The Kingdom of Copper

by S. A. Chakraborty

  She didn’t let him finish. Fury flooding through her, she dragged her dagger hard across her palm, breaking the skin. Then she charged forward, throwing herself on him without hesitation.

  She and the ifrit tumbled backward together, Nahri landing on his chest. She raised the bloody dagger, trying to plunge it into his throat, but he easily knocked it out of her hand, his own knife still in one of his.

  She scrambled for it, but he was stronger. He let the knife go and it clattered to the floor as he grabbed her wrists and then rolled her over, pinning her beneath him.

  Nahri screamed. The ifrit’s fiery eyes met hers, and she caught her breath, startled by what looked like grief swirling in the depths of their alien color.

  And then the scorching yellow vanished, his eyes turning the shade of green that haunted her dreams. Black curls sprouted from his smoky scalp, and the fiery light was snuffed from his face, leaving his skin a luminescent light brown. An ebony tattoo marked his temple: an arrow crossed with the wing of a shedu.

  Dara stared back at her, his face inches from hers. The scent of cedar and burnt citrus tickled her nose, and then he spoke one word, one word that left his lips like a prayer.

  “Nahri.”

  Nahri howled, something raw and savage ripping through her. “Stop!” she screamed, writhing underneath him. “Get rid of that face or I’ll kill you!”

  He held her hands tight as she attempted to claw at his throat. “Nahri, stop!” the ifrit cried. “It’s me, I swear!”

  His voice shattered her. God, it even sounded like him. But that was impossible. Impossible. Nahri had watched Dara die. She’d raked her hands through his ashes.

  This was a trick. An ifrit trick. Her skin crawling at his touch, Nahri tried to twist free again, spotting her bloody dagger near her feet.

  “Zaydi!” Muntadhir flew to his brother’s side only to be promptly thrown across the corridor by the second ifrit. He smashed hard into one of the delicate fountains, water and glass bursting around him.

  Thinking fast and desperate to get the ifrit off her, Nahri brought her knee up hard where his legs met his body.

  He gasped, his still-green eyes lighting with pain and surprise, and jerked back enough for her to scramble free. A glance revealed Muntadhir back on his feet, running for Ali as the younger prince slowly rolled over, blood streaming down his face. The second ifrit reached for the war ax hanging across his back . . .

  “STOP!” The corridor trembled, echoing with the first ifrit’s command. “Vizaresh, stand down,” he snapped as he climbed to his feet. The second ifrit instantly did so, stepping back from the Qahtani brothers with a splash, the water from the broken fountain puddling at his feet.

  The ifrit wearing Dara’s guise turned back to Nahri, his gaze imploring. “Nahri,” he choked out, her name leaving his mouth like it caused him pain. He took a step toward her, reaching out like he wanted to take her hand.

  “Don’t touch me!” The sound of his voice was physically painful; it was everything she could do not to cover her ears. “I don’t know who you are, but I’ll blood-poison you if you don’t change your appearance.”

  The ifrit fell to his knees before her, bringing his hands up in the Daeva blessing. “Nahri, it’s me. I swear on my parents’ ashes. I found you in a Cairo cemetery. I told you my name in the ruins of Hierapolis.” The same hollow grief swirled into his eyes. “You kissed me in the caves above the Gozan.” His voice broke. “Twice.”

  Her heart twisted, fierce denial running through her. “It’s not.” A sob tore from her chest. “You’re dead. You’re dead. I watched it happen!”

  He swallowed, sadness rippling across his face as his haunted eyes drank her in. “I was. But no one seems content to leave me in that state.”

  Nahri swayed on her feet, jerking back when he moved to help her. Too many pieces were coming together in her head. Kaveh’s careful treachery. The well-armed Daeva soldiers.

  Dara. The dashing warrior who’d taken her hand in Cairo and spirited her away to a land of legend. Her broken Afshin, driven to destruction by the crushing politics of the city he couldn’t save.

  He spoke again. “I’m sorry, Nahri.” That he seemingly registered whatever little change was in her expression—for Nahri didn’t easily give up her mask—was its own proof.

  “What are you?” she whispered, unable to conceal the horror in her voice. “Are you . . . are you one of them now?” She jerked her head toward the ifrit, almost afraid to hear the answer.

  “No!” Dara closed the distance between them and took her hands, his fingers hot against hers. Nahri did not have it in her to pull away; it looked like it was costing Dara everything not to grab her and run away. “Creator, no! I . . . I am a daeva,” he said faintly, as though the words made him ill. “But as our people once were. I am free of Suleiman’s curse.”

  The answer made no sense. None of this made any sense. Nahri felt as though she’d stumbled upon a mirage, a mad hallucination.

  Dara drew her closer, reaching for her cheek. “I am sorry. I wanted to tell you, to come straight away—” His voice turned desperate. “I could not cross the threshold. I could not come back for you.” He rushed on, his words growing more incomprehensible. “But it is going to be okay, I promise you. She is going to set it all right. Our people will be free and—”

  “Fuck,” Muntadhir swore. “It is you. Only you would come back from the dead a second time and immediately start another damn war.”

  Dara’s eyes flashed, and ice stole into Nahri’s heart. “You’re working with Kaveh,” she whispered. “Does that mean . . .” Her stomach twisted. “The poison killing the Geziris . . .” No, please no. “Did you know?”

  He dropped his gaze, looking sick with regret. “You were not supposed to see it. You were supposed to be with Nisreen. Safe. Protected.” He said the words frantically, as though trying to convince himself as much as her.

  Nahri jerked free of his grip. “Nisreen is dead.” She stared at Dara, aching to see a glimmer of the laughing warrior who’d teased her on a flying carpet and sighed as she kissed him in the quiet dark of a secluded cave. “The things they say about you are true, aren’t they?” she asked, her voice thick with rising dread. “About Qui-zi? About the war?”

  She wasn’t sure what she expected: denial, shame, perhaps overly righteous anger. But the flicker of resentment that flared in his eyes—that took her by surprise.

  “Of course they are true,” he said tonelessly. He touched the mark on his brow, a grim salute. “I am the weapon the Nahids made me. Nothing more, nothing less, and apparently for all of eternity.”

  With his usual poor timing, Ali chose that moment to speak. “Oh, yes,” he croaked from where he sat on the floor, leaning heavily against his brother. His gray eyes were wild with grief, standing out starkly against his blood-covered face. “You poor, pitiful murdering—”

  Muntadhir clapped a hand over Ali’s mouth, but it was too late.

  Dara whirled on the Qahtani princes. “What did you say to me, you filthy little hypocrite?”

  “Nothing,” Muntadhir said quickly, clearly struggling to keep his brother’s mouth shut.

  But Ali had drawn their attention . . . though it wasn’t his words that held it.

  The water from the broken fountains was rushing for him. It streamed across the floor, surging into his bloody clothes, tiny rivulets dancing over his hands. Ali seemed to suck for breath, dipping his head as the air abruptly cooled.

  Then he jerked his head back up, the movement unnaturally sharp. An oily black mingled with the gray in his eyes.

  There was a moment of shocked silence. “I did try to tell you,” the ifrit spoke up, “that there was something a little different about him.”

  Dara was staring at Ali with naked hate. “It is nothing I cannot handle.” He stepped away from Nahri. “Vizaresh, take the emir and the Banu Nahida away. I will join you in a moment.” His voice softened. “They do not need to see this.”r />
  Nahri sprang up to stop him. “No!”

  She didn’t even get close. Dara snapped his fingers, and a burst of smoke wrapped her body, tight as rope.

  “Dara!” Nahri tripped, falling hard to her knees, stunned that he’d used magic against her. “Dara, stop, I beg you! I order you!” she tried, pulling desperately for her own power. There was a rumble from the ancient bricks. “Afshin!”

  Fire licked down Dara’s arms. “I am truly sorry, Nahri,” Dara said, and she could hear it, the heartbreak in his voice. “But yours are not the orders I follow anymore.” He started after Ali.

  Ali staggered to his feet, shoving Muntadhir behind him. The oily color flashed across his eyes again, and then his zulfiqar flew to his hand, a burst of water behind it like he’d cut through a wave. Flames licked down the copper blade.

  Vizaresh hadn’t moved to follow Dara’s command. He looked between them now, his wary yellow eyes taking in the two warriors.

  Then he shook his head. “No, Darayavahoush. You fight this one on your own. I will not quarrel with one the marid have chosen to bless so.” Without another word, he vanished in a crack of thunder.

  Ali rushed forward. As Nahri cried out, he raised his zulfiqar . . .

  And then he fell back, as though he’d smashed into an invisible barrier. He stumbled, looking stunned, but without hesitation, gathered himself and sprang forward again.

  This time, the barrier knocked him back completely.

  Dara hissed. “Yes, your marid masters couldn’t do that either.” He lunged at the prince, ripping the zulfiqar from Ali’s hands. The flames soaring as if he were a Geziri man himself, Dara swung it up. Nahri screamed again, writhing against the smoky binds as the magic of the palace built in her blood.

  Muntadhir hurled himself between Ali and the zulfiqar.

  There was the smell of blood and burning flesh. A flash of pain in her husband’s eyes and then a wail from Ali, a sound so raw it didn’t seem real.

  Rage ripped through her. And just like that, her magic was there. The smoky binds that had dared to confine her—her, in her own damned palace—abruptly burst apart, and Nahri inhaled, suddenly aware of every brick and stone and mote of dust in the building around her. The walls erected by her ancestors, the floors that had run black with their blood.

  The corridor shook, hard enough to send the plaster crumbling from the ceiling. Flames twisted around her fingers, smoke curling past her collar. Her clothes flapping madly in the hot breeze spinning out from her body, she raised her hands.

  Dara turned to her. She could both see him and sense him, standing bright and furious on the edge of her magic.

  Nahri threw him across the corridor.

  He hit the wall hard enough to leave a dent in the stone and crumpled to the floor. A piece of her heart broke at the sight, still traitorously linked to the man who kept finding new ways to shatter it.

  And then Dara got back up.

  Their gazes met. Dara looked stunned. Betrayed. And yet, still grimly determined, a warrior committed. He touched the golden blood dripping down his face and then threw his hand out, a wave of black smoke wrapping his body. There was a glimmer of scales and flash of teeth as it doubled in size.

  In an explosion of plaster and stone, Nahri brought the ceiling down on him.

  She collapsed as the dust rose around her, the magic draining.

  Ali’s screams brought her back. Pushing aside the grief threatening to tear her open, Nahri staggered to her feet. Muntadhir had fallen to his knees, leaning against his brother. Blood was spreading across his dishdasha.

  Nahri ran to him, ripping open the cloth. Tears sprang to her eyes. Had he been attacked with anything but a zulfiqar, Nahri would have breathed a sigh of relief; it was a clean gash stretching across his stomach, and though it was bloody, it wasn’t deep.

  But none of that mattered. Because the skin around the wound was already a sick blackish green, the color of some awful storm. And it was spreading, delicate tendrils tracing the lines of veins and nerves.

  Muntadhir let out a dismayed sound. “Oh,” he whispered, his hands shaking as he touched the wound. “Suppose that’s ironic.”

  “No. No, no, no,” Ali stammered the word as if the whispered denial would undo the awful scene before them. “Why did you do that? Dhiru, why did you do that?”

  Muntadhir reached out to touch his brother’s face, the blood from his hands staining Ali’s skin. “I’m sorry, akhi,” he replied weakly. “I couldn’t watch him kill you. Not again.”

  Tears ran down Ali’s face. “It’s going to be okay,” he stammered. “N-Nahri will heal you.”

  Muntadhir shook his head. “Don’t,” he said, clenching his jaw as she reached for him. “We all know you’ll be wasting time.”

  “Would you let me at least try?” she begged, her voice breaking on the word.

  Muntadhir bit his lip, looking like he was struggling to hide his own fear. He nodded, a small motion.

  Nahri instantly spread her hands, concentrating on the pulse and heat of her husband’s body, and yet she’d no sooner done so than she realized the futility of it. She couldn’t heal his torn flesh and poisoned blood, because she couldn’t sense the wound. His body seemed to end where the darkening flesh began, its edges pushing back at her consciousness as it advanced. It was worse than her struggles with Jamshid, worse even than her desperate fight to save Nisreen. Nahri—who’d just thrown a man across the room and conjured a sandstorm—could do nothing to fight the zulfiqar’s poison.

  Muntadhir gently pushed her hands away. “Nahri, stop. You don’t have time for this.”

  “We have time,” Ali cut in. “Just try again. Try harder!”

  “You don’t have time.” Muntadhir’s voice was firm. “Zaydi, look at me. I need you to listen and not react. Abba is dead. You need to go with Nahri and retrieve Suleiman’s seal. She knows how.”

  Ali’s mouth fell open, but before he could speak, there was a rumble from the pile of debris.

  Muntadhir paled. “Impossible. You dropped a damned ceiling on him.”

  Another rumble seemed to answer, dust and plaster shivering.

  Ali reached for his brother. “We need to get you out of here.”

  “That’s not happening.” Muntadhir took a steadying breath and then pushed himself into a seated position. He glanced around, his gaze settling on an object glimmering in the dust.

  A silver bow.

  A hint of vindictiveness flitted across his face. “Nahri, would you hand me that bow and see if you can’t find the quiver?”

  Feeling sick, she nonetheless complied. She knew in her heart whose bow this was. “What are you doing?” she asked as he staggered to his feet holding the bow, determination and pain etched across his features.

  Muntadhir swayed, pulling free his khanjar. He beckoned Ali closer and then shoved it in his brother’s belt. “Buying you time.” He coughed, then nodded at the khanjar. “Take that and your zulfiqar, akhi. Fight well.”

  Ali didn’t move. He suddenly looked very young. “Dhiru, I . . . I can’t leave you,” he said, his voice trembling, as if this was something he could argue away. “I’m supposed to protect you,” he whispered. “I’m supposed to be your Qaid.”

  Muntadhir gave him a sad smile. “I’m pretty sure that means you have to do as I say.” His expression softened. “It’s okay, Zaydi. We’re okay.” He nocked an arrow, something broken in his face even as he winked. “Hell, I think this means I might even make it to your Paradise.”

  Tears were running unchecked down Ali’s cheeks. Nahri quietly picked up his zulfiqar and then stepped forward, taking his hand. She met Muntadhir’s eyes, a look of understanding passing between them. “We’ll get Suleiman’s seal,” she promised. “And I’ll find Jamshid. You have my word.”

  At that, Muntadhir’s eyes finally grew damp. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “Please tell him . . . ” He took a deep breath, rocking back slightly, obviously struggling to gat
her himself. When his gaze met hers again, there was a mix of regret and apology there. “Please tell him I loved him. Tell him I’m sorry I didn’t stand up for him sooner.” He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and then drew up, looking away. “Now go. I can count my short reign a success if I manage to convince the two most stubborn people in Daevabad to do something they don’t want to do.”

  Nahri nodded, her own vision clouding as she dragged Ali away.

  “Dhiru,” he choked out again. “Akhi, please . . .”

  The rubble gave a giant shake and then a horrible, heart-wrenchingly familiar—and very angry—roar.

  “Go!” Muntadhir shouted.

  They ran.

  39

  Dara

  Agony, the kind of pain Dara hadn’t felt since being dragged back to life, was the first thing he was aware of. Crushed limbs and broken teeth, torn flesh and a throbbing in his head so strong he nearly wanted to succumb back to the blackness.

  He twitched his fingers, feeling the rough stone and splintered wood beneath them. His eyes blearily winked open, but Dara saw nothing but darkness. He grunted, trying to free the arm twisted painfully underneath him.

  He couldn’t move. He was pressed in, crushed from all sides.

  Nahri. She brought the ceiling down on me. She actually brought the ceiling down on me. He’d been shocked by the sight of her looking like some sort of wrathful goddess, smoke twisting around her hands, her black curls blowing wildly in the scorching wind she’d summoned. She’d looked like a Nahid icon he might have bowed to in the Temple.

  But the hurt in her eyes, the betrayal . . . that was the woman from Cairo.

  You are going to be risking the woman you actually serve if you do not get out of here. The thought of Manizheh and his mission was enough to get Dara moving again, pain be damned. The fate of Daevabad hung in the balance. He inhaled, catching the smoky scent of blood as he struggled to free himself.

  His blood. Creator, no. Dara closed his eyes, reaching out, but there was nothing.