The Kingdom of Copper

by S. A. Chakraborty

  “Do you think we could do that?” Ali asked. “We’ve already spent a fair bit on the hospital.”

  “Little brother, you’d be surprised how far the illusion of wealth will take you even if the deliverance of such promise takes longer,” Zaynab said archly.

  “Ayaanle gold,” Muntadhir cut in sarcastically. “Well, I suppose I know which way the throne will be swinging.”

  “It won’t.” Ideas were coming together in Ali’s head as he spoke. “I don’t know who should rule or how, but there have to be voices besides ours shaping Daevabad’s future. Maybe more than one voice.” He paused, thinking fast. “The Nahids . . . they had a council. Perhaps we could try something like that.”

  Zaynab’s response was sharp. “There are a lot of voices in Daevabad who don’t think very fondly of us, Ali. You start giving power away and we could end up getting chased back to Am Gezira.”

  “Enough.” Muntadhir shushed them, darting a glance around. “Stop scheming. You’re going to get yourselves killed, and for nothing. There’s no overthrowing Abba unless you can take Suleiman’s seal ring from him. Do you have any idea how to do that?”

  “No?” Ali confessed. He hadn’t thought of the seal ring. “I mean, he doesn’t wear it on his hand. I figured he kept it in a vault or . . .”

  “It’s in his heart,” Muntadhir said bluntly.

  Ali’s mouth fell open. That was not a possibility that had occurred to him.

  Zaynab recovered first. “His heart? The seal is in his heart?”

  “Yes.” Muntadhir looked between them, his expression grave. “Do you understand? There’s no taking Suleiman’s seal unless you’re willing to kill our father for it. Is that a price you’d pay?”

  Ali struggled to push that shocking information aside. “Suleiman’s seal shouldn’t matter. Not for this. Stripping your citizens of their magic isn’t a power a political leader should have. The seal was meant to help the Nahids heal their people and fight the ifrit. And when it comes time for it to be passed again . . . the person that ring belongs to isn’t in this room, and you both know it.”

  It was Zaynab’s turn to groan. She pinched the bridge of her nose, looking exasperated. “Ali . . .”

  Muntadhir gestured rudely between them. “Now do you believe me?” he asked Zaynab. “I told you he was smitten with her.”

  “I’m not smitten with her!”

  There was a pounding on the door and then it abruptly opened, revealing Lubayd again.

  “Ali, Emir Muntadhir!” he gasped, leaning on his knees and fighting for breath. “You need to come quickly.”

  Ali shot to his feet. “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s been an attack on the Daeva procession.”

  30

  Nahri

  Nahri wouldn’t have admitted it to him, but maybe Kartir had a point about the Navasatem procession being fun.

  “Anahid!” came another cry from below her. “Anahid the Blessed!”

  Nahri smiled bashfully from underneath her chador, making a blessing over the crowd. “May the fires burn brightly for you!” she shouted back.

  It was an almost unbelievably lovely morning, with not a cloud in the bright blue sky. Nisreen and a coterie of laughing Daeva women had awoken her hours before dawn with milk-sweets and pepper-scented tea, pulling her from bed despite Nahri’s weary protests and dressing her in a soft, simple gown of undyed linen. Before the sun had risen, they’d joined an excited and growing throng of Daevas at the city’s docks in order to wait for the sunrise. As the first pale rays crossed the sky, they’d lit colorful boat-shaped oil lamps of translucent waxed paper, setting them adrift on the lake—glowing a pale pink in the dawn sun—and transforming the water into an enormous, dazzling altar.

  The joy of the crowd had been infectious. Children chased each other, gleefully smearing wet handfuls of the muddy mortar that signified the temple their ancestors had built for Suleiman across arms and faces, while boisterous vendors hawked the sugared barley cakes and rich plum beer traditionally consumed for the holiday.

  Chanting and singing, they’d made their way to the chariots that would carry the procession to the palace. They’d been constructed in secret; it was Daeva tradition that the chariots were designed and built by older Daevas and ridden by youth: a literal celebration of the next generation. There were thirty in total, one to signify each century of freedom, and they were utterly spectacular. Because her tribe was not one for half measures, the vehicles were also enormous, resembling moving towers more than anything else, with room for dozens of riders, and wheels twice the height of a man. Each was dedicated to an aspect of Daeva life: one boasted a grove of jeweled cherry trees, golden trunks peeking out from beneath a canopy of carved jade leaves and gleaming ruby fruit, while the one behind hers spun with cavorting brass horses. Their quicksilver eyes flashed, white jasmine blossoms heavy in the rich black tassels of their manes.

  Nahri’s chariot was the largest, and embarrassingly so, crafted to look like the boat Anahid might have once sailed across the lake. A blue-and-white silk flag billowed above Nahri’s head, and standing proud at the stern was a magnificent carved wooden shedu. She was currently sitting on it, cajoled and harassed into doing so by the ring of thrilled little girls at her feet. Traditionally one of them would have stood in for Anahid, but Nahri’s attempts to convince them to do the same this time had been met only with disappointed pouts.

  But her people’s delight was infectious, so embarrassment aside, Nahri was having a good time, a thing her warm cheeks and silly grin betrayed. She waved to the crowds on the street, bringing her hands together in blessing as she passed by groups of cheering Daevas.

  “This is not what I was told to expect,” Aqisa groused from Nahri’s side, picking at one of the many garlands of flowers the little girls had—at first timidly and then with great exuberance when the warrior woman didn’t stop them—draped around her neck.

  Nahri bit back a laugh at the sight of the pink blossoms tangled across Ali’s terrifying friend. “Don’t they celebrate Navasatem in Am Gezira?”

  The other woman cast a dismayed look at a pair of drunk young men on the float behind them. They were giggling madly, spinning around the brass horses, each with a bottle of plum beer in hand. “We do not celebrate anything in such a manner.”

  “Ah,” Nahri said softly. “Small wonder Ali likes it there.”

  “You are enjoying yourself?” she heard Nisreen call from below. Nisreen was riding alongside the chariots with the rest of the Daeva elders, their horses draped in shimmering cloth the color of the rising sun.

  Nahri leaned over to shout down to her. “You might have mentioned I’d be seated on a shedu,” she complained. “Ghassan is going to burn something when he sees this.”

  Nisreen shook her head. “It’s all in good fun. The first night of the new moon is always the wildest.” She nodded at the drunken youths. “By this evening, more Daevas than not will look like them. It doesn’t leave us much of a threat to the king.”

  Nahri sighed. “I look forward to spending all night tending to their injuries.” She’d already found herself contemplating how quickly she would be able to get to the young men behind her when one of them inevitably fell and cracked his skull open.

  “I’d say that’s a fair possibility. But we have Jamshid in the infirmary with us tonight, and we’ll make sure none of us leave.” Nisreen paused. “Maybe you could ask that shafit healer you’re collaborating with to join us. She could bring her family.”

  Nahri glanced down in surprise. “You want me to ask Subha and her family to spend the night in the infirmary?” It seemed a bizarre request, especially considering the source.

  “I think it’s a smart idea. We could use the extra hands, and you’ve mentioned her child is still nursing.”

  Nahri considered that. It would be good to have Subha’s help, and she’d been wanting to show the doctor the infirmary anyway. “I’ll send her a message when we get back to t
he palace.”

  She straightened back up, peering at the street ahead and trying to get her bearings. It looked like they were almost at the midan.

  Nearly out of the shafit district. Nahri flushed, hating how quickly the thought—and the relief—had come. Ali’s worry had seemed sincere, but it was difficult to parse out his warning from the rest of their conversation, and that was a subject she refused to think about today.

  Even so, she glanced around at the crowd. It was mostly Daeva, though there were plenty of purebloods from the djinn tribes pressed against the barricades, spinning starry sparklers and sharing cakes and beer. A line of soldiers separated them from the shafit onlookers, many of whom were also cheering but were held far back.

  Guilt stabbed at her. That wasn’t right, regardless of the threat. Nahri would have to see if there wasn’t some sort of bonus celebration she could put together for the shafit to make up for it.

  She shifted on the wooden shedu, pulling her chador past her rounded ears. It was unusually and mercifully light—no heavy gold ornaments draped over her head today. Stitched together from layers of silk so delicate they were nearly transparent and dyed in a beautiful array of colors, the chador was meant to give the appearance of shedu wings. Nahri lifted her face to the sun, listening to the delighted chatter of the Daeva children around her.

  I wish Dara could have seen this. The thought rose in her head unbidden and unexpected, and yet oddly enough did not fill her with the tumultuous mix of emotions that memories of Dara usually did. She and Dara might have been of very different minds about the future, but she could not help but hope the Afshin would have been proud to see her sitting upon a wooden shedu today.

  Movement caught her eyes ahead; a line of Daeva riders was approaching to join the procession. Nahri grinned as she recognized Jamshid among them. She waved, catching his eye, and he lifted his cap in acknowledgment, gesturing with a wide, giddy smile at the horse beneath him.

  A loud bang sounded, an explosive rumble both strange and distantly familiar. God only knew what it was. Some Daeva had probably conjured a set of flying drums.

  The noise came again, and this time there was a shout—and then a scream, accompanied by a burst of white smoke from the balcony directly across the street.

  A dark projectile smashed into the carved balustrade above her head.

  Nahri shouted in surprise, shielding her head from a rain of wooden shards. There was movement on the balcony, a glint of metal and then another explosion of white smoke.

  Aqisa yanked her off the shedu. “Get down!” she cried, throwing herself over Nahri.

  In the next moment, the shedu shattered, another projectile hitting the head with enough force to cleave it off. Stunned and with Aqisa pinning her hard against the wooden deck, Nahri lay still. She heard more screaming and then another cracking sound.

  Gunfire, she finally recognized, her memories of Cairo catching up to her. The hulking Turkish cannons, the deadly French muskets . . . not things an Egyptian girl like her, living on the streets and already evading the authorities, would have ever touched, but weapons she’d seen and heard many times. The type of weapons barely known to djinn, she recalled, remembering Ali’s fear when she’d handled the pistol at the Sens.

  There was another shot, this one hitting the base of the juggernaut.

  They’re targeting me, Nahri realized. She tried to push Aqisa off, to no avail. “They’re after me!” she shouted. “You need to get the children away!”

  An object crashed to the wooden deck an arm’s length from her face. Some sort of cracked ceramic jug, with a fiery rag stuffed in one end. Nahri caught the eye-watering smell of pine and tar as a dark sludge seeped out. It touched the flames.

  The fireball that exploded was enough to sear her face. Instinctively, Nahri rolled, dragging a shocked Aqisa to her feet. The pieces came together horribly in her head, the pitch-filled pots and wild flames immediately familiar from her people’s worst stories about the shafit.

  “Rumi fire!” she screamed, trying to grab the little girls. Another jar struck the street, fire engulfing a pair of riders so quickly they didn’t even have time to scream. “Run!”

  And then it was chaos. The surrounding crowds broke, people pushing and shoving to get away from the spreading flames. Nahri heard the Royal Guard shouting, trying to impose order as their zulfiqars flashed in the light.

  Nahri choked down her panic. They had to save the children. She and Aqisa swiftly led them to the other side of the chariot. Daevas on horseback had already thrown up ropes, men climbing to help them down.

  Aqisa grabbed her collar. “Water!” she said urgently. “Where is the nearest pump?”

  Nahri shook her head, coughing as she tried to think. “Water doesn’t work on Rumi fire.”

  “Then what does work?”

  “Sand,” she whispered, gazing in rising horror at the damp stone streets and wooden buildings surrounding her. Sand was the only thing misty Daevabad didn’t have in abundance.

  Aqisa abruptly yanked her back again as a metal ball slammed into the wood where Nahri’s head had just been. “They’re up there,” she warned, jerking her head toward a balcony. “Three of them.”

  Nahri dared a quick peek. A trio of men were hunched inside the screened structure, two of them armed with what looked like muskets.

  Rage burned through her. From the corner of her eye, she spotted an Agnivanshi soldier with a bow quickly climbing the jeweled trees of the chariot next to hers. He pulled himself onto one of the branches, nocking an arrow in the same movement.

  There was a shout, and then one of the attackers fell from the balcony, an arrow buried in his back. The archer turned for the other men.

  A blast of a musket brought him down. As Nahri cried out, the soldier fell dead to the ground, the bow tumbling from his hands.

  “Get down, Nahri!” Nisreen yelled, drawing her attention back as another shot splintered off the deck and the last of the children were spirited away.

  Nahri jumped, Aqisa urging her into a sprint as the chariot cracked in half from the heat of the spreading flames.

  A knot of Daevas pulled her into their midst. Nisreen was there, ripping Nahri’s distinctive chador off. “Get the Banu Nahida away,” she ordered.

  “No, wait—” Nahri tried to protest as hands pushed her onto a horse. Through a break in the crowd, she spotted Jamshid. He was riding hard—dangerously hard—one hand clutching his saddle while he dipped to reach for the bow on the ground . . .

  A clay jar of Rumi fire struck him directly in the back.

  “Jamshid!” Nahri lunged forward as he toppled from the horse. His coat was on fire, flames dancing over his back. “No!”

  Everything seemed to slow. A riderless horse galloped past, and the smell of smoke and blood thickened on the air. Nahri caught herself from swooning, the sudden presence of torn bodies, broken bones, and slowing hearts threatening to overwhelm her Nahid senses. The streets her ancestors had carefully laid down were burning, engulfing fleeing parade-goers. Ahead, Jamshid was rolling in a vain attempt to put out the fire spreading across his coat.

  Fury and desperation rose inside her. Nahri shoved free of the Daevas trying to wrestle her away.

  “Jamshid!” Sheer determination brought her to his side as he writhed on the ground. Not caring if she risked herself, Nahri grabbed the unburnt edge of his collar and wrenched the burning jacket off him.

  He screamed, the smoldering fabric taking a good part of the skin on his upper back with it, leaving his flesh bloody and exposed. But it was better than being consumed by Rumi fire—not that it mattered; the two of them were surrounded now, the flames hungrily licking up the surrounding buildings.

  A heavy object crashed to the ground before her: the remains of the burning shedu she’d ridden to emulate her ancestors. But as Nahri watched the chaos around her, helplessness threatened to suffocate her. Nahri was no Anahid. She had no Afshin.

  She had no idea how to s
ave her people.

  Afshin . . . like a burst of light, one of her last memories of Cairo came to her: the warrior with striking green eyes, whose name she had not yet known, standing amid the tombs of her human home, raising his arms to conjure a storm.

  A sandstorm. Nahri caught her breath. Creator, please, she prayed. Help me save my city.

  She inhaled, bowing her head. Acting on instinct, she tried to see the city as she might have seen a patient, tried to visualize the dirt between its cobblestones and the dust gathering in every corner.

  She pulled. The wind immediately picked up, lashing her braids against her face, but she could still sense resistance, her hold on the magic just a touch too weak. She cried out in frustration.

  “Nahri,” Jamshid breathed, his voice hoarse as he clutched her hand. “Nahri, I don’t feel right . . .” He choked, his fingers tightening on her own.

  A raw punch of magic hit her so hard she nearly fell back. She gasped, reeling as she tried to maintain her control. It was both familiar and not, a jolt as if she’d plunged her hands into a vat of ice. It raced through her veins with a wild madness, like a creature too long caged.

  And it was the exact push that she needed. Nahri didn’t hesitate, her eyes locking on the burning streets. Heal, she commanded, pulling hard.

  Every speck of sand in her family’s city rushed to her.

  It whirled into a racing funnel of smothering dust. She exhaled and it collapsed, raining down to cover the street and the ruined chariots, blowing into dunes against the buildings and coating the bodies of fleeing and burning djinn and Daevas alike. Extinguishing the fire as thoroughly as if she’d dunked a candle into a pool of water.

  It did the same to Nahri. Her hold on the magic collapsed, and she reeled, exhaustion sweeping her as black spots burst across her vision.

  “Banu Nahida!”

  Nahri blinked, catching sight of Nisreen racing toward her, still holding her bright chador. At her side, Jamshid struggled to sit up, his shirt hanging in scorched tatters across his chest.