The Kingdom of Copper

by S. A. Chakraborty

  A chill went down his spine at the silence, at the odd, empty coldness that had stolen through the room. Dara conjured a handful of flames, the firelight dancing along the scorched and water-stained walls. Ahead, his men appeared to be struggling to do the same, gesturing wildly at the dark.

  “Can you conjure flames?” he heard one ask.

  “I can’t conjure anything!”

  A far more shocked cry caught his ear. Dara whirled around. Muntadhir had staggered to his feet, swaying as he held out his arms to gape at his body.

  In the dim light of the ruined library, the deadly dark lines of the magical poison that marked the emir’s skin were retreating.

  Dara’s mouth fell open as he watched the utterly impossible sight before him. Like a spider curling in on itself, the poison was leaching away, creeping back from Muntadhir’s shoulders and down past his chest. Muntadhir ripped away the cloth binding his stomach just in time to reveal the dark green hue lifting from the wound altogether. And then—with the barest hint of smoke—it vanished entirely.

  The emir dropped to his knees with a choked sob. He touched his bloody stomach, weeping with relief.

  Dread rose in Dara’s heart. Something had just gone very wrong. “Bind that man!” he managed to snap at his soldiers. Dara didn’t need any more surprises when it came to Muntadhir and weapons. “Now. And where is the Banu Nahida?”

  One of his men raised a finger toward a darkened set of stairs. “I’m sorry, Afshin,” he said, his arm trembling wildly. “She ordered us away when we found Banu Nahri.”

  Nahri. Muntadhir instantly forgotten, Dara raced through the door and then ducked as the remains of an enchanted pulley system came crashing down around him. Heedless of the destruction, he took the steps two at a time, arriving at another door.

  “Banu Nahida!” he called loudly. When there was no response, he kicked the door in.

  Manizheh stood alone and very still, her back to him, among a tangle of bodies. Fear clawed up in his throat as Dara forced himself to examine their faces. No, Creator, no. I beg you.

  But Nahri wasn’t among the dead. Instead, they were his own men. They’d been slaughtered, still-smoldering slashes rending their bodies.

  A zulfiqar. Alizayd. Dara knew it in his bones. And it was entirely his fault. He should have killed the prince the second he had him, instead of letting Vizaresh delay him with fantasies of vengeance.

  Mardoniye. His warriors on the beach. Now these three. Dara clenched his fists, fighting the heat aching to burst free. This had all gone so wrong—and not just because of the ifrit.

  It had gone wrong because in his heart, Dara had known this invasion was a mistake. It was too rushed and too brutal. They’d allied with creatures he didn’t trust and used magic he didn’t understand. And he had gone along, had bowed his head in submission to a Nahid again and dismissed the disquiet in his soul. Now it had blown up in his face.

  It wasn’t even the first time. His own history had taught him nothing.

  Manizheh had yet to move. She just stood there, staring at the dark lake. “Banu Manizheh?” he spoke again.

  “It’s gone.” Her voice was an uncharacteristic whisper. “They’re gone. She gave the seal to that sand fly.”

  Dara staggered back. “What? You can’t mean . . .”

  “I mean exactly as I say.” There was an edge in Manizheh’s voice. “I should have known better,” she murmured. “I should have known not to trust her. She deceived me, mocked me, and then gave Suleiman’s seal—our ancestors’ seal—back to the people who stole it.”

  Dara’s gaze fell again on the murdered men and for the first time, he felt a sting of true betrayal. How could Nahri have given something so powerful, so precious, to a man she’d watched slaughter her own people?

  He swallowed, pushing his roiling emotions down. “Where are they?” he asked, trying to check the tremor in his voice. “Banu Nahida, where are they?” he pressed when she didn’t answer.

  She raised a trembling hand, gesturing to the dark water. “They jumped.”

  “They did what?” Dara was at the parapet in seconds. He saw nothing but the black water below.

  “They jumped.” Manizheh’s voice was bitter. “I tried to reason with her, but that djinn had his claws in her mind.”

  Dara fell to his knees. He clutched the stone, and a stir of movement caught his eye, small swells and eddies glimmering on the dark lake.

  He let out his breath. “The water is moving,” he whispered. Dara leaned out farther, examining the distance. Surely, a Nahid healer could survive that fall. If she’d jumped clear of the rocks, if she landed the right way . . .

  Hope and grief warred in his chest. Creator, please . . . let her be alive. Dara didn’t care if she greeted him with a dagger to his heart; after tonight, part of him would welcome it. But this couldn’t be how Nahri’s story ended.

  He rose unsteadily to his feet. “I am going to find her.”

  Manizheh grabbed his wrist. “Stop.”

  The flat word, uttered as one might issue a command to some sort of animal, broke the fragile grip he had on his emotions.

  “I have done everything you asked!” he choked out, wrenching free of her grip. “I have been your Afshin. I have killed your enemies and bloodied our home. You can grant me a few moments to find out whether she still lives.”

  Manizheh’s eyes lit in outrage, but her voice remained cool. “Nahri isn’t what’s important right now, Darayavahoush.” She abruptly pointed up. “That is.”

  Dara glanced up.

  The sky above the palace was shattering.

  It looked like a smoky glass dome cracking, the inky midnight peeling away to reveal the warmer hues of dawn, the glow of a desert sky instead of the murky fog that lurked, ever present, above Daevabad. It was spreading, rippling out across the horizon. And as his gaze followed the falling sky, he noticed rooftop fires were winking out across the city. A camp of travelers’ tents, magical creations of silk and smoke, collapsed, as did two conjured marble towers.

  Dara was utterly bewildered. “What is going on?” He glanced at Manizheh, but she wasn’t looking at him. As Dara watched, she drew her sword, pricking her thumb on the blade. A well of black blood blossomed. And then another.

  The color left her face. “My magic . . . it’s gone.”

  Coldness swept him as he watched more fires blink out. The stillness that had fallen over the library, the poison that had drained from the emir . . .

  “I do not think it is your magic alone,” he whispered. “I think it is all of Daevabad’s.”

  Epilogue

  Consciousness tickled at Nahri, the rich smell of mud and sweet birdsong pulling her from darkness.

  The pain came next, her back and shoulders aching. Her head. Her arms. Everything, really.

  And that damned sun. Too bright. Brighter than any sun in Daevabad had any right being. Nahri shaded her eyes with one hand, blinking as she tried to sit up.

  Her other hand sank into mud. What in God’s name . . . Nahri looked around as sunspots cleared from her eyes. She was sitting in some sort of flooded marsh, waist deep in cloudy water. Just behind her was a grove of tall, bristling palm trees, scrubby greenery growing unchecked over a crumbling mud-brick wall.

  Ahead was a wide river, its current languid as it stretched to flow across its floodplains. A narrow emerald band of greenery bordered the opposite bank, beyond which was desert, gleaming golden in the bright sun.

  Nahri stared at the river in utter incomprehension. She must have taken a blow to the head. Because she would swear that it looked like . . .

  “No!” A familiar voice broke the still air, ending in a wail. “No!”

  Ali. Nahri scrambled to her feet, aching all over. What was wrong with her healing abilities? The mud sucked at her legs, and she clambered past the marsh to firmer land. She caught sight of more ruined structures between the trees: a cracked pigeon coop and the bare brick outlines of what might have once
been small homes.

  She pushed through a cluster of palm fronds. Just ahead was what looked like a village mosque—one long abandoned. Its minaret was broken, its dome cracked open to the sky.

  Relief coursed through her—Ali was inside, his back to her as he peered past the top of the minaret. She staggered forward, her limbs protesting every jolt and her skin crawling. Nahri didn’t know where they were—it certainly didn’t look like Daevabad—but she felt as though she’d been here before.

  She climbed up the ruined minaret’s stone steps. Thoroughly out of breath by the time she reached the top, Nahri stumbled forward, reaching for his shoulder as she wheezed out his name. “Ali.”

  He was sobbing when he spun on her.

  Suleiman’s seal burned bright on his temple.

  The events of the night before came together too fast, too horrible, and then Ali was lunging at her, putting his hands on her shoulders like he never had before.

  “You have to take us back!” he begged. Closer now, Nahri could see that his face was feverish, his entire body twitching. “Nahri, please! They have my sister! They have every—ah,” His voice broke as he clutched at his heart, gasping for air.

  “Ali!”

  He shoved himself away from her. “I can’t control this.” The smoky mark of the seal shimmered on his skin. “You should never have given me that ring! You should never have taken us away!”

  “I haven’t taken us anywhere!”

  Ali raised a shaking hand. “Then why are we here?”

  Nahri glanced where he was pointing. She stood.

  The sight before her on the not-so-distant horizon was immediately familiar. The ancient stone mosques and towering minarets. The forts and palaces of long-dead sultans and generals, dynasties lost to time. The countless blocks of multistoried buildings, all an earthy warm brown, a human warm brown, that Nahri knew rose over twisting, busy streets of jostling shopkeepers, gossiping coffee drinkers, and racing children. Over apothecaries.

  Tears sprang to her eyes. It’s not possible. Her gaze immediately darted from the city she’d have known anywhere to the swollen river at its banks. The river for which she’d been jokingly named by fishermen who’d plucked her out of it as a child.

  On the opposite shore, standing unmoving and eternal against the dawn sky, were the three Pyramids of Giza.

  The words came to her in Arabic first, of course. “Ya masr,” she whispered softly as the Egyptian sun warmed her cheeks, the scent of the Nile’s silt on her skin. “I’m home.”

  The Six Tribes of the Djinn

  The Geziri

  Surrounded by water and caught behind the thick band of humanity in the Fertile Crescent, the djinn of Am Gezira awoke from Suleiman’s curse to a far different world than their fire-blooded cousins. Retreating to the depths of the Empty Quarter, to the dying cities of the Nabateans and to the forbidding mountains of southern Arabia, the Geziri eventually learned to share the hardships of the land with their human neighbors, becoming fierce protectors of the shafit in the process. From this country of wandering poets and zulfiqar-wielding warriors came Zaydi al Qahtani, the rebel-turned-king who would seize Daevabad and Suleiman’s seal from the Nahid family in a war that remade the magical world.

  The Ayaanle

  Nestled between the rushing headwaters of the Nile River and the salty coast of Bet il Tiamat lies Ta Ntry, the fabled homeland of the mighty Ayaanle tribe. Rich in gold and salt—and far enough from Daevabad that its deadly politics are more game than risk, the Ayaanle are a people to envy. But behind their gleaming coral mansions and sophisticated salons lurks a history they’ve begun to forget . . . one that binds them in blood to their Geziri neighbors.

  The Daevas

  Stretching from the Sea of Pearls across the plains of Persia and the mountains of gold-rich Bactria is mighty Daevastana—and just past its Gozan River lies Daevabad, the hidden city of brass. The ancient seat of the Nahid Council—the famed family of healers who once ruled the magical world—Daevastana is a coveted land, its civilization drawn from the ancient cities of Ur and Susa and the nomadic horsemen of the Saka. A proud people, the Daevas claimed the original name of the djinn race as their own . . . a slight that the other tribes never forget.

  The Sahrayn

  Sprawling from the shores of the Maghreb across the vast depths of the Sahara Desert is Qart Sahar—a land of fables and adventure even to the djinn. An enterprising people not particularly enamored of being ruled by foreigners, the Sahrayn know the mysteries of their country better than any—the still lush rivers that flow in caves deep below the sand dunes and the ancient citadels of human civilizations lost to time and touched by forgotten magic. Skilled sailors, the Sahrayn travel upon ships of conjured smoke and sewn cord over sand and sea alike.

  The Agnivanshi

  Stretching from the brick bones of old Harappa through the rich plains of the Deccan and misty marshes of the Sundarbans lies Agnivansha. Blessedly lush in every resource that could be dreamed—and separated from their far more volatile neighbors by wide rivers and soaring mountains—Agnivansha is a peaceful land famed for its artisans and jewels . . . and its savvy in staying out of Daevabad’s tumultuous politics.

  The Tukharistanis

  East of Daevabad, twisting through the peaks of Karakorum Mountains and the vast sands of the Gobi is Tukharistan. Trade is its lifeblood, and in the ruins of forgotten Silk Road kingdoms, the Tukharistanis make their homes. They travel unseen in caravans of smoke and silk along corridors marked by humans millennia ago, carrying with them things of myth: golden apples that cure any disease, jade keys that open worlds unseen, and perfumes that smell of paradise.

  Acknowledgments

  Two years ago, I tentatively sent the first book in what would become the Daevabad Trilogy off for submission. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine my five-hundred-plus-page homage to the medieval Islamic world would gain the extraordinary reception it has, and as I put the finishing touches on its sequel, I am humbled and grateful for the opportunity I’ve been given to share the story and characters who’ve lived in my head with the rest of the world. It has been a journey and one that would have never been possible without an amazing group of readers, fantastic fellow writers, a crack publishing team, an extremely understanding family, and quite frankly, the grace of God.

  First, to all the readers, reviewers, bloggers, fan artists, and booksellers who loved and spread the word about my book, thank you. You’re what makes this all worth it.

  A huge thanks as well to all the amazing scholars and “Twitterstorians” who helped me hone this book, whether by helping me track down incredibly specific views of the Cairo waterfront in the nineteenth century or crafting jokes in Akkadian. Your love of history and willingness to share knowledge with the public sphere is exactly what we need nowadays.

  To the amazing Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers, particularly Rob Cameron, Jonathan Hernandez, and Cynthia Lovett, who came to my aid when I was in the thick of Book 2 despair . . . you’re the absolute best and I look forward to your own books flying off shelves one day.

  I’ve been blessed to make the acquaintance of a truly wonderful number of fellow authors in the past few years whose blurbs, words of advice, or simply sympathetic ears made a world of difference to this fretting rookie. S. K. Ali, Roshani Chokshi, Nicky Drayden, Sarah Beth Durst, Kate Elliot, Kevin Hearne, Robin Hobb, Ausma Zehanat Khan, Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali, Karuna Riazi, Michael J. Sullivan, Shveta Thakrar, Sabaa Tahir, Laini Taylor, Kiersten White . . . I am so, so grateful. Fran Wilde, you are an actual treasure and your mantra has gotten me through so many rough patches.

  Jen Azantian, my incredible agent and friend, I owe you more than I can ever say for seeing me through the past two years—and too, Ben, for helping us both out! To my editor, Priyanka Krishnan, I have been honored to work with you, know you, and watch my characters and world come to life under your careful hand. To everyone at Harper Voyager on both sides of the Atlantic, par
ticularly David Pomerico, Pam Jaffee, Caro Perny, Kayleigh Webb, Angela Craft, Natasha Bardon, Jack Renninson, Mumtaz Mustafa, Shawn Nicholls, Mary Ann Petyak, Liate Stehlik, Paula Szafranski, Andrew DiCecco, Shelby Peak, Joe Scalora, and Ronnie Kutys, thank you for taking a chance on me and for all your hard work. To Will Staehle, thank you for knocking it out of the park with another gorgeous cover.

  To my wonderful and very forgiving family, who has been spectacularly supportive as I’ve grown more absentminded and stressed, thank you so, so much. Mom and Dad, I would never have been able to do this without you. Much gratitude as well to my grandmother and mother-in-law, who helped take care of me while I was injured and trying to finish this book.

  To my husband, Shamik, my best friend and first reader, thank you for keeping my feet on the ground and for pushing me when I needed it. I love getting to dream and plot in this weird fictional world you’ve helped me create. For Alia, my little Nahri-in-training, you are the light in my life, my love, and your stories are even grander than my own.

  Finally, to my fellow Muslim fantasy nerds: I wrote this story for you, for us, and I have been incredibly humbled and honored by your response. I thank you, from the bottom of my awkward convert’s heart. May we all have the grandest of adventures!

  Glossary

  Beings of Fire

  Daeva: The ancient term for all fire elementals before the djinn rebellion, as well as the name of the tribe residing in Daevastana, of which Dara and Nahri are both part. Once shapeshifters who lived for millennia, the daevas had their magical abilities sharply curbed by the Prophet Suleiman as a punishment for harming humanity.