs.
She picked through her books more carefully, fearing she’d have little free time to read for the foreseeable future. Medical texts got pulled out and packed away in a special trunk. Then Nahri straightened up, glancing around the room.
A row of small objects on the window ledge caught her eye: the little gifts the old Egyptian cook had given her with her meals. Nahri retrieved one, a small reed boat, and brushed away the dust with her thumb. She wondered if the old man had survived the attack on the palace. Maybe after she was finished packing, she’d go down to the kitchens and find out.
I should try and reach out to the other Egyptian shafit here. Now that Nahri was free to embrace her roots, it might be nice to spend some time with the rest of her exiled countryfolk. Maybe someone would be interested in returning to Cairo and bringing a very long letter to a very confused apothecarist.
Maybe someone knew of a young woman from their community who’d once caught the eye of a Baga Nahid.
But before Nahri left to go anywhere, there was one more thing she needed to retrieve. She returned to her bed and knelt on the floor.
She hesitated. She knew there was a good chance it wasn’t here anymore. Though her room at the palace looked dusty and untouched, Nahri suspected it had been searched after Manizheh’s invasion.
So when she ran her fingers under the crossbeams, it was with trepidation. Then her heart skipped, her hand landing on the linen-wrapped blade she’d slipped there nearly a year ago.
Dara’s dagger.
Nahri pulled free the jeweled knife and unwrapped it. The polished iron glimmered in the dim light of her curtained room, the carnelians and lapis stones twinkling. She stared at the dagger, remembering the day Dara had taught her to throw it, his laugh tickling her ear. Grief rose up in her, but it had a different flavor now. A less bitter one.
I hope you earn your happy ending, Dara. I really do. Resheathing the dagger, Nahri set it next to the reed boat and the clothes she intended to bring back.
There was a soft knock. She glanced back.
Ali waited at the open door.
In the midmorning light, he seemed to stand apart, a quiet, roiling void. Ribbons of mist played around his feet, the yellow in his eyes glowing faintly, like a cat’s gaze. The sun caught on what was visible of his scars, the silver molten and dazzling against his black skin.
He came back different. Fiza’s parting words on the beach in Shefala, right before the pirate captain raced off with Jamshid, returned to Nahri. Nahri had been prepared, or at least, she’d tried to be, masking her shock as quickly as possible when she woke to see Ali at her side, the soft gray of his eyes replaced by Sobek’s reptilian yellow-and-black. But his stilted words—for they’d barely seen each other since the battle and had yet to be alone—had only provoked more questions.
I am to be an ambassador between our peoples. They changed me so I could speak for them.
And indeed, half hidden in the shadows, Ali looked the part. A visitor from the deep, the envoy of a mysterious, unknowable world at the bottom of the sea.
He spoke softly, greeting her in the way she’d taught him. “Sabah el hayr.”
“Sabah el noor,” Nahri replied, rising to her feet.
Ali crossed and uncrossed his arms, as if he didn’t know what to do with them. “I hope you don’t mind me intruding. I heard you were here and figured I should come by. I know it’s been a couple of days since we spoke.”
“A week, actually,” Nahri pointed out, trying to keep the emotion from her voice. “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about us at the hospital.”
He kept his gaze on the floor, toying with the tail of his turban. “I knew you’d be busy. I didn’t want to bother you, and I thought—I thought I should give you some space.”
Nahri inclined her head skeptically. “‘Give me space’?”
“Yes.”
“Alizayd al Qahtani, there is no way those are your words.”
“It was Zaynab’s suggestion.” Ali’s voice thickened with embarrassment. “She said I could be smothering.”
And with that, he went from mysterious marid ambassador to the Ali she knew. A genuine smile tugged across Nahri’s face, and she joined him at the door. “I don’t need space from you, my friend,” she said, pulling him into a hug.
Ali clutched her close. “Please don’t ever stab yourself in the heart again,” he begged, his words muffled against the top of her head.
“I’m hoping it was a once-in-a-lifetime event.” Nahri pressed her brow to his chest. Ali felt cooler than usual, though not unpleasantly so. The smell of salt and silt was sharp on his skin, like she’d immersed herself in a stream on a chilly morning. The beat of his heart was different, slower and more drawn out.
He was changed. But it felt so good to be in his arms that Nahri didn’t care. They had survived, and that was all that mattered. She let out a shudder, feeling some of the tension she’d been bottling up for days finally escape.
“Are you okay?” Ali murmured.
“No,” she confessed. “But I think there’s a chance I might be one day, so that’s progress.” Nahri took another deep breath, running her hand down the soft cotton covering his back, and then stepped away. “Come, stay with me awhile—oh, don’t look at the door like that,” she said, fighting a blush. Nahri definitely hadn’t forgotten what happened the last time they were behind closed doors. “I’ll leave it open so the devil can escape, all right?”
Ali looked mortified, but he didn’t object as Nahri pulled him inside. “Your apartments seem to have come through the war in one piece,” he said, seemingly just to be saying something.
“One of the few things that did. I can’t even go into the infirmary here. Not after what Manizheh did in there. I feel like I can still smell the burned bodies of my ancestors.” She sighed. “God, Ali, it’s just all so much. There are so many people dead, so many lives ruined. What you s
aid back in Cairo about it taking lifetimes to make peace—”
“Then let it take lifetimes. We’ll give it a good foundation, the best we can.”
Nahri rolled her eyes. “You always were a reckless optimist.”
Ali clucked his tongue. “Oh no. You don’t get to ever call me reckless again after threatening peris by puncturing your own heart.”
“They annoyed me.” Nahri said the words mildly, but then a hint of her old anger returned. “I won’t be called inferior or lesser again. I won’t have my people—any of them—be called that. Let alone by some meddlesome puffed-up pigeons.”
“And do you think the puffed-up pigeons might return to make us regret that?”
You have made an enemy today, the peri had warned. “They didn’t seem happy,” Nahri admitted. “But I’m hoping their own convoluted rules about interfering keep them away until we’re stronger.”
“God willing.” Uncertainty crept into his voice. “Regarding another overly powerful being, I hear we had an escape.”
Nahri’s stomach flipped. “Something like that.”
Ali held her gaze; despite its new appearance, she could see a dozen questions in his eyes. “There are people demanding justice, Nahri. People who want to send soldiers after him.”
“They would be wasting their time, and we all know it. No one’s going to catch Dara if he doesn’t want to be caught. I know people want justice,” she said. “And I know we’re going to be building a new government, a new world. But he’s something that needed to be settled the old way, the Daeva way. Let Dara spend his millennia recovering the souls stolen by the ifrit. It’s more useful than him wasting away in a dungeon.”
Ali looked unconvinced. “He could raise an army and return.”
He won’t. Nahri had seen the resolve in Dara’s good-bye—it had been just that, a farewell from a man who did not expect to see the woman he loved again. “Ali, you say you trust me,” she said softly. “So trust me. He’s gone.”
He stared at her a moment longer but then managed a small nod. It wasn’t much—Nahri knew the Geziris were within their rights to want vengeance. But their vengeance would be the result of prior vengeance. And the problem was, they weren’t the only ones caught in that cycle.
It was indeed why peace was going to take lifetimes. And why, as much as it hurt, Nahri knew Dara had been right to leave. His presence would have been too divisive—too many Daevas protective of him, too many djinn and shafit rightfully furious to see Manizheh’s weapon living freely among them. There might be a day when he could return—perhaps a distant generation would be removed enough from the war to know Dara as a hero first, as the Afshin who dedicated himself to rescuing enslaved souls, rather than the Scourge.
But Nahri feared that day was very far in the future.
Ali had reached up to rub a spot on his shoulder. His collar tugged away enough for Nahri to glimpse a section of scaled hide covering his skin.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Ali dropped his hand, looking embarrassed. “One of Tiamat’s children stung me.”
“Stung you?”
“You don’t want to know the details, believe me. Sobek healed it, but he left a mark.”
“Can I see?” When Ali nodded, Nahri pushed aside his collar and traced the narrow path of the scaly scar, a ribbon of changed flesh. She didn’t miss the quickened pulse of his heart as she touched him—or the effect that running her fingers over him again was having on her—but that was not a thing to delve into right now. “Is it permanent, what they did to you?”
“Yes. Tiamat drained the fire from my blood. She wanted to make sure I couldn’t turn my back on them.” Ali held her gaze, his glowing eyes filled with sorrow. “I don’t think I’ll be helping you conjure any more flames.”
“You came back,” she said fiercely. “That’s all that matters.” Nahri smoothed down his collar and then raised her arm, pulling back her sleeve to reveal the scar Manizheh had burned into her wrist. Despite her magic, it had not healed. “We match.”
That brought a sad smile to his face. “I guess we do.” Ali glanced past her shoulder and frowned. “Are you packing?”
“I am.”
“Does that mean …” His face fell. “Are you leaving the palace too?” He sounded crushed but added, “I mean, not that I expected you to stay. I don’t have any expectations of you. Us.”
Nahri took his arm to stop his stammering. “Walk with me. I could use some fresh air.”
She led him to the infirmary grounds, picking her way along the overgrown path. The garden had been poorly tended, weeds and grass snaring her healing plants, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be fixed. The orange grove was lush as ever, white flowers and bright fruit thick upon the trees.
Her father’s orange grove. The resilience of the plants struck a new chord with her, as did the name he’d given her. Golbahar, a spring flower. It might not be the name Nahri had chosen, but she could still honor its meaning.
The promise of new life, unfurling after a winter of violence.
“I’ve found a house in the shafit district,” she started. “It looks like it was abandoned even before the invasion, but it’s got good bones and a little courtyard, and it’s only a short walk from the hospital. The owner was willing to sell it to me for almost nothing, and I think … I think it would be good for me to live there.”
“That sounds nice,” Ali said. “Though I wish everyone I knew wasn’t leaving.” It sounded like he was trying to make a joke and failing. “It’s going to be me, a haunted palace, and a bunch of bickering government officials and delegates trying not to kill one another.”
“As if that’s not your dream.” Nahri pulled him into the orange grove, seating him next to her on the old swing. Ali looked warily at the roots sprawling over the ground. “Relax. You have an invitation this time. And I’m not leaving you. I’m going to help you, I promise. But I also want to start building something for myself,” she said, feeling a little uncharacteristically shy. “My own home, the hospital, the kind of life I want.”
“Then I’m happy for you,” he said warmly. “Truly. I’m going to miss not seeing you every day, but I’m happy for you.”
Nahri dropped her gaze. “I was actually hoping”—she nervously twisted the edge of her chador—“that you might visit me. Regularly. The books for the hospital … I was never any good with them,” she added, fighting the heat in her cheeks.
“The books for the hospital?” Ali frowned and shook his head. “I can find you a much better accountant, trust me. There’s so much you can do with charitable funding, and if you have a proper specialist—”
“I don’t want a specialist!” Creator, this man’s obliviousness was going to be the death of her. “I want to spend time with you. Time at my house being normal and not on the run from monsters or plotting revolutions. I want to see what it’s like.”
“Oh.” Delayed understanding crossed Ali’s expression. “Oh.”
Her face was burning. “I’d make it worth your while. You check my books, and I’ll teach you Divasti.”
“You’ve saved my life multiple times, Nahri. You definitely wouldn’t owe me anything for checking your books.”
Nahri forced herself to meet his eyes, trying to summon up a very different type of courage than she was used to.
The courage to be vulnerable. “Ali, I thought I made it clear I don’t intend to let you out of my debt.”
She said nothing else. She couldn’t. Even revealing this much of her heart was terrifying, and Nahri knew she wouldn’t be capable of anything deeper, perhaps not for a long time. She’d simply had her dreams shattered too many times.
But she would lay down roots and see what grew. Nahri would steal her happiness like she’d promised Dara, but she’d do it on her terms, at her speed, and pray that this time what she built wouldn’t get broken.
Ali stared back at her. And then he smiled, perhaps the brightest, happiest smile she
’d ever seen from him.
“I suppose it would be the smart thing to do … politically,” he conceded. “My Divasti really is terrible.”
“It’s abominable,” Nahri said quickly. She fell silent, feeling both awkward and yet overwhelmingly pleased. And very aware of how quiet and isolated the orange grove was, the two of them secluded away in a nook of greenery.
That was, of course, the moment Ali chose to speak again. “You know how I have bad timing?”
Nahri groaned. “Ali, why? What now?”
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” he confessed. “I thought I should wait for the right time or let you grieve first.” Ali reached for her hand. “But I know if I were you, I’d want to make that decision myself. And we promised—no lies between us.”
Nahri’s heart rose in her throat. “What is it?”
“I met with Sobek this morning.” Ali held her gaze, his eyes soft. “He has your mother’s memories. He showed me how I might share—”
“Yes,” Nahri cut in. “Whatever they are, yes.”
Ali hesitated. “They’re rough, Nahri. And I’ve never done this before. I don’t want to overwhelm you or hurt you …”
“I need to know. Please.”
He took a deep breath. “Okay. Let me see both your hands.” Nahri held out her free hand and he grasped it. “This part might sting a bit.” He dug his nails into her palms.
Nahri gasped—and the garden vanished.
The memories came so fast and so thick that at first it was hard to separate them, Nahri only catching flashes before they were replaced by others. The smell of fresh bread and cuddling against a woman’s warm chest. Climbing a tree to look at fields of waving sugarcane hugging the Nile. Bone-deep grief, wailing as a shrouded body was lowered into a grave.
A name. Duriya.
And then Nahri fell deep.
She was no longer the Banu Nahida, sitting in a magical garden at the side of a djinn prince. She was a little girl named Duriya, who lived alone with her widowed father in a Nile village.
Duriya raced between the sugarcane fields, jumping over the irrigation ditches and singing. She was alone as always—little girls with gold flickering in their eyes, who made cookfires flare when they got angry, had no friends—and so she spoke to the animals, telling them stories and confiding her secrets.
The Empire of Gold Page 68