His fingers stilled on the beads. “I need you to get me every Geziri muezzin you can find.”
32
Nahri
You’re a good Banu Nahida.
Nisreen’s words from the other night rang in Nahri’s mind as she stared at the sink. A good Banu Nahida. The shock in her mentor’s face, the way the spark—the jesting and the weary patience, everything that made her Nisreen—had vanished from her dark eyes, the hands that had guided Nahri’s now growing cold in the quiet of the Grand Temple.
“You need a break.” Subha’s voice yanked her from her thoughts. She threw a towel at Nahri. “You could have washed your hands a hundred times for how long you’ve been standing here staring at the water.”
Nahri shook her head, drying her hands and retying her apron. “I’m fine.”
“I’m not asking.” Nahri glanced at the other doctor, startled, and saw only determination in her eyes. “You wished to work with another healer? Fine, then I’m acting on behalf of our patients. You are not fit to treat anyone right now.”
Before Nahri could protest, the doctor took her by the arm, all but depositing her in a low couch. A cup of tea and platter of food waited on a nearby table.
Subha nodded to it. “The camp workers have been bringing food and clothing by. They thought your people could use it.”
The gesture moved her. “That was kind,” she said softly. She picked up the tea, too weary to resist, and took a sip.
Subha sat beside her. She sighed, wiping a line of ash from her sweat-streaked brow. “If I’ve not said it yet, I’m terribly sorry.” She shook her head. “I spoke a bit with Lady Nisreen last night.” A small smile played on her lips. “It was only slightly confrontational; in all, she seemed very capable and quite kind.”
Nahri stared at her tea. “She taught me everything I know about the Nahid sciences.” Emotion rose in her voice. “She was the closest thing to family I had in Daevabad, and I couldn’t save her.”
Subha touched her hand. “Don’t lose yourself in what you might have done for a patient, especially not one you loved.” She cleared her throat. “Trust that I speak from experience. After my father . . . I felt useless. I wasted weeks on self-pity and grief. You don’t have weeks. Your people need you now.”
Nahri nodded, finding relief in the direct words. They were certainly more useful than weeping on Ali’s shoulder in the garden.
A weakness. That’s what Nisreen had called Ali, and clearly she’d been right. Had Nahri been the Banu Nahida her people needed, she would have forced the name of that informant from Ali’s lips.
“Banu Nahida?” A familiar voice called from the knot of people bustling about the entrance to the exam chamber.
Jamshid. Someone must have given him a shirt, but it was covered in blood and ash, and he looked as exhausted as Nahri felt. His gaze fell on hers, and then he was across the room in seconds, with such swift agility that Nahri nearly dropped her teacup. Forget the burns, Jamshid wasn’t even limping.
“Jamshid?” She gaped, looking him up and down. Closer now, she could see he was trembling, his eyes bright with barely checked panic.
Subha frowned. “Nahri said you were struck with Rumi fire and badly burned.” She rose to her feet, reaching for him. “Would you like us to—”
He jerked back. “I’m fine,” he said hoarsely. “Quite, quite fine,” he added, sounding slightly hysterical. “How are you?”
Nahri stared at him. He certainly didn’t sound fine. “We’re doing what we can,” she replied. “Are they finished at the procession site?”
Jamshid nodded. “The final count is eighty-six dead,” he said softly. “Muntadhir and the king were leaving when I did. They only found the three attackers.”
“Nearly a hundred people dead at the hands of three?” Nahri put down her tea, her hands shaking. “I don’t understand how this could happen.”
“It never has before,” Jamshid said, his voice sorrowful. “I don’t think anyone expected anything like this.”
Nahri shook her head. “I’m glad to have been present when Daevabad’s people discovered a new low in slaughtering one another.”
Jamshid stepped closer, laying a hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry about Nisreen, Nahri.” He blinked back tears. “I can’t even really believe it. It’s difficult to imagine returning to the infirmary and not seeing her there.”
Nahri struggled to keep her voice from thickening. “We’ll have to manage. Our people need us.”
He flushed. “You’re right, of course. But Nahri . . . if things are under control here, do you have a minute to talk? Alone?” he clarified, nodding to the corridor.
“Of course.” Nahri stood. “If you’ll excuse me, Doctor Sen.”
The moment they were outside, Jamshid whirled on her. “Nahri, are you sure it was Rumi fire in those containers?”
Nahri was as taken aback by the question as she was by the fear in his eyes. “Yes? I mean, what else could have burned like that?”
He was wringing his hands. “Do you think there could have been anything else in it? Some sort of . . . I don’t know . . . healing serum?”
She blinked. “Because of your back?” In the chaos of the attack and Nisreen’s death, Nahri had hardly given thought to how swiftly Jamshid’s burns had vanished.
He’d gone pale. “No, not just because of my back . . .” His mouth opened and closed as if he was struggling for words. “Nahri, you’re going to think I’m mad, but—”
“Banu Nahida!” It was Razu this time. “You need to come quickly,” she said, switching to Tukharistani. “This one’s father is throwing a fit outside.”
Jamshid spun on Razu. “Then tell him to wait!”
The words had no sooner left Jamshid’s lips than he gasped, clapping a hand over his mouth. Nahri’s eyes went wide. He’d just spoken in a perfect imitation of Razu’s ancient dialect of Tukharistani—a language she’d heard not a soul save Razu and herself speak.
“Jamshid, how did you—”
“Jamshid!” Kaveh came racing into the corridor. “Banu Nahida! Come, there’s no time to waste!”
Jamshid still looked too astonished to speak, so Nahri did. “What’s going on?”
Kaveh was pale. “It’s the emir.”
Jamshid was in full panic as they galloped toward the midan, whatever he’d been trying to tell her clearly gone from his mind. “What do you mean, he collapsed?” he demanded of Kaveh again, shouting over the clatter of hooves.
“I am telling you all that I know,” Kaveh replied. “He wanted to stop and visit with survivors outside the Grand Temple, and then he passed out. We brought him inside, and I came for you as soon as I could.”
Nahri tightened her legs around her horse, clutching the reins as the Geziri Quarter passed by in a blur. “Why would you not bring him to the infirmary or the hospital?”
“I’m sorry, we weren’t thinking.”
They passed through the Geziri Gate. The midan was eerie in its emptiness, like many of the streets had been, glowing faintly in the deepening night. It should have been filled with celebrations, with Daevas who’d had a bit too much plum beer dancing on the fountains and children conjuring fireworks.
Instead it was entirely still, the smell of burned flesh and smoke hanging on the dusty air. A handcart selling delicate garlands of blown-glass flowers lay abandoned on its side. Nahri feared there was a good chance its owner lay under one of the eighty-six blood-soaked shrouds outside the Temple.
The sound of chanting suddenly drew her ear. Nahri raised a hand, slowing her horse. It was the singsong intonation of the call to prayer . . . except isha prayer had already been called. It wasn’t in Arabic either, she realized.
“Is that Geziriyya?” Jamshid whispered. “Why would the muezzins be calling in Geziriyya? And why now?”
Kaveh had grown paler. “I think we should get to the Temple.” He spurred his horse toward the Daeva Gate, the two shedu statues throwing bizarre shado
ws against the midan’s copper walls.
They hadn’t gotten halfway across when a line of horsemen moved to intercept them. “Grand Wazir!” a man called. “Stop.”
The Qaid, Nahri realized, recognizing him. Six members of the Royal Guard stood with him, armed with scythes and zulfiqars, and as Nahri watched, another four archers stepped out from the other gates. Their bows were not yet drawn, but a whisper of fear went through her anyway.
“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded. “Let us pass. I need to get to the Grand Temple and make sure my husband is still breathing!”
Wajed frowned. “Your husband is nowhere near the Grand Temple. Emir Muntadhir is at the palace. I saw him just before we left.”
Jamshid pushed forward on his horse, seemingly heedless of the way the soldiers instantly moved their hands to their blades. “Is he all right? My father said he had taken ill at the Grand Temple.”
Baffled confusion on Wajed’s face, and a flush of guilt on Kaveh’s, were all Nahri needed. “Did you lie to us?” she demanded, whirling on the grand wazir. “Why in God’s name would you do such a thing?”
Kaveh shrank back, looking ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he said hurriedly. “I needed to get you to safety, and Muntadhir was the only way I could think of to get you both to leave the hospital.”
Jamshid drew up, looking shocked and wounded. “How could you let me think he was hurt?”
“I’m sorry, my son. I had no—”
Wajed interrupted. “It doesn’t matter. None of you will be going to the Grand Temple. I have orders to have the two of you escorted to the palace,” he said with a nod to Kaveh and Nahri. He hesitated, looking weary and worn down for a minute, before he continued. “Jamshid, you’re to come with me.”
Kaveh instantly edged in front of his son and Nahri. “I beg your pardon?”
The call came again, haunting waves of Geziriyya breaking the tense silence. Wajed stiffened, a muscle working in his face, as if whatever was being said caused him pain. He wasn’t the only one. Half the men were Geziri, and they too looked visibly unsettled.
One went further, the sole Geziri archer standing in the frame of the neighboring Tukharistani Gate. He shouted something in their language. Wajed returned a terse response.
The archer clearly wasn’t mollified. He argued back, gesturing at them and then at the gate that led back to the shafit neighborhoods. Nahri had no clue as to what he was saying, but it was seeming to resonate. The other Geziris shifted uncomfortably, a couple darting uncertain glances at each other.
Abruptly, the archer threw down his bow. He turned on his heel, but he didn’t get far because with a single curt word from Wajed, another soldier shot him dead.
Nahri gasped, and Jamshid drew his sword, instantly moving closer to her.
But the Qaid wasn’t looking at them, he was glaring at his men. “That is the penalty for treason, understand? There will be no arrests and no forgiveness. I do not care what you hear.” He eyed the soldiers. “We take commands from only one man in Daevabad.”
“What in the Creator’s name is going on, Wajed?” Nahri demanded again. She, Kaveh, and Jamshid had drawn as close as they could on horseback.
“You can direct your questions to the king when you see him.” Wajed hesitated. “Forgive me, Banu Nahida, but I have my orders.”
He raised a hand, and the rest of the archers drew their bows, their arrows targeted on the Daevas.
“Wait!” Nahri cried. “What are you doing?”
Wajed drew a pair of iron-laced binds from his belt. “As I said, the king has requested that you and Kaveh be taken to him. Jamshid is to come with me.”
“No.” Kaveh sounded desperate. “Ghassan isn’t taking my son. Not again.”
“Then I have instructions to shoot the three of you dead,” Wajed said quietly. “Starting with the Banu Nahida.”
Jamshid slid from his saddle. “Take me,” he said immediately, dropping his sword to the ground. “Don’t hurt them.”
“No! Wajed, please, I beg you,” Kaveh beseeched. “Just let him stay with me. We’re no threat to you. Surely whatever Ghassan has to say to me and Nahri . . .”
“I have my orders, Kaveh,” Wajed cut in, not ungently. “Take him,” he said to his men and then glanced at her. “And I’d suggest you keep any possible sandstorms to yourself. We’re all rather quick with our weapons.” He tossed the iron cuffs to her. “You’ll be putting those on if you care about their lives.”
Kaveh lunged for his son. “Jamshid!”
A soldier hit him hard across the back of his skull with the flat of his blade, and Kaveh crumpled to the ground.
“Baba!” Jamshid sprang for his father but hadn’t taken two steps before a pair of men grabbed him, pressing a knife to his throat.
“Your choice, Banu Nahida,” Wajed said.
Jamshid’s worried gaze darted between his father’s slumped form and Nahri. “Let them take me, Nahri. Please. I can take care of myself.”
No. Thinking quickly, she spun back on Wajed. “I want to speak to my husband,” she insisted. “The emir would never permit this!”
“The emir does not command me,” Wajed replied. “The cuffs. Now,” he clarified as the knife pressed harder into Jamshid’s throat.
Nahri cursed under her breath but slipped them on. The iron burned against her skin, her magic not gone, but deadened. A pair of soldiers instantly descended upon her, binding her wrists tightly so that she couldn’t take the cuffs off.
Nahri glared at Wajed. “I will kill your king if you hurt him. I swear it to you, Qaid, on my ancestors’ ashes. I will kill your king and then I will kill you.”
Wajed merely inclined his head. Another pair of soldiers was binding Jamshid’s hands.
“I’m going to get you out,” she declared. “I promise. I’ll get word to Muntadhir.”
Jamshid swallowed. “Take care of yourself first. Please, Banu Nahida!” he shouted as they pulled him away. “We need you alive.”
33
Ali
From a window at the top of the Citadel’s stone tower, Ali surveyed the lake below. On this moonless night, it was darker than usual, a perfectly still pane of black reflecting the sky. In the distance, a narrow band of golden beach was all that separated it from the equally dark mountains.
He inhaled, the crisp air bracing. “The gates are closed?”
“Yes, my prince,” Daoud replied. “The shafit district is as secure as possible. The gate in the Grand Bazaar has been sealed with magic and fortified with iron bars. Our people did the same.” He cleared his throat. “The recitation of your speech by the muezzins had quite an effect.”
The recitation of my speech will be the first charge they read at my trial. Ali had ordered his father’s cruel plans revealed to the entire Geziri Quarter: sung by its muezzins and cried out by every imam and sheikh who knew him—respected clerics whose word would be trusted. The plans were followed by a far simpler call:
Ghassan al Qahtani asks that you abide the slaughter of our shafit kin.
Zaydi al Qahtani asks you to stop it.
His plan very much had the desired effect . . . more than even Ali had anticipated. Whether his people were feeling nostalgic for the proud cause that had brought them to Daevabad, fed up with corruption, or simply believed the Afshin-slayer who’d wandered their land digging wells and breaking bread with their relatives was the right man to follow, Ali couldn’t say. But they had revolted, Geziri men and women spilling into the streets and seizing any soldiers who tried to stop them from going to the shafit district. Both neighborhoods were now under his control, a mix of soldiers loyal to Ali and well-armed civilians taking up positions throughout.
“The hospital?” he asked, disquiet rising in his heart. “Was the Banu Nahida . . .”
“She had just left,” Daoud replied. “With the grand wazir and his son. They apparently went rushing out in some haste. We have soldiers positioned outside the hospital, but per your order
s, none will go inside. The freed slave Razu is guarding the entrance and threatening to turn anyone who crosses her into a spider.” The man said these words with a nervous glance, as if expecting Razu to pop out and transform him into an insect right then and there.
“Good. Make it known that if a single Daeva is harmed tonight by one of our men, I’ll execute the perpetrator myself.” The thought of the wounded Daevas still inside the hospital made Ali sick. He couldn’t imagine how terrified they must have been to learn they were trapped in the building while the surrounding neighborhoods rebelled under the leadership of the “Afshin-slayer.”
Ali’s gaze fell on Wajed’s desk. Needing access to its wealth of city maps, Ali had taken over the Qaid’s office, but doing so felt like carving out a piece of his heart. He could not stand in this room without recalling the hours he’d spent staging battles with rocks and sticks as a young child while the Qaid worked above him. He’d read every book in here and examined every battle diagram, Wajed quizzing him with a far gentler affection than his own father ever had.
He will never forgive me for this, Ali knew. Wajed was loyal to the end, his father’s closest companion since their shared childhood.
He turned to Lubayd. “Do you really think Aqisa can sneak into the harem?”
“I think Aqisa can do pretty much anything she sets her mind to,” Lubayd replied. “Probably better than you or I.”
Good. Ali needed Aqisa to get his letter to Zaynab; his sister would at least try to help him, this he knew. “God willing, my sister can convince Muntadhir to support us.”
“And then?” Lubayd crossed his arms. “You’ve taken the Citadel. Why are you going to hand it back to anyone, let alone the brother you’ve been fighting with for months?” His gaze grew pointed. “People aren’t taking to the street to make Muntadhir king, Ali.”
“And I’m not doing this to be king. I want my brother and sister on my side. I need them on my side.” For Ali was fairly certain his father had a plan in place on the chance Ali rebelled and took the Citadel. He’d made his opposition to the king quite clear and it was no secret he was well liked by the soldiers with whom he’d grown up. He knew his father; there was no way Ghassan hadn’t come up with a strategy to defuse him.
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