The Kingdom of Copper

by S. A. Chakraborty

  “I’m sorry to hear you’re having trouble with supplies,” Ali said loudly as he led Sister Fatumai away from the curious workers, ushering her toward a room packed with fresh linens. He was almost impressed he could lie considering how rattled he was, but knowing the spies his father had filled the hospital with, he had little choice. “Let’s see what we can spare . . .”

  He ushered the Tanzeem leader into the room, and after quickly checking to make sure they were alone, shoved the door closed and whispered a locking enchantment under his breath. A half-filled oil lamp had been left on one of the shelves, and Ali quickly lit it. The conjured flame danced down the wick, throwing weak light across the small chamber.

  He turned to face her, breathing hard. “S-sister Fatumai,” Ali stammered. “I . . . I’m so sorry. When I heard what happened to Rashid . . . and saw Sheikh Anas’s masjid . . . I assumed—”

  “That I was dead?” Fatumai offered. “A fair assumption; your father certainly tried his best. And honestly, I thought the same of you when you left for Am Gezira. I figured it was a story told to hide the truth of your execution.”

  “You’re not far from the truth.” He swallowed. “The orphanage?”

  “It’s gone,” Fatumai replied. “We tried to evacuate when Rashid was arrested, but the Royal Guard caught up with the last group. They sold the youngest as servants and executed the rest.” Her gaze grew cold. “My niece was one of the ones they murdered. You might remember her,” she added, accusation lacing into her voice. “She made you tea when you visited.”

  Ali braced himself on the wall, finding it hard to breathe. “My God . . . I’m so sorry, sister.”

  “As am I,” she said softly. “She was a good woman. Engaged to marry Rashid,” she added, leaning against the wall as well. “Perhaps a small consolation that they entered Paradise as martyrs together.”

  Ali stared at the ground, ashamed.

  She must have noticed. “Does such speech bother you now? You were once one of Sheikh Anas’s most devout students, but I know faith is a garment worn carelessly by those who live in the palace.”

  “I never lost my faith.” Ali said the words quietly, but there was a challenge in them. He’d only met Sister Fatumai after Rashid, another member of the Tanzeem, had tricked him into visiting their safe house, an orphanage in the Tukharistani Quarter. It was a visit designed to guilt the wealthy prince into funding them, a tour to show him sick and hungry orphans . . . but conveniently not the weapons he’d learned they were also purchasing with his money. Ali had never gone back; the Tanzeem’s use of violence—possibly against innocent Daevabadis—was not a line he would cross.

  He changed the subject. “Would you like to sit? Can I get you something to drink?”

  “I did not come here to enjoy Geziri hospitality, Prince Alizayd.” She shifted on her feet. Beneath the tired exterior and silver hair, there was steel in Fatumai, and it chastened him as much as it concerned him. There had been heart in the Tanzeem. They’d saved and sheltered shafit children, put books in hands and bread in mouths. Ali didn’t doubt for a second that they were believers, as God-fearing as he was.

  He also didn’t doubt that quite a few of them had blood on their hands. “Are the rest of the children safe?”

  She laughed, a hard sound. “You really don’t know your father, do you?”

  Ali almost couldn’t bring himself to ask the question. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you think it mattered to Ghassan that some were children?” She clucked her tongue. “Oh no, Brother Alizayd. We were a danger. A threat to be tracked down and exterminated. We came into his home and stole the heart of his youngest, so he sent his soldiers tearing through the shafit district in pursuit of us. Of anyone related to us. Family, neighbors, friends—he killed scores. We were so desperate to escape we tried to flee Daevabad itself.”

  “Flee Daevabad? You were able to hire a smuggler?”

  “‘Hire’ is not the word I’d use,” she said, a deadly finality in her voice. “Not that it mattered. I volunteered to stay behind with those who were too young for such travel and the ones who had too much magical blood to be able to pass in the human world.” Her voice quivered. “The rest . . . I kissed their brows and wiped their tears . . . and watched as your father’s firebirds burned the boat.”

  Ali reeled. “What?”

  “I’d rather not repeat it if you don’t mind,” she said flatly. “Hearing their screams as the lake tore them apart was bad enough. I suppose your father thought it was worth it to take out the handful of Tanzeem fighters who were with them.”

  Ali abruptly sat down. He couldn’t help it. He knew his father had done some awful things, but sinking a ship full of fleeing child refugees was pure evil. It didn’t matter who Ghassan had been hunting.

  He should not be king. The blunt, treasonous thought burst into Ali’s head in a moment of terrible clarity. It suddenly seemed simple, the loyalty and complicated love for his father that Ali had long struggled with snipped away as someone might cut a strained rope.

  Fatumai paced farther into the chamber, oblivious to his pain or perhaps rightfully uncaring about the prince having a breakdown on the floor. She ran her hands along the stacked supplies. “A lively, organized place this seems,” she commented. “You have done extraordinary work, work that has truly changed the lives of innumerable shafit. Ironic, in a way, that it happened here.”

  That immediately pulled him from his thoughts. “Meaning?”

  She glanced back. “Oh, come, brother, let us not pretend. I am certain you know what once happened to the shafit in this so-called hospital. Your namesake certainly did, though it is absent from the songs spun about his mighty deeds.” She shrugged. “I suppose there’s little glory in tales of plague and vengeance.”

  Her words were far too precise to be a mistake. “Who told you?” he asked haltingly.

  “Anas, of course. Do you think you’re the only one with a skill for combing through old texts?” She leveled her gaze on Ali. “He thought it was a story that should be spread far more widely.”

  Ali closed his eyes, his hands clenching into fists. “It belongs to the past, sister.”

  “It belongs to the present,” Fatumai returned sharply. “It is a warning of what the Daevas are capable of. What your Nahid is capable of.”

  His eyes shot open. “What we are all rather capable of. It was not Daevas who murdered your children on the lake. Nor was it Daevas who burned this place to the ground and slaughtered everyone inside fourteen centuries ago.”

  She stared at him. “And why, brother? Tell me why the Geziris and shafit torched this place with such fury.”

  Ali couldn’t look away and yet he couldn’t not answer. “Because the Nahid Council experimented on shafit here,” he confessed softly.

  “Not just experimented,” Fatumai corrected. “They created a poison here. A pox that could be mixed with paint. Paint that could be applied to what, exactly, my warrior friend?”

  “Scabbards,” he answered softly, sickness rising in his chest. “Their soldiers’ scabbards.”

  “Their Geziri soldiers,” she clarified. “Let’s get our facts straight. For that’s all the Nahid Council said your tribe was good for. Fighting and, well . . . we’ll not say the impolite term, but making more soldiers to fill the ranks.” She met Ali’s stony gaze. “But the pox wasn’t designed to kill the purebloods who wore those scabbards, was it?”

  Water was pooling in his hands again. “No,” he whispered. “It wasn’t.”

  “That’s right, it didn’t do a damn thing to those soldiers,” Sister Fatumai replied, a savage edge rising in her voice. “They happily headed home to Am Gezira, that insolent, restless little province. One filled with too many shafit, and too many djinn relatives who would spirit them away into the desert when Daeva officials came to drag them to Daevabad.” She tilted her head. “Zaydi al Qahtani had a shafit family, didn’t he? His first family?”

  Ali’s voice
was thick. “He did.”

  “And what happened when he returned home on leave? When he let his children play with his sword? When he removed his scabbard and touched the beloved wife he hadn’t seen in months?”

  “He woke beside their bodies the next morning.” Ali’s gaze flickered unwillingly to the hilt of his own sword. Ali had read of their fate in a misplaced biography when he was a child, and it had given him nightmares for weeks. To see the people you loved most dead at the hands of a contagion you’d unknowingly given to them . . . it was something that would drive a man mad. Would drive a man to return to his garrison and put his khanjar through the throat of his Daeva commander. To lead a revolt that would reshape their world and ally them with the marid against his fire-blooded fellows.

  To perhaps, in the dark quiet of his soul, purposely allow the slaughter of a hospital.

  Fatumai was studying him. “You’ve told no one of this, have you? Afraid your shafit friends would rightfully run your Banu Nahida out?”

  Her words struck—but that hadn’t been the reason. The excitement in Nahri’s voice, the cautious interest he’d seen from Subha when they first visited . . . Ali hadn’t had the heart to destroy those things. And for what? To point out for the hundredth time the ghastly acts their people had committed so long ago?

  “No, I wasn’t afraid. I was tired.” Ali’s voice broke on the word. “I’m tired of everyone in this city feeding on vengeance. I’m tired of teaching our children to hate and fear other children because their parents are our enemies. And I’m sick and tired of acting like the only way to save our people is to cut down all who might oppose us, as if our enemies won’t return the favor the instant power shifts.”

  She drew up. “Bold words for the son of a tyrant.”

  Ali shook his head. “What do you want from me?” he asked wearily.

  She gave him a sad smile. “Nothing, Prince Alizayd. Respectfully, all that would make me trust you again would be seeing your father dead by your hand. I am finished with the politics of this city. I have ten remaining children who depend on me. I will not risk them.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Fatumai touched a tray of tools. “I came to pass on a warning.”

  Ali tensed. “What warning?”

  “Your little speech about vengeance, Alizayd. There are shafit who don’t long to work at your hospital, ones who would make the Tanzeem look like Daeva sympathizers. People whose anger could bring this city to its knees and who would never forgive a Nahid for the past, no matter how many shafit she heals. I’ve lost some of my older children to them. They watched their friends die on the lake, their neighbors sold on that auction block, and they want nothing more than to see you so-called purebloods suffer. And your Nahid should fear them.”

  Ali was on his feet the next moment, but Fatumai held up a hand. “There are whispers that an attack will happen during Navasatem,” she explained. “I will not reveal who I learned it from, so do not ask.”

  “What kind of attack?” Ali asked in horror.

  “I don’t know. It is a rumor and a thin one. I only pass it on because the thought of what the Daevas and the Royal Guard would do to us in retribution terrifies me.” She turned to go, her cane tapping the stone floor.

  “Sister, wait. Please!”

  Fatumai was already pulling open the door. “That is all I know, Alizayd al Qahtani. Do with it what you will.”

  Ali paused, a thousand responses hovering on his lips.

  The one that made it through was a surprise to him. “The little girl we saved. The girl from Turan’s tavern. Is she all right?”

  The cold grief in Fatumai’s eyes told him the truth before she uttered the words.

  “She was on the boat your father burned.”

  Night had fallen, the sky in the window behind Ghassan the silver-purple color of twilight and heavy with fog from the day’s warm rain. Ali had all but paced holes in the hospital’s courtyard before realizing that, however little he wished to see his father, security for Navasatem rested here.

  Ghassan looked unconvinced. “An attack during Navasatem? Who told you this?”

  “A friend,” Ali said flatly. “One I will not be able to track down again. And she knew nothing more anyway.”

  Ghassan sighed. “I’ll pass your concerns to Wajed.”

  Ali stared at him. “That’s it?”

  His father threw up his hands. “What else would you have me do? Do you know how many vague threats we get about the Daevas? About Nahri? Especially after the attack in your workcamp?”

  “So increase her security. Cancel the procession. Cancel anything during which she’ll be exposed!”

  Ghassan shook his head. “I will not be canceling any Daeva celebrations on your word. I care not to hear Kaveh screeching about it.” A vaguely hostile expression flitted across his face. “Besides . . . Nahri seems to think rather highly of herself lately. Why should I protect someone who so openly challenges me?”

  “Because it’s your duty!” Ali said, aghast. “You are her king. Her father-in-law.”

  Ghassan scoffed. “Considering the state of their marriage, I am hardly that.”

  Ali couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “She’s a woman under our roof. Her protection is part of our highest code, our most sacred—”

  “And I will speak to Wajed,” Ghassan interjected, in a tone that indicated the conversation was over. He rose to his feet, making his way to the windowsill. “But on another matter, your timing is good. The hospital is ready for tomorrow’s opening ceremony?”

  “Yes,” Ali said, not bothering to conceal the bitterness in his voice. “I can report to the dungeon after it’s over if you like.”

  Ghassan picked up a black velvet case that had been resting near the window. “That’s not where I’m sending you, Alizayd.”

  There was a grim decisiveness to his voice that put Ali on edge instantly. “Where are you sending me?”

  Ghassan opened the case, staring at whatever lay inside. “I had this made for you,” he said softly. “When you first returned to Daevabad. I had hoped, I had even prayed, that we might find a way past all this as a family.” He pulled free a magnificent length of dyed silk, patterned blue, purple, and gold twisting together over its shimmering surface.

  A turban. A royal turban like the one Muntadhir wore. Ali’s breath caught.

  Ghassan ran his fingers over the silk. “I wanted to see you wear this during Navasatem. I wanted . . . so much to have you at my side once again.”

  At my side. Ali fought to keep his face blank. Because for the first time in his life, those simple words—that reminder of his duty as a Geziri son, the offer of one of the most privileged and safe positions in their world . . .

  It filled him with absolute revulsion.

  There was a tremor in his voice when he finally spoke. “What do you plan to do with me, Abba?”

  Ghassan met his gaze, a storm of emotion in his gray eyes. “I do not know, Alizayd. I am near equally torn between declaring you my emir and having you executed.” When Ali’s eyes widened, he pressed on. “Yes. You are beyond capable for the position. It’s true you lack in diplomacy, but you have a keener command of military matters and the city’s economy than your brother ever will.” He dropped the turban cloth. “You are also the most reckless and morally inflexible person I have ever come across, perhaps the greatest danger to Daevabad’s stability since a lost Nahid strolled in with an Afshin at her side.”

  His father came around the desk, and Ali found himself stepping back, the air sharp and dangerous between them. And, God forgive him—as Ghassan moved, Ali’s gaze fell on the dagger at his father’s waist.

  Zaydi al Qahtani’s rebellion had started with a dagger through a throat. It would be so simple. So quick. Ali would be executed, he’d probably go to hell for killing his own father, but Daevabad’s tyrant would be gone.

  And then Muntadhir would take the throne. He could see his brother doing so, pani
cked, grieving, and paranoid. He’d almost certainly lash out, arresting and executing anyone associated with Ali.

  Ali forced himself to look into his father’s eyes. “I’ve only ever tried to act in Daevabad’s interest.” He wasn’t sure whether he was speaking to his father or the dark urge in his mind.

  “And now I’m going to invite you to act in your own,” Ghassan said, seemingly unaware of the deadly thoughts swirling within his son. “I’m sending you back to Am Gezira after Navasatem.”

  Whatever Ali had expected . . . it was not that. “What?” he repeated faintly.

  “I’m sending you back. You will formally renounce your titles and find a way to thoroughly sabotage your relationship with the Ayaanle, but you will otherwise return with my blessing. You may marry a local woman and tend to your crops and your canals with whatever children God grants you.”

  “Is this a trick?” Ali was too stunned to even be diplomatic.

  “No,” Ghassan said bluntly. “It is the last resort of a man who does not wish to execute his son.” He looked almost imploringly at Ali. “I know not how to get you to bend, Alizayd. I have threatened you, I have killed your shafit allies, banished your mother, sent you to be hunted by assassins . . . and still you defy me. I am hoping your heart proves weaker than your sense of righteousness . . . or perhaps wiser.”

  Before Ali could stop himself, he saw Bir Nabat in his mind. His students and his fields, himself laughing over coffee with Lubayd and Aqisa.

  A wife. A family. A life—one away from Daevabad’s blood-soaked history and marid-haunted lake.

  Ali felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. “And if I refuse?”

  Ghassan looked exasperated. “It is not an offer, Alizayd. You are going. For God’s sake . . .” A desperate note entered his voice. “Will you let me give at least one of my children some happiness? You wanted to go back, didn’t you?”

  He had. Desperately. Part of Ali still did. But he’d be leaving his home to a king he no longer believed deserved to rule it.