They were holding the Geziri scouts in a crude hut of lashed branches that Dara took care to keep wet and covered in snow. He had originally conjured their prisoners a small tent, a place that would have been warmer, but the pair had returned the favor by setting the felt aflame in the middle of the night and arming themselves with the support beams, breaking the bones of two of his warriors in an attempt to flee. Whatever else they were, the Geziris were a wily people, used to finding ways to survive in inhospitable environments, and Dara would not grant them another chance to escape.
His boots crunching on the snow as he approached the hut, Dara called out a warning. “Abu Sayf, tell your fellow that if he greets me with a rock again, I’m going to shove it down his throat.”
There was a flurry of conversation in Geziriyya inside at that, Abu Sayf sounding weary and exasperated and the younger one—who still refused to give his name—irritable before Abu Sayf spoke. “Come in, Afshin.”
Dara ducked inside, blinking in the dim light. It was fetid and cold, and smelled of unwashed men and blood. After their last escapade, the djinn were kept in irons and given blankets only during the coldest nights. And while Dara understood the need for security measures, the crude conditions made him increasingly uneasy. He had not taken Abu Sayf and his companion on the field of battle as combatants. They were scouts: a young man on what Dara suspected was his first posting, and an old warrior with one foot in retirement.
“Ah, look, it’s the devil himself,” the younger djinn said heatedly as Dara entered. He looked feverish but was glaring with as much hate as he could muster.
Dara matched his glare and then knelt, putting down the platter he’d been carrying and shoving it toward the younger man’s feet. “Breakfast.” He glanced at Abu Sayf. “How are you today?”
“A little stiff,” Abu Sayf confessed. “Your warriors are getting better.”
“A thing I have to thank you for.”
The younger Geziri snorted. “Thank? You told him you’d flay me alive if he didn’t spar with your band of traitors.”
Abu Sayf shot the other djinn a look, adding something in their incomprehensible language before nodding at the tray. “This is for us?”
“It is for him.” Dara crossed to Abu Sayf and struck his irons off. “Come with me. A walk will ease your limbs.”
Dara led the other man out and toward his own tent, a fittingly bare place for a man who belonged nowhere. He rekindled his fire with a snap of his fingers and waved for Abu Sayf to sit upon the carpet.
The Geziri did so, rubbing his hands before the fire. “Thank you.”
“It is nothing,” Dara returned, taking a seat across from him. He snapped his fingers again, conjuring a platter of steaming stew and hot bread. The burst of magic while in his mortal form made his head pound, but he felt the other man deserved it. This was the first time he’d invited Abu Sayf to his tent, but not the first time they’d shared conversation. He might have been an enemy, but Abu Sayf’s fluency in Divasti and his two centuries serving in the djinn army made him an easy companion. Dara had great affection for his young recruits and was deeply loyal to Manizheh—but Suleiman’s eye, sometimes he just wanted to gaze upon the mountains and exchange a few words about horses with an old man who was equally weary of war.
Dara passed over a cloak. “Take this. It has been cold.” He shook his head. “I wish you would let me conjure you a proper tent. Your companion is an idiot.”
Abu Sayf pulled over the stew, ripping off a piece of the bread. “I prefer to stay with my tribesman. He is not handling this well.” A weary sadness fell over his face. “He misses his family. He learned just before we were posted that his wife was pregnant with their firstborn.” He glanced at Dara. “She is in Daevabad. He fears for her.”
Dara pushed away a stab of guilt. Warriors left wives behind all the time; it was part of their duty. “If she were back in Am Gezira, where you all belong, she would be plenty safe,” he offered, forcing a conviction he didn’t entirely feel into his voice.
Abu Sayf didn’t take the bait. He never did. Dara suspected he was a soldier through and through and didn’t care to defend politics in which he had little voice. “Your Banu Nahida came to take blood again,” he said instead. “And she hasn’t returned my friend’s relic.”
At that Dara reached for his goblet, watching it fill with date wine at his silent command. “I am certain it is nothing.” In truth, he didn’t know what Manizheh was doing with the relics, and her secrecy was starting to grate on him.
“Your men say she intends to experiment on us. To boil us alive and grind our bones for her potions.” Fear crept into the other man’s voice. “They say she can capture a soul like the ifrit and bind it away so it never sees Paradise.”
Dara kept his face blank, but annoyance with his soldiers—and with himself for not checking their behavior sooner—sparked in his chest. Animosity toward the djinn and shafit ran high in their camp: many of Manizheh’s followers had suffered at their hands, after all. Admittedly, Dara hadn’t thought much of it when he was first brought back. During his own rebellion fourteen centuries ago, he and his fellow survivors had expressed similar hatred—and carried out darker acts of vengeance. But they’d been raw with grief over the sack of Daevabad and desperate to save what was left of their tribe. That was not the situation his people were in today.
He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to hear they’ve been harassing you. Believe me when I say I’ll speak to them.” He sighed, looking to change the subject. “May I ask what has kept you in this part of Daevastana for so long? You said you’ve lived here a half-century now, yes? This does not seem an ideal posting for a man from the desert.”
Abu Sayf smiled slightly. “I have come to find the snow lovely even if the cold remains brutal. And my wife’s parents are here.”
“You could have taken a posting in Daevabad and brought them with you.”
The other man chuckled. “You have never had in-laws if you say something so easily.”
The comment threw him. “No,” Dara said. “I was never married.”
“No one ever caught your eye?”
“Someone did,” he said softly. “But I could not offer the future that she deserved.”
Abu Sayf shrugged. “Then you will have to take my opinion on the matter of in-laws. And regardless, I did not wish to take a posting in Daevabad. It would have led to orders I do not care for.”
Dara met his gaze. “You speak from experience.”
The other man nodded. “I fought in King Khader’s war when I was young.”
“Khader was Ghassan’s father, no?”
“Correct. The western half of Qart Sahar tried to secede during his reign, about two hundred years ago.”
Dara rolled his eyes. “The Sahrayn have a habit of that. They tried to do the same just before I was born.”
Abu Sayf’s mouth quirked. “To be fair … I do believe secession was somewhat in fashion in your time.”
He grunted. Had another djinn said that to him, Dara would have been irked, but considering Abu Sayf was his prisoner, he held his tongue. “Fair point. You fought the Sahrayn, then?”
“I’m not sure ‘fought’ is the best description,” Abu Sayf replied. “We were sent to crush them, to terrorize a set of tiny villages on the coast.” He shook his head. “Amazing places. They built directly from the sand of the seabed, blasting it into glass to create homes along the cliffs. If you pulled up the rugs, you could watch fish swim beneath your feet, and the way the glass glittered in the sun when we first arrived …” Wistfulness filled his eyes. “We destroyed them all, of course. Burned their ships, threw their bound leaders into the sea, and took back the boys for the Guard. Khader was a hard man.”
“You were following orders.”
“I suppose,” Abu Sayf said quietly. “Never seemed right, though. It took us months to get out there, and I never really understood what kind of threat some little villages on the edge of the world could present to Daevabad. Why they had anything to do with Daevabad.”
Dara shifted, not liking the fact that he’d essentially been backed into defending a Qahtani. “Surely if you wonder why Daevabad rules a distant Sahrayn village you should wonder why a Geziri family commands a Daeva city?”
“I suppose I never really thought of Daevabad as a Daeva city.” Abu Sayf looked almost surprised. “Feels like the center of our world should belong to us all.”
Before Dara could respond, there was the sound of running outside his tent. He shot to his feet.
Mardoniye appeared at the entrance the next instant, out of breath. “Come quickly, Afshin. There has been a letter from home.”