The Kingdom of Copper

by S. A. Chakraborty

  But Nisreen had. She’d treated Ali . . . and she’d never said anything about this.

  Nahri stepped away from the bed, beckoning for Lubayd to follow as she passed. “We should give the king and queen a moment with him.”

  Hatset and Ghassan were standing on opposite sides of the pavilion outside her room, neither one looking at the other. Zaynab and Muntadhir were sitting on the bench between them, Muntadhir holding one of his sister’s hands.

  “Is he all right?” Hatset’s voice shook slightly.

  “For now,” Nahri answered. “I’ve stopped the bleeding and there’s no trace of the poison left. That I can detect,” she clarified.

  Ghassan looked as though he’d aged a half-century. “Do you know what it was?”

  “No,” she said flatly. This wasn’t an answer she could risk massaging. “I have no idea what that was. I’ve never seen or read of anything like that.” She hesitated, remembering the fleeing cupbearer—and the thrown dagger that had interrupted that flight. “I don’t suppose his cupbearer . . .”

  The king shook his head, grim. “Dead before he could be questioned. One of Alizayd’s companions acted a bit too rashly.”

  “I daresay those companions and their rashness are probably the only reason our son is still alive.” Hatset’s voice was sharper that Nahri had ever heard it.

  Muntadhir rose to his feet. “So he’ll live?”

  Nahri forced herself to meet her husband’s eyes, not missing the tangle of emotion in them. “He’ll survive this.”

  “All right.” Muntadhir’s voice was low and troubled enough that Nahri saw Hatset narrow her eyes at him. He didn’t seem to notice, instead turning abruptly away and disappearing down the steps that led to the garden.

  Zaynab hurried after him. “Dhiru . . .”

  Ghassan sighed, watching them for a moment before turning back to Nahri. “May we see him?”

  “Yes. I need to prepare a tonic for his throat. But don’t wake him. He lost a lot of blood. I don’t even think he should be moved. Let him stay here for at least a few days.”

  The king nodded, heading toward her room. But Hatset caught Nahri’s wrist.

  “Do you truly know nothing about this poison?” she asked. “Nothing in your mother’s old notes?”

  “We’re healers, not assassins,” Nahri shot back. “And I’d be a fool to get involved with anything like this.”

  “I’m not accusing you,” Hatset said, a little of the edge leaving her voice. “I just want to make sure if you think of anything—suspect anything—you come to me, Banu Nahida.” Her expression grew intent. “I am not my husband,” she added softly. “I reward loyalty—I don’t terrorize people into it. And I’ll not forget what you did for my son tonight.”

  She let go of Nahri’s wrist, following Ghassan without another word. Her mind spinning, Nahri continued on to the infirmary.

  Nisreen was already at work on the tonic, transferring a spoonful of bright orange, freshly ground salamander skin from a stone mortar into a honey-colored potion simmering in a glass flask suspended over an open flame. A puff of smoke burst from the flask and then the mixture turned crimson, uncomfortably close to the color of human blood.

  “I started without you,” Nisreen called over her shoulder. “I figured you could use the help. It just needs another moment or two to simmer.”

  Nahri’s stomach tightened. Reliable Nisreen, always two steps ahead of what Nahri needed. Her mentor and closest confidante.

  The only person left in Daevabad that she thought she could trust.

  She joined her, pressing her hands against the worktable and fighting the emotion bubbling up inside her. “You lied to me,” Nahri said quietly.

  Nisreen glanced up, looking taken aback. “What?”

  “You lied to me about Ali. After Dara’s de—after that night on the boat.” Her voice was unsteady. “You said Ali was fine. You said he had scratches.” She gave Nisreen an incredulous stare. “There’s not a patch of skin on him bigger than my palm that isn’t scarred.”

  Nisreen stiffened. “You’ll forgive me not thinking much of his wounds when Dara and a dozen other Daevas lay dead, and Ghassan was contemplating executing you.”

  Nahri shook her head. “You should have told me. You dismissed me when I tried to talk about that night, you had me doubting my very memories . . .”

  “Because I didn’t want them to consume you!” Nisreen put down the mortar, turning her full attention on Nahri. “My lady, you were singing to shadows and cutting open your wrists to try and bring Dara back. You didn’t need to know more.”

  Nahri flinched at the blunt depiction of her grief, but Nisreen’s last words still set her blood boiling. “Whether or not I needed to know more was not your decision to make. Not with this, not with the hospital, not with anything.” She threw up her hands. “Nisreen, I can’t have this. I need at least one person in this cursed city I can trust, one person who will tell me the truth no matter what.”

  Nisreen’s dark eyes flicked away. When she spoke again, her voice was soft with both pity and disgust. “I didn’t know what to tell you, Nahri. He was barely recognizable as a djinn when they brought him in. He was hissing and spitting like a snake, shrieking in some language no one could recognize. The things clinging to his skin attacked us as we removed them. We had to tie him down after he tried to strangle his own father!”

  Nahri’s eyes widened, but Nisreen clearly wasn’t done. “What do you think brought down the ceiling of your infirmary?” She jerked her head up. “It was Alizayd, whatever was in Alizayd.” Nisreen lowered her voice further. “I assisted your mother and uncle for a century and a half, and I witnessed things I could never have imagined, but, Banu Nahri . . . nothing comes close to what I saw happen to Alizayd al Qahtani.” She reached for the simmering glass flask with a gloved hand and poured the potion into a jade cup that she then thrust at Nahri. “His friendship was a weakness you should have never permitted yourself and now he’s a threat you barely understand.”

  Nahri made no move to take the cup. “Taste it.”

  Nisreen stared at her. “What?”

  “Taste it.” Nahri jerked her head toward the door. “Or get out of my infirmary.”

  Without dropping her gaze, Nisreen lifted the cup to her mouth and took a sip. She put it back down with a thud. “I would never risk you like that, Banu Nahida. Never.”

  “Do you know who might have been capable of making that poison?”

  Nisreen’s black gaze didn’t so much as waver. “No.”

  Nahri took the cup. Her hands were shaking. “Would you tell me if you did? Or would that be another truth I’m not capable of handling?”

  Nisreen sighed. “Nahri . . .”

  But she was already walking away.

  Lubayd was on the pavilion steps, some distance from the entrance to her bedroom.

  “I wouldn’t interrupt them if I were you,” he warned.

  Nahri brushed past. “They’re the ones interrupting me.” She continued toward her room but paused at the curtained door, stepping into the shadow of a rose lattice. She could hear the voices of the royal couple inside.

  “—should burn in hell for sentencing your child to such a fate. He was eighteen, Ghassan. Eighteen and you sent him to die in Am Gezira after some lake demon tortured him!”

  “Do you think I wanted to?” Ghassan hissed. “I have three children, Hatset. I have thirty thousand times as many subjects. Daevabad comes first. I have always told you that. You should have concerned yourself with his safety before your relatives and their dirt-blooded friends attempted to lure him into treason!”

  Nahri stood utterly still, well aware that the two most powerful people in Daevabad were having an argument it seemed to be courting death to overhear. But she couldn’t make herself turn away.

  And Hatset wasn’t done. “Daevabad comes first,” she repeated. “Fine words for a king doing his best to destroy everything our ancestors fought for. You’re
letting the shafit be sold off to the highest bidder while your emir drinks himself into an early grave.”

  “Muntadhir is not drinking himself into a grave,” Ghassan said, defending his son. “He has always been more capable than you grant him. He’s making peace with the Daevas, a peace long overdue.”

  “This isn’t peace!” Rage and exasperation warred in Hatset’s voice. “When will you realize that? The Daevas don’t want your peace; they want us gone. Manizheh despised you, your grand wazir would cut your throat in your sleep if he could, and that girl you bullied into marrying Muntadhir is not going to forget what you’ve done to her. The moment she gets pregnant, you’ll be the one poisoned. She and the Pramukhs will shuffle Muntadhir off into an opium den, and just like that, we’ll be under Nahid rule again.” Warning laced into her voice. “And the Daevas will pay us back in blood for everything your family has done to them.”

  Nahri stepped back, her hand going to her mouth in shock. The queen had just neatly and horribly pulled together the strands of a future Nahri hardly dared consider—and the tapestry it created when presented by the other side was awful. A calculated scheme of revenge, when Nahri only wanted justice for her tribe.

  Justice was what Dara wanted too, wasn’t it? And look at the price he was willing to pay for it. Nahri swallowed, her legs feeling a bit unsteady.

  Ghassan raised his voice. “And this is why Alizayd talks and acts the way he does. Why he recklessly throws himself into aiding every shafit he comes across. Because of you.”

  “Because he wants to fix things, and all you’ve ever told him to do is shut his mouth and wield a weapon. I’ve heard the stories coming out of Am Gezira. He has done more good for people there in five years than you have in fifty.”

  Scorn filled Ghassan’s voice. “It is not his leadership in Am Gezira that you desire, wife. Do not think I am so naive. And I will not have you interfere again. The next time you overstep, I will send you back to Ta Ntry. For good. You will never see either of your children again.”

  There was a moment of silence before the queen responded. “And that, Ghassan?” Her voice was chillingly quiet. “That you would reach for such a threat with the mother of your children? That is why people hate you.” Nahri heard the door open. “And it breaks my heart when I remember the man you used to be.”

  The door shut. Nahri leaned in and peered through the roses, catching sight of Ghassan staring at his unconscious son. He inhaled sharply and then was gone, sweeping out in a swirl of black robes.

  Nahri was shaking as she entered her room. I should have been more aggressive in my dowry demands, she suddenly thought. Because she had not been paid enough to marry into this family.

  She returned to Ali’s side. His chest was rising and falling in the light of her fireplace, reminding her of the first time she’d healed him. The quiet night she’d accidentally killed her first patient and then saved a prince, the first time she’d had to grudgingly admit to herself that the man she insisted was only a mark was becoming the closest thing she had to a friend.

  Nahri squeezed her eyes shut. Ali and Nisreen. Muntadhir. Dara. Everyone she let get a glimpse past the walls Muntadhir had accused her of keeping around her heart had lied to her or used her. Nahri had once quietly feared that it was her, that growing up alone on Cairo’s streets with abilities that terrified everyone had broken her, shaped her into a person who didn’t know how to forge a genuine bond.

  But it wasn’t her. Or at least not just her. It was Daevabad. Daevabad had crushed everyone in it, from its tyrant king to the shafit laborer scurrying through her garden. Fear and hate ruled the city—built up by centuries of spilled blood and the resulting grievances. It was a place where everyone was so busy trying to survive and ensure their loved ones survived that there was no room to build new trust.

  She let out a breath, opening her eyes to see Ali stir in his sleep. A pained grimace creased his face, breath rasping in his throat. The sight shook away her dark thoughts and reminded her of the potion still clutched in her hand. Her work was not done.

  She pulled a cushioned stool closer. Besides his scars, Ali looked like he’d lived a rougher life in Am Gezira than she would have imagined, his body lean and wiry and his nails bitten low. She frowned as she caught sight of another mark just under his jaw. Rather than the ragged imprints the marid left, this one was a clean slash.

  It looks like someone tried to cut his throat. Though Nahri couldn’t imagine who would be foolish enough to attempt to assassinate a Qahtani prince in the depths of Am Gezira. She reached out and touched his chin, his skin clammy beneath her fingertips as she turned his head to examine a mottled patch of scar tissue on his temple. She could no longer make out the lines of the eight-pointed star that had been carved there—a version of Suleiman’s seal, apparently by way of the marid—but she hadn’t forgotten the sight of it flashing on his face that night.

  She stared at him. What did they do to you? And perhaps a question that burned even more—why? Why had the marid been so determined to come after Dara?

  Movement near her hand caught her eye. Nahri started. The potion in the cup was moving, the liquid’s surface rippling like it was being struck by invisible drops.

  Ali’s eyes fluttered open, his gaze dazed and feverish. He tried to draw a breath and then coughed, pain twisting his face.

  Nahri reacted immediately. “Drink this,” she commanded, sliding her hand under his head to raise him up. “No, don’t try to talk,” she added as he moved his lips. “Your throat was shredded. Even you can hold your tongue for a moment.”

  She helped him finish the contents of the cup. Ali was shivering violently, and she eased him back onto the pillow when he was done. “Does anything feel sharp in your body?” she asked. “Anything like a buzzing beneath your skin?”

  “No,” he croaked. “What-what happened?”

  “Someone tried to poison you. Obviously.”

  Despair swept his face. “Oh,” he whispered, his gaze dropping to his hands. “Even in Daevabad then,” he added with a soft bitterness that took her aback. The tonic was clearly doing its job, his voice smoother though filled with misery. “I thought they might stop.”

  Nahri frowned. “Who might stop?”

  Ali shook his head stiffly. “It doesn’t matter.” He glanced up, worry flashing in his eyes. “Was anyone else hurt? My mother—”

  “Your mother is fine.” That was a lie, of course. Hatset had watched her son almost die in her arms. “No one else was hurt, but your cupbearer was killed trying to escape.”

  Ali looked pained. “I wish they had not done that. He was only a boy.” He covered his mouth as he began to cough again, his hand coming away flecked with blood.

  Nahri refilled the cup with water from her pitcher. “Drink,” she said, pressing it into his hands. “I suspect your throat will be raw for the next few days. I’ve done what I could, but the poison was a powerful one.”

  He took a sip, but his eyes didn’t leave her face. “I thought you had done it,” he said quietly.

  She drew back, annoyed that the accusation hurt. “Yes, I know. You and everyone else. Your people don’t make secret what they think of me.”

  Guilt blossomed in his eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that.” He lowered the cup, running his thumb against the edge. “I only meant that I wouldn’t have blamed you if you wanted me dead.”

  “Wanting you dead and actually killing you are very different things,” she said sharply. “And I’m no murderer.”

  “No, you’re not,” Ali said. “You’re a healer.” He met her eyes again. “Thank you for saving my life.” He bit his lip, a little desperate humor creeping across his face. “I think this is the fourth time.”

  Nahri struggled to remain expressionless, cursing the part of her heart that wanted to soften at his words. His breathing ragged and his eyes bright with pain, Ali didn’t look the “Afshin-slayer” right now; he looked sick and weak—a patient who needed her. An old frien
d who missed her.

  A weakness. Not trusting her emotions, Nahri abruptly stood up. “It’s my duty,” she said brusquely. “Nothing more.” She turned for the door. “A servant will bring you fresh clothing. I have other patients.”

  “Nahri, wait,” he rasped. “Please.”

  Hating herself, she stopped. “I’m not doing this with you, Ali.”

  “What if I told you that you were right?”

  Nahri glanced back at him. “What?”

  Ali stared her, his expression beseeching. “You were right. About that night, about the boat.” Shame filled his face. “I did know the Royal Guard would be waiting for us.”

  She shook her head. “Glad to know you’re just as brutal when being honest as you are when lying.”

  He tried to push up, wincing in pain. “I didn’t know what else to do, Nahri. I’d never fought someone who could use magic the way Darayavahoush did. I’d never heard of someone who could use magic the way he did. But I knew . . . so much else about him.” Sick regret crossed his face. “All those books I didn’t want you to read. If he had taken you, if he had killed me—our people would have gone to war.” Ali shuddered. “And I knew all too well the kinds of things he did during wars.”

  Do you know why he’s called the Scourge of Qui-zi? The regret that hung on Dara like a cloak, the open fear his name had provoked. “He wouldn’t have started another war,” she tried to insist, her voice hoarse. “I wouldn’t have let him.” But even as she said it, she knew she didn’t quite believe it. There was a reason Muntadhir’s accusation had struck so close to the bone.

  Because on that awful night, a desperate Dara had shown how far he would go. He had forced her hand in a way she hadn’t considered him capable of, with a reckless violence that had stunned her.