In the deep quiet of a snowy night, Dara made his way through a black forest.
He did so in complete silence, moving stealthily alongside the five young Daeva men mirroring his every action. They had bound their boots in cloth to muffle their steps and smeared their woolen coats with ash and dirt to mimic the pattern of the skeletal trees and rocky ground. There were magical ways—better ways—to conceal oneself, but what they were doing tonight was as much test as it was mission, and Dara wanted to challenge his young recruits.
He stopped at the next tree, raising a hand to signal his men to do the same. He narrowed his eyes and studied their targets, his breath steaming against the cloth that covered the lower part of his face.
Two Geziri scouts from the Royal Guard, exactly as rumored. Gossip in this desolate part of northern Daevastana had been buzzing with news of them. They had apparently been sent to survey the northern border; his sources had told him it was normal, a routine visit completed every half-century or so to harass the locals about their taxes and remind them of King Ghassan’s reach. But Dara had been suspicious of the timing and thus quietly relieved when Banu Manizheh ordered him to bring them to her.
“Would it not be easier to kill them?” had been his only protest. Contrary to the rumors he knew surrounded him, Dara did not relish killing. But neither did he like the prospect of two Geziris learning of his and Manizheh’s existence. “This is a dangerous land. I can make it look as though they were attacked by beasts.”
Manizheh had shaken her head. “I need them alive.” Her expression had grown stern, his Banu Nahida perhaps coming to know him a bit too well in the few years he’d served her. “Alive, Darayavahoush. That’s nonnegotiable.”
Which is why they were here now. It had taken them two weeks to find the scouts, and two days to quietly drive them off course, his men shifting the boundary stones in waves to send the Geziris off the established path to the village of Sugdam and deep into the thick forest that belted the nearby mountains.
The scouts looked miserable, wrapped in furs and felt blankets and huddled together under a hastily erected tarp. Their fire was a weak one, slowly losing the battle against the steady snowfall. The older scout was smoking a pipe, the sweet smell of smoldering qat scenting the air.
But it wasn’t pipes Dara was concerned with, nor the khanjar daggers tucked in their belts. After a moment of scanning the camp, he spotted the zulfiqars he’d been looking for on a bed of raised stones just behind the scouts. Their leather scabbards had been wrapped in a layer of felt to protect the blades from the snow, but Dara could see a hilt poking free.
He silently cursed. Skilled zulfiqaris were treasured, and he’d been holding out hope that the king hadn’t bothered sending such valuable warriors on what should have been a rather dull mission. Invented during the war against the Nahid Council—or stolen from the angels who guarded Paradise, as the more fanciful stories went—the zulfiqar at first appeared to be a normal scimitar, its copper construction and two-pronged end a bit unusual but otherwise unremarkable.
But well-trained Geziris—and only Geziris—could learn to conjure poisoned flames from the zulfiqar’s deadly edge. A single nick of the skin meant death; there was no healing from the wounds, not even by the hand of a Nahid. It was the weapon that had turned the war and ended the rule of his blessed and beloved Nahid Council, killing an untold number of Daevas in the process.
Dara glanced at the warrior nearest him. Mardoniye, one of his youngest. He’d been a member of the Daeva Brigade, the small contingent of Daeva soldiers once allowed to serve in the Royal Guard. They’d been run out of the Citadel after Dara’s death on the boat, ordered from their barracks by djinn officers they considered comrades and sent into the Grand Bazaar with only the clothes on their backs. There, they’d been met by a shafit mob. Unarmed and outnumbered, they’d been brutally assaulted, several men killed. Mardoniye still bore Rumi fire burns on his face and arms, remnants of the attack.
Dara swallowed against the worry rising in his chest. He’d made it clear to his men that he would not aid them in capturing the Geziris. He considered it a rare opportunity for them to test their training. But fighting zulfiqaris wasn’t the same as fighting regular soldiers.
And yet … they needed to learn. They would face zulfiqaris one day, Creator willing. They’d fight Daevabad’s fiercest, in a battle that would need to be decisively won.
The thought sent more smoldering heat into Dara’s hands. He fought it back with a tremble, this new, raw power he’d yet to entirely master. It simmered beneath his skin, the fire aching to escape. He struggled with it more when he was emotional … and the prospect of the young Daevas he’d mentored for years being cut down by the blade of a sand fly certainly made him so.
You’ve spent a lifetime training warriors. You know they need this. Dara pushed aside his misgivings.
He let out a low hoot, the approximation of an owl. One of the djinn glanced up but only briefly. His men fanned out, their dark eyes darting back to him as they moved. Dara watched as his archers nocked their arrows.
He clicked his tongue, his final signal.
The archers’ pitch-soaked arrows burst into conjured flames. The djinn had less than a second to spot them before they shot past, striking the tarp. In the blink of an eye, the entire thing was blazing. The larger Geziri—an older man with a thick salt-and-pepper beard—whirled around to grab the zulfiqars.
Mardoniye was already there. He kicked away the blades and then threw himself on the Geziri. They rolled into the snow, scrabbling at each other.
“Abu Sayf!” The younger scout lunged for his companion—an unwise move that left his back exposed when the rest of Dara’s men emerged. They threw a weighted net over his head, dragging him back and ensnaring his arms. In seconds, his khanjar had been ripped away and iron cuffs—meant to dampen his magic—clasped around his wrists.
Mardoniye was still struggling. The Geziri man—Abu Sayf—struck him hard across the face and then lunged to grab a zulfiqar. It burst into flames. He whirled back on Mardoniye.
Dara’s bow was off his shoulder, an arrow nocked before he even realized what he was doing. Let him fight! the Afshin in him demanded. He could all but hear his father’s voice, his uncles’ voices, his own. There was no room for mercy in the heat of the battle.
But by the Creator, he did not have it in him to watch another Daeva die. Dara drew back his bow, his index finger on the twitching feather fletch, the string a whispered brush against his cheek.
Mardoniye threw himself at the Geziri’s knees with a howl, knocking him into the snow. Another of Dara’s archers ran forward, swinging his bow like a club at the Geziri man’s hand. Abu Sayf dropped the zulfiqar, and the flames were gone before it hit the ground. The archer struck the djinn hard across the face, and he collapsed.
It was over.
The scouts were secured by the time Dara stomped out their campfire. He quickly checked the unconscious one for a pulse. “He’s alive,” he confirmed, silently relieved. He nodded at the small camp. “Check their supplies. Burn any documents you find.”
The conscious djinn was indignant, straining against his binds. “I don’t know what you fire worshippers think you’re doing, but we’re Royal Guard. This is treason! When my garrison commander learns you interfered with our mission, he’ll have you executed!”
Mardoniye kicked at a large sack, and it let out a jingle. “All the coins they’ve been stealing from our people, I suspect.”
“Taxes,” the Geziri cut in savagely. “I know you’re all half feral out here, but surely you have some basic concept of governance.”
Mardoniye scoffed. “Our people were ruling empires while yours were scavenging through human trash, sand fly.”
“That’s enough.” Dara glanced at Mardoniye. “Leave the coins. Leave everything but their weapons and retreat. Take them at least twenty paces away.”
The Geziri soldier struggled, trying to twist free as they hauled him to his feet. Dara began unwrapping his headcloth, not wanting it to burn when he shifted. It briefly caught on the slave ring he was still too nervous to remove.
“You’re going to hang for this!” the djinn repeated. “You filthy, sister-fucking, fire-worshipping—”
Dara’s hand shot out as Mardoniye’s eyes flashed again. He knew all too well how quickly tensions built between their peoples. He grabbed the djinn by the throat. “It is a long walk back to our camp,” he said flatly. “If you can’t be polite, I am going to remove your ability to speak.”
The djinn’s eyes traveled over Dara’s now uncovered face, landing on his left cheekbone. That was all it took for the color to leach from his skin.
“No,” he whispered. “You’re dead. You’re dead!”
“I was,” Dara agreed coldly. “Now I’m not.” He could not keep the edge of bitterness out of his voice. Annoyed, he shoved the Geziri back at his men. “Your camp is about to be attacked by a rukh. Best step away.”
The djinn let out a gasp, looking up at the sky. “We’re about to be what?”
Dara had already turned his back. He waited until the sounds of his men faded away. The distance wasn’t only for their protection.
Dara didn’t like anyone to see him when he shifted.
He pulled off his coat, setting it aside. Heat rose in hazy waves from his tattooed arms, the snow melting in the air around him before the flakes came close to brushing his skin. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he steeled himself. He hated this part.
Fire burst from his skin, flushed light sweeping down his limbs, washing away the normal brown. His entire body shook violently, and he fell to his knees, his limbs seizing. It had taken him two years to learn how to shift between his original form—that of a typical man of his tribe, albeit an emerald-eyed one—and that of a true daeva, as Manizheh insisted on calling him, the form their people had taken before Suleiman changed them. The form the ifrit still held.
Dara’s vision sharpened, the taste of blood filling his mouth as his teeth lengthened into fangs. He always forgot to prepare for that part.
His clawed hands clenched at the icy ground as his raw jittery power settled completely. It only ever happened in this form, a peace he obtained by becoming something he hated. He exhaled, burning embers leaving his mouth, and then he straightened back up.
He raised his hands, smoke swirling up from around them. With a quick snap of his claws across his wrist, a shimmer of golden blood dripped down to merge with the smoke, growing and twisting in the air as he shaped it. Wings and talons, a beak and glittering eyes. He fought for breath, the magic draining him.
“Ajanadivak,” he whispered, the command still foreign on his tongue. The original language of the daevas, a language only a handful of ifrit still remembered. They were Manizheh’s “allies,” pressed into teaching a reluctant Afshin the ancient daeva magic that Suleiman had stripped away.
Fire burst from the rukh, and it let out a screech. It rose in the air, still under Dara’s command, destroying the camp in a matter of minutes. He took care to let it crash through the canopy and rake its talons over the tree trunks. To anyone with the misfortune of coming across this place—any members of the Royal Guard looking for their two lost fellows, though Dara doubted they’d ever make it out here—it would appear as though the scouts had been eaten, the fortune in taxes left untouched.
He released the rukh, and it disintegrated, cinders raining over the ground as its hazy form dissipated. With a final burst of magic, Dara shifted back, stifling a gasp of pain. It always hurt, like shoving his body into a tight, barbed cage.
Mardoniye was at his side in moments, reliably loyal. “Your coat, Afshin,” he said, offering it out.
Dara took it gratefully. “Thank you,” he said, his teeth chattering.
The younger man hesitated. “Are you all right? If you need a hand—”
“I am fine,” Dara insisted. It was a lie; he could already feel the black pitch churning in his stomach, a side effect of returning to his mortal body while his new magic still swirled in his veins. But he refused to show such weakness before his men; he would not risk it getting back to Manizheh. If the Banu Nahida had her way, Dara would stay forever in the form he hated. “Go. I’ll be along shortly.”
He watched, waiting until they were out of view. Then he dropped to his knees again, his stomach heaving, his limbs shaking, as the snow fell silently around him.
THE SIGHT OF THEIR CAMP NEVER FAILED TO EASE Dara’s mind, the familiar plumes of smoke promising a hot meal, the gray felt tents that blended into the horizon a warm bed. These were appreciated luxuries for any warrior who’d just spent three days trying hard not to rip the tongue out of a particularly irritating djinn’s mouth. Daevas bustled about, hard at work cooking, training, cleaning, and forging weapons. There were about eighty of them, lost souls Manizheh had come upon in her years of wandering: the sole survivors of zahhak attacks and unwanted children, exiles she’d rescued from death and the remnants of the Daeva Brigade. They swore allegiance to her, offering loyalty in an oath that would rot their tongues and hands should they attempt to break it.
He’d shaped about forty of them into warriors, including a handful of young women. Dara had at first balked at that, finding it unorthodox and improper. Then Banu Manizheh had bluntly pointed out that if he could fight for a woman, he could fight beside one, and he had to admit she’d been right. One of the women, Irtemiz, was by far his most talented archer.
But his good mood vanished the second he caught sight of their corral. A new horse was there: a golden mare whose finely tooled saddle hung over the fence.
Dara’s heart dropped. He recognized that mare.
Kaveh e-Pramukh had arrived early.
A gasp from behind stole his attention. “This is your camp?” It was Abu Sayf, the zulfiqari who’d nearly killed Mardoniye and yet had oddly proven far less maddening on their return trek than his younger tribesman. He asked the question in fluent Divasti; he’d told Dara that he’d been married to a Daeva woman for decades. His gray eyes scanned the neat row of tents and wagons. “You move,” he noted. “Yes, I suppose you would. Easier to stay hidden that way.”
Dara met his gaze. “You would do well to keep such observations to yourself.”
Abu Sayf’s expression dimmed. “What do you plan to do with us?”
I do not know. It was also not a thing Dara could think about—not when the sight of Kaveh’s horse was making him so anxious he felt sick.
He glanced at Mardoniye. “See that the djinn are secured, but get them water for washing and something hot to eat.” He paused, glancing at his tired band of soldiers. “And do the same for yourselves. Your rest is well earned.”
Dara turned toward the main tent. Emotions swirled inside him. What did one say to the father of a man they had nearly killed? Not that Dara had meant to do so; he remembered nothing about his assault on the warship. The time between Nahri’s strange wish and Alizayd tumbling into the lake that ill-fated night was shrouded in fog. But he remembered what he’d seen afterward far too well: the body of the kind young man he’d taken under his wing slumped on the boat deck, his back riddled with Dara’s arrows.
His stomach fluttering with nerves, Dara coughed outside the tent flap, alerting those inside to his presence before he called out. “Banu Nahida?”
“Come in, Dara.”
He ducked inside and immediately starting coughing more as he inhaled the cloud of acrid purple smoke that greeted him—one of Manizheh’s many experiments. They lined the enormous slate table she insisted on lugging around with them, her equipment taking up an entire wagon.
She was at the table now, seated on a cushion behind a floating glass flask and holding a long pair of forceps. A lilac-hued liquid boiled inside the flask, giving off the purple smoke.
“Afshin,” she greeted him warmly, dropping a small, wriggling silver object into the boiling liquid. There was a metallic squeal, and then she stepped back, pulling aside her facecloth. “Your mission was a success?”
“The Geziri scouts are being secured as we speak,” he said, relieved that Kaveh was nowhere to be seen.
Manizheh’s brow arched. “Alive?”
Dara scowled. “As requested.”
A small smile lit her face. “It is much appreciated. Please tell your men to bring me one of their relics as soon as possible.”
“Their relics?” Djinn and Daeva alike all wore relics—a bit of blood, sometimes a baby tooth or lock of hair, often paired with a holy verse or two, all bound in metal and worn on the person. They were safeguards, to be used to bring a soul back into a conjured body should one be enslaved by an ifrit. “What do you want with their …”
The question died on his lips. Kaveh e-Pramukh had emerged from the inner room to join them.
Dara just managed to keep his mouth from falling open. He wasn’t sure what surprised him more: that Kaveh had stepped out of the small, private chamber in which Manizheh slept, or that the grand wazir looked terrible. He might have aged fifteen years, not five, his face scored by lines and his hair and mustache mostly silver. He was thin, the shadowed swells under his eyes indicating a man who had seen too much and not slept enough.
But by the Creator, did those eyes find him. And when they did, they filled with all the anger and betrayal that had undoubtedly been seething inside him since that night on the boat.
Manizheh caught the wazir’s wrist. “Kaveh,” she said softly.
The practiced words of regret vanished from Dara’s mind. He crossed the room, falling to his knees.
“I am so sorry, Kaveh.” The apology tumbled inelegantly from his lips. “I never meant to hurt him. I would have taken a blade to myself had I—”
“Sixty-four,” Kaveh cut in coldly.
Dara blinked. “What?”
“Sixty-four. It is the number of Daevas who were killed in the weeks following your death. Some died after being interrogated, innocents who had nothing to do with your flight. Others because they protested what they saw as your unjust murder at the hands of Prince Alizayd. The rest because Ghassan let the shafit attack us, in an effort to muscle our tribe back into compliance.” Kaveh’s mouth thinned. “If you are going to offer useless words of remorse, you should at least be reminded of the extent of what you’re responsible for. My son lives. Others do not.”
Dara’s face burned. Did Kaveh not think he regretted, down to his marrow, what his actions had led to? That he wasn’t reminded of his mistake every day as he watched over the traumatized remnant of the Daeva Brigade?
He gritted his teeth. “So in your eyes I should have stood silently by as Banu Nahri was forced to marry that lecherous sand fly?”
“Yes,” Kaveh said bluntly. “That is exactly what you should have done. You should have bowed your damn head and taken the governorship in Zariaspa. You could have quietly trained a militia for years in Daevastana while Banu Nahri lulled the Qahtanis into a false sense of peace. Ghassan is not a young man. Alizayd and Muntadhir could have easily been manipulated into warring against each other once Muntadhir took the throne. We could have let the Geziris destroy themselves and then swept in to take over with minimal bloodshed.” His eyes flashed. “I told you we had allies and support outside Daevabad because I trusted you. Because I didn’t want you to do something rash before we were prepared.” His voice turned scornful. “I never imagined the supposedly clever Darayavahoush e-Afshin, the rebel who almost beat Zaydi al Qahtani, would risk us all because he wanted to run away.”
The fire under Manizheh’s flask flared, and with it, Dara’s anger. “I was not running—”
“That’s enough,” Manizheh cut in, glaring at them both. “Afshin, calm yourself. Kaveh …” She shook her head. “Whatever the consequences, Dara acted to protect my daughter from a fate I fought for decades. I cannot fault him for that. And if you think Ghassan wasn’t looking for a reason to crack down on the Daevas the instant a Nahid and Afshin strolled through the gates of Daevabad, you clearly do not know him at all.” She gave them another sharp look. “Tearing each other apart is not why we are here.” She gestured to a heap of floor cushions arranged around her fire altar. “Sit.”
Chastened, Dara obeyed, rising to his feet and moving toward the cushions. After a few moments, Kaveh did the same, still glowering.
Manizheh placed herself between them. “Would you conjure some wine?” she asked Dara. “I suspect you could both use it.”
Dara was fairly certain that the only thing Kaveh wanted to do with wine was throw it in his face, but he obeyed. With a snap of his fingers, three brass goblets appeared, filled with the dark amber hue of date wine.
He took a sip, trying to calm himself. Causing fires to explode was not going to alleviate Kaveh’s concerns about his temper. “How is he?” he asked carefully. “Jamshid. If I may inquire.”
Kaveh stared at the altar. “He didn’t wake for a full year. It took another for him to be able to sit up and use his hands. He’s walking with a cane now, but …” His voice broke, his hand trembling so hard he nearly spilled his wine. “He hasn’t handled being injured well. He loved being a warrior … he wanted to be like you.”
The words were like a blow. Ashamed, he dropped his gaze, though not before he caught sight of Manizheh. Her hand was clenched around her goblet so tightly that her knuckles were turning white.
She spoke. “He will be all right, Kaveh. I promise you. Jamshid will be healthy and whole and have everything that has been denied him.”
The intensity in her voice took Dara aback. In the years he’d known her, Manizheh’s calm was constant. Rather reassuring, in fact. The type of absolute unflappability he preferred in a leader.
They are friends, he reminded himself. Small surprise she was so protective of Kaveh’s son.
Deciding Jamshid was perhaps not the safest subject, Dara moved on, all while quietly working to calm the magic pulsing through his veins. “And how is Banu Nahri?” he asked, forcing a bland distance into his voice.
“Surviving,” Kaveh replied. “Ghassan keeps her on a tight leash. All of us. She was wed to Muntadhir less than a year after your death.”
“He no doubt forced her,” Manizheh said darkly. “As I said, he tried to do the same to me for decades. He was obsessed with uniting our families.”
“Well, he certainly underestimated her. She took Ghassan for everything she could during the marriage negotiations.” Kaveh sipped his wine. “It was actually a bit frightening to watch. But Creator bless her. She ended up signing the bulk of her dowry over to the Temple. They’ve been using it for charitable work: a new school for girls, an orphanage, and assistance for the Daevas ruined in the assault on the Grand Bazaar.”
“That must make her popular with our people. A clever move,” Manizheh assessed softly before her expression turned grim. “And regarding the other part of their marriage … Nisreen is keeping an eye on that situation, yes?”
Kaveh cleared his throat. “There will be no child between them.”
Dara’s insides had been churning as they spoke, but Kaveh’s carefully worded response made his skin prickle. It did not sound like Nahri had much of a say in that either.
The words were leaving his mouth before he could stop them. “I think we should tell her the truth about what we are planning. Your daughter,” he burst out. “She is smart. Strong-willed. She could be an asset.” Dara cleared his throat. “And she did not quite seem to … appreciate being left in the dark the last time.”
Manizheh was already shaking her head. “She is safe in the dark. Do you have any idea what Ghassan would do to her if our conspiracy were uncovered? Let her innocence protect her a bit longer.”
Kaveh spoke up, more hesitant. “I must say Nisreen has been suggesting the same, Banu Nahida. She’s grown very close to your daughter and hates lying to her.”
“And if Nahri knew, she might be able to better protect herself,” Dara persisted.
“Or she might reveal us all,” Manizheh countered. “She is young, she is under Ghassan’s thumb, and she has already shown a predilection for cutting deals with djinn. We cannot trust her.”
Dara stiffened. The rather curt assessment of Nahri offended him, and he struggled not to show it. “Banu Nahida—”
Manizheh raised a hand. “This is not a debate. Neither of you know Ghassan like I do. You do not know the things he is capable of. The ways he finds to punish the ones you love.” A flicker of old grief filled her eyes. “Ensuring that he cannot do such things to another generation of Nahids is far more important than my daughter’s feelings about being left in the dark. She can yell at me about that when Ghassan is ash.”
Dara lowered his gaze, managing a bare nod.
“Perhaps we can discuss our preparations then,” Kaveh said. “Navasatem is approaching, and it would be an excellent time to attack. The city will be caught up in the chaos of celebration and the palace’s attention focused on the holiday.”
“Navasatem?” Dara’s head jerked up. “Navasatem is less than eight months away. I have forty men.”
“So?” Kaveh challenged. “You’re free of Suleiman’s curse, aren’t you? Can you not tear down the Citadel with your hands and let your blood beasts loose on the city? That is what Banu Manizheh has told me you can do. That is the reason you were brought back.”
Dara gripped his cup tightly. He knew he was viewed as a weapon—but this unvarnished assessment of his worth still stung. “It is more complicated than that. I am still learning to control my new abilities. And my men need more training.”
Manizheh touched his hand. “You are too humble, Darayavahoush. I believe you and your warriors are more than ready.”
Dara shook his head, not as ready to concede on military matters as he was on personal ones. “We cannot take Daevabad with forty men.” He looked between them urgently, willing them to listen. “I spent years before the ifrit killed me contemplating how to best capture the city. Daevabad is a fortress. There is no scaling the walls, and there is no tunneling under them. The Citadel has thousands of soldiers—”
“Conscripts,” Kaveh cut in. “Poorly paid and growing more mutinous by the day. At least a dozen Geziri officers defected after Alizayd was sent to Am Gezira.”
Thoughts of besieging Daevabad vanished from Dara’s mind. “Alizayd al Qahtani is in Am Gezira?”
Kaveh nodded. “Ghassan sent him away within days of your death. I thought it might have been temporary, until things calmed, but he hasn’t returned. Not even for Muntadhir’s wedding.” He took another sip of his wine. “Something is going on, but it’s been difficult to discern; the Geziris hold their secrets close.” A little relish filled the other man’s face. “Admittedly, I was happy to see him fall from favor. He’s a fanatic.”
“He is more than that,” Dara said quietly. A buzz filled his ears, smoke curling around his fingers. Alizayd al Qahtani, the self-righteous brat who’d cut him down. The young warrior whose dangerous combination of deadly skill and unquestioning faith had reminded Dara a little too much of his younger self.
He knew quite well how that had turned out. “He should be dealt with,” he said. “Swiftly. Before we attack Daevabad.”
Manizheh gave him a skeptical look. “You do not think Ghassan would find it suspicious should his son turn up dead in Am Gezira? Presumably in whatever brutal fashion you’re currently imagining?”
“It is worth the risk,” Dara argued. “I too was a young warrior in exile when Daevabad fell and my family was slaughtered.” He let the implication linger. “I would strongly suggest you not let such an enemy have a chance to grow. And I wouldn’t be brutal,” he added quickly. “We have time aplenty for me to track him down and get rid of him in a way that would leave nothing for Ghassan to question.”
Manizheh shook her head. “We don’t have time. If we are to attack during Navasatem, I can’t have you spending weeks wandering the Am Gezira wastelands.”
“We are not going to be able to attack during Navasatem,” Dara said, growing exasperated at their stubbornness. “I cannot yet even cross the threshold to enter Daevabad, let alone conquer it.”
“The threshold is not the only way to enter Daevabad,” Manizheh replied evenly.
“What?” Dara and Kaveh said the word together.
Manizheh took a sip of her wine, seeming to savor their shock. “The ifrit think there might be another way to enter Daevabad … one for which you may have Alizayd al Qahtani to thank. Or the creatures pulling his strings anyway.”
“The creatures pulling his strings,” Dara repeated, his voice growing hollow. He’d told Manizheh everything about that night on the boat. About the magic that had overpowered him and stolen his mind. About the prince who’d climbed out of Daevabad’s deadly lake covered in tentacles and scales, whispering a language Dara had never heard, raising a dripping blade. She’d come to the same impossible conclusion. “You don’t mean …”
“I mean it is time we go speak to the marid.” A little heat entered Manizheh’s expression. “It is time we get some vengeance for what they have done.”