Daevabad’s lake stretched before him, a pane of murky green glass.
No ripples played upon the dark water, nor did any leaping fish break its surface. The only movement came from the clumps of dead leaves that floated past. The thick, cold air smelled of earthen decay and lightning, an eerie silence hanging over the boat. The lake looked dead, a place cursed and left abandoned long ago.
Ali knew better.
As if in a trance, he stepped closer to the deck’s edge, his skin prickling as he watched the ferry course through the water. Its stern looked like a blunt knife dragged through oil, leaving not a single wave in its wake. They had yet to pass the veil, and with the morning’s thick fog, nothing was visible behind them. It felt as though they were suspended in time, the lake endless.
Tell me your name. Ali shivered at the memory, the marid’s soft whisper like a finger of ice stroking his spine. The soft buzzing of insects rose in his ears. The water really was so close. It would be nothing to climb over the ship’s railing. To trail his hands in its cool depths. To submerge.
Aqisa’s hand came down on his wrist. “A little close to the edge, don’t you think?”
Ali started, pulled from his daze. He was holding the railing, one foot slightly raised though he had no memory of doing so. And the buzzing sound was gone.
“I … did you hear that?” he asked.
“All I hear is Lubayd emptying the contents of his stomach,” Aqisa replied, jerking a thumb at their friend as he did just that, violently retching over the boat’s railing.
Ali shivered again, rubbing his arms. It felt as though something damp and heavy had been clinging to his skin. “Odd,” he muttered.
Lubayd made his staggering way over to them, his face pale. “I hate this blasted thing,” he declared. “What kind of djinn sail boats? We’re fire creatures, for the love of God.”
Ali gave him a sympathetic look. “We’re almost there, my friend. The veil should be falling before us at any moment.”
“And have you a plan yet for when we arrive?” Aqisa asked.
“No?” Ali had sent missives to the palace several times during the journey to Daevabad, suggesting that Ayaanle traders be sent out from the capital to intercept them. He’d even offered to simply leave the cargo on the beach outside the city. Each letter received the same reply, written in the hand of a different scribe. Your return pleases us. “I suppose the only thing we can do is wait and see how we’re received.”
Another hush descended, and this time all three of them went still. The scent of smoke washed over him, along with the familiar tingling as they crossed the veil.
And then Daevabad was towering before them.
The city dwarfed their ship, a lion to a gnat. The thick fog was a mere skirt around its massive, glinting brass walls, and its looming bulk blotted out the sky. Peeking over the wall were the tops of sandblasted glass minarets and delicate floating stupas, ancient mud-brick ziggurats and brightly tiled temples. And guarding all of them was the stark crenellated tower of the Citadel, standing tall and proud as a symbol of Am Gezira.
Lubayd exhaled. “That’s Daevabad? That’s where you’re from?”
“That’s where I’m from,” Ali echoed softly. The sight of his old home made him feel as though someone had reached into his chest and turned over his heart. He looked up at the facades of the long-dead Nahids carved into the city’s brass walls as the boat drew near. Their distant metal gazes seemed ethereal, bored, the arrival of some exiled sand-fly prince a mere footnote in the long history they’d witnessed. Though the Nahid Council had been overthrown centuries earlier, no one had torn down their statues. The common refrain was that the Qahtanis didn’t care: they were so confident and secure in their reign that they weren’t bothered by ruined remembrances of the defeated Nahids.
But as with many things in Daevabad, the truth was more complicated. The facades couldn’t be torn down. Not by anyone. Zaydi’s workers had no sooner taken a chisel to their surface than boils broke out across their skin, brass erupting through the fetid wounds until all that was left was ashy bone and puddles of cooling metal.
No one had tried since.
The docks were silent and deserted, save for a pair of cargo dhows and a Sahrayn sandship, the port in even worse repair than it had been when Ali left. Even so, the decay only added to the majesty. It was like stepping into some long-abandoned paradise, a massive world built by beings they could scarcely understand.
“Praise God …,” Lubayd whispered as they slid past a statue of a warrior holding a bow twice Ali’s height and familiar enough to make his stomach turn. “I did not expect to ever see such a sight in my life.”
“I did,” Aqisa muttered darkly. “I just assumed we’d have an army behind us when it happened.”
A dull ache pounded in Ali’s head. “You can’t talk like that here,” he warned. “Not even in jest. If the wrong person in Daevabad hears you …”
Aqisa snorted, caressing the hilt of her khanjar. “I’m not worried.” She gave Ali a pointed stare. “I saw how well their future Qaid survived in the desert.”
Ali threw her a wounded look.
Lubayd groaned. “Can we delay bloodshed for at least a few days? I didn’t cross a cursed lake in a giant wooden bowl so I could be beheaded for treason before I had a chance to sample some royal cuisine.”
“That’s not the punishment for treason,” Ali murmured.
“What’s the punishment for treason then?”
“Being trampled to death by a karkadann.”
Lubayd paled and this time, Ali knew it wasn’t due to seasickness. “Oh,” he choked out. “Don’t you come from an inventive family?”
Ali returned his gaze to the brass walls. “My father doesn’t deal lightly with disloyalty.” He ran his thumb over the scar on his neck. “Believe me.”
THEY LEFT THE CAMELS AND THE BULK OF THEIR cargo at the caravanserai beside the city gate, Lubayd affectionately cooing into the ears of the animals of which he’d grown fond while Aqisa and Ali waited impatiently. Half-expecting to be arrested the moment they docked, Ali was surprised to find no one waiting for them. Uncertain of what else to do, he ordered two camels loaded with the most precious pieces of the Ayaanle’s cargo: trunks of raw gold, cases of finely worked jewelry, and a crate of rare books for the royal library that he’d broken into more than once during the long journey.
The gifts secure, they’d headed for the palace. Ali wrapped one end of his ghutra across his face before they set out; his mixed Ayaanle and Geziri features were not entirely uncommon in cosmopolitan Daevabad, but throw a zulfiqar in the mix, and he might as well shout his name from the rooftops.
The Grand Bazaar was a riot of color and chaos, the crowd thick with arguing shoppers, wide-eyed tourists, and beasts of various magical persuasions. The sound of haggling in a dozen different tongues filled Ali’s ears, the competing scents of shafit sweat, djinn smoke, fried sweetmeats, enchanted perfumes, and bins of spices making him heady with nostalgia. He dodged a baby simurgh as it belched a plume of green fire, accidentally stepping on the foot of a Sahrayn woman in a snakeskin cape who cursed him in such vulgar terms they bordered on artistry.
Ali only grinned, his giddiness hidden beneath his ghutra. However he’d been brought back to Daevabad, there was no denying that the spectacle of his old home made his heart beat faster. The mysterious whispers on the lake seemed distant, the prickling in his mind gone for now.
But as they moved deeper into the crowd, the conditions of the bazaar swept away his nostalgia. Never clean to begin with—in fact, Ali had threatened to cut out the tongue of the openly corrupt sanitation minister during his brief tenure as Qaid—Daevabad’s streets looked positively filthy now. Rotting garbage collected in piles, and the narrow canals cut into the road to drain away rain and sewage were overflowing with debris. More unsettling was the fact that he saw few members of the Royal Guard patrolling the streets—and those he did see were dressed in threadbare uniforms, the younger ones armed with regular swords instead of the costlier zulfiqars. He pressed on, growing more troubled by the minute. Musa had claimed that Daevabad had fallen upon hard times, but Ali had dismissed it as a means of goading him into returning home.
They were halfway to the midan, crossing a crowded intersection deep in the heart of Daevabad’s shafit district, when a child’s scream split the air.
Ali stopped, pulling the camel he was leading to a halt. The sound had come from a crude platform standing among the ruins of a stone building. Upon the platform was a Geziri man clad in brightly patterned yellow silk. He was forcing another man, a shafit in a dirty waist-wrap, to the front of the platform.
“Baba!” The scream came again, and then a little girl burst from a wooden stockade set behind the platform. She ran to the shafit man, throwing herself in his arms.
Ali stared, struggling to comprehend what was happening. A crowd of djinn stood below the platform, all dressed in rather expensive-looking garb. There were more shafit as well—men, women, and children—trapped behind the stockade, hemmed in by several well-armed djinn.
The shafit man was refusing to let go of his daughter. He was shaking, rubbing her back and whispering into her ear as she sobbed. He stepped back as the guards made a halfhearted attempt to pull his daughter away, glaring at them.
The Geziri djinn crossed his arms over his fine silks and then sighed, striding to the front of the platform.
A too-wide grin came over his face. “How’s this pair for you who’ve not yet had the good fortune to spot some weak-blooded kin? They’re both Daevabadi-born and fluent in Djinnistani. And our friend here is a talented cook. We found him running a snack stall in the bazaar. He’d be an asset in the kitchen of any long-lost relation.”
What? Ali stared in incomprehension at the sight before him.
Aqisa was clearly not as confused. “They’re selling them,” she whispered in rising horror. “They’re selling shafit.”
“That can’t be.” Lubayd looked sick all over again. “That … that is forbidden. No Geziri would ever …”
Ali wordlessly pressed the reins of his camel into Lubayd’s hands.
Lubayd grabbed his arm. Ali tried to wrench away, and Lubayd nodded at the line of men guarding the stockade. “Look, you rash fool.”
Ali stared—but it wasn’t because of the guards. Familiar landmarks drew his eye: a pottery shop with a blue-striped door, the distinctive way two of the narrow alleys ran close but never touched, the slightly slumped minaret in the distance. Ali knew this neighborhood. He knew what had once stood here, what the building in ruins before him once was.
It was the mosque at which Sheikh Anas, the martyred former leader of the Tanzeem, had preached.
Ali inhaled, suddenly breathless. His father might as well have twisted a knife in his heart. But he knew the punishment hadn’t been directed at the son in faraway Am Gezira; it had been aimed at the shafit whose plight had pushed him into disloyalty … the ones being auctioned off before his eyes.
The girl began to cry harder.
“To hell with this,” Aqisa snapped, striding forward.
Ali followed her, leaving Lubayd cursing in their wake and struggling with the camels. The Geziri trader must have noticed them because he broke off from his vile pitches, his steel eyes lighting with anticipation.
“By the Most High, you two look like you just blew in from a sandstorm.” The trader laughed. “Certainly not my usual customers, but I suppose one can find blood kin anywhere.” He lifted a dark brow. “As long as that kin can pay.”
Aqisa’s hand dropped to her sword. Ali swiftly stepped in front of her. “When did Daevabad start selling its shafit citizens?” he demanded.
“Selling?” The man clucked his tongue. “We’re not selling anyone.” He sounded aghast. “That would be illegal. We are merely facilitating the search for this man’s pureblood family … and then taking a fee to support our work.” He touched his heart. “Easier to find relatives when he’s standing in front of them, no?”
It was a pathetically flimsy cover, and at his side, Aqisa snarled. Ali could only imagine how awful his home must look to his friends. Like many Geziris, the djinn of Bir Nabat kept their mixed-blood relatives with them, ignoring the law that demanded they be brought to Daevabad to live out their lives. The few shafit in Bir Nabat were treated as equals, roles found for them no matter their abilities with magic.
Ali gritted his teeth. “It doesn’t look like he desires to find any pureblooded kin,” he said. “You said he had a livelihood? Why not let him return to it?”
The trader shrugged. “The shafit are like children. Should we let children choose their fate as well?”
At that, Aqisa elbowed Ali hard in the stomach and then took advantage of his distraction to push him out of her way. She pulled free her khanjar, her eyes flashing. “I should cut out your tongue,” she snapped in Geziriyya. “You’re a traitor to our tribe, to everything our people stand for!”
The trader raised his hands as several of his guards flanked him. “Nothing we’re doing here is illegal,” he said, the oily tone leaving his voice. “And I don’t need some northern garbage-picker getting everyone riled up …”
“What is your price?” The question was poison in Ali’s mouth. “The price for the man and his daughter both?”
The trader shrugged in the direction of a djinn in shocking spotted robes. “The gentleman from Agnivansha offered twelve hundred dinars for the girl alone.”
Twelve hundred dinars. A disgustingly low amount at which to value a life and yet far more than what he and his companions could muster up. Ali was as poor as the rest of Bir Nabat, his wealth stripped away when his father banished him. The camels they towed were loaded with gifts, but all of it was carefully inventoried, a gift from the Ayaanle to the palace.
Reaching down, Ali pulled his zulfiqar from his robes.
Now the trader did more than flinch. He blanched and stepped back in open fear. “Now, wait a minute. I don’t know who you stole that from, but—”
“Would this be enough?” Ali’s fingers tightened on the hilt of his beloved blade. Then he swallowed hard and offered it to the trader.
A shrewd look entered the man’s eyes. “No,” he said bluntly. “Not with all the soldiers trying to pawn them before they desert back to Am Gezira. I’ll give you the father, but not the girl.”
The shafit man had been watching them haggle in what looked like numb shock. But at the trader’s offer, his daughter let out a cry, and the man clutched her close.
“No.” The word burst from his mouth. “I won’t let you put her back in that cage. I won’t let you take her away from me!”
The despair in his voice shoved Ali past his tipping point. “A Qahtani zulfiqar.” He threw it at the man’s feet and then pulled away the ghutra covering his face. “Surely that will pay your price?”
The trader’s mouth fell open, the golden tone of his skin turning a green Ali hadn’t realized was possible. He dropped to his knees. “Prince Alizayd,” he gasped. “My God … f-forgive me,” he stammered. “I would never have spoken with such disrespect had I known it was you.”
The crowd parted in a way that reminded Ali of how djinn in Am Gezira jumped from horned vipers. His name carried on the wind, whispers in various tongues rustling through the throng.
Ali tried to ignore them, instead letting a little of his old arrogance leach into his voice. “Come now,” he challenged. He jutted his chin at the zulfiqar, heartsick at the thought of giving over the weapon that had kept him alive during his exile. “My personal blade. It’s been in my family for generations—certainly this will cover them both?”
A mix of greed and fear flitted across the trader’s face. “Is this what you used to kill the Scourge?”
Ali was repulsed by the question. But suspecting it would help sway the man, the lie came easily. “The very blade.”
The man grinned. “Then I would say it is very good doing business with you, my prince.” He bowed and motioned for Ali to join him. “Please … the contracts will only take a moment …”
The shafit man was looking at him in stunned disbelief. “But you … people say—” His eyes darted toward the crowd of purebloods, and he abruptly changed the subject. “Please don’t separate us, Your Highness.” He hugged his daughter closer. “I beg you. We’ll serve however you like, but please don’t separate us.”
“No,” Ali said quickly. “That’s not what this is.” The trader returned with the contracts, and he read through them before adding his signature. Then he handed them to the shafit father.
The other man looked bewildered. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re free,” Ali said. “As you should be.” He shot the trader his coldest glare, and the man flinched away. “Those who peddle in lives will be among the first to burn in hell.”
“And we shall leave it at that!” Lubayd had finally made his way to them, pulling both bleating camels through the crowd. He shoved the reins into Aqisa’s hands and seized the hem of Ali’s robe, dragging him off the platform.
Ali glanced around, but the shafit father was gone, vanished into the crowd with his daughter. Ali didn’t blame him. He could feel the eyes of the bystanders boring into them as Lubayd started trying to rewrap Ali’s ghutra around his face.
“Wh-what are you doing?” Ali demanded as his friend poked him in the eye. “Ow! Will you stop …” The words died in his mouth as he spotted the reason he suspected Lubayd was trying to hustle him away.
A dozen members of the Royal Guard had joined them.
Ali stood awkwardly, his ghutra askew, uncertain how to greet his former companions. There was a moment or two of hesitant staring, until one of the officers stepped forward. He brought his hand to his heart and brow in the Geziri salute. “Peace be upon you, Prince Alizayd,” he greeted him solemnly. “Your father has asked that I retrieve you.”
“IT IS A VERY LOVELY PLACE TO BE EXECUTED, I WILL grant you that,” Lubayd said conversationally as they were escorted down a deserted palace corridor. Sweet-smelling purple flowers climbed the columns, dappled sunlight playing through the wooden screens.
“We’re not going to be executed,” Ali said, trying to keep the feeling that they were walking to their doom from his face.
“They took our weapons,” Lubayd pointed out. “Well, they took Aqisa’s and my weapons … you gave yours away. Brilliant move, by the way.”
Ali threw him a dark look.
“In here, my prince.” The officer stopped, pulling open a blue-painted door with a pattern of leaping gazelles carved around it. It led to a small courtyard garden, enclosed by high walls of pale cream stone. In the center was a sunken pavilion shadowed by lush palms. Water bubbled merrily in a stone fountain shaped like a star and tiled with sunbursts, and across from it was a carpet laden with silver platters of rainbow-hued pastries and jewel-bright fruit.
“Your father will join you shortly. It is an honor to meet you, my prince.” The officer hesitated, then added, “My family is from Hegra. The work you did on our well last year … it saved them.” His eyes met Ali’s. “I hope you know how fond many of us in the Royal Guard remain of you.”
Ali considered the carefully worded statement. “A fondness well returned,” he replied. “What is your name, brother?”
The man bowed his head. “Daoud.”
“A pleasure to meet you.” Ali touched his heart. “Send your people my greetings when next you meet.”
“God willing, my prince.” He bowed again and then left, pulling the door shut behind him.
Aqisa gave him a look. “Making friends?”
Allies. Though Ali didn’t like how swiftly his mind settled on that word. “Something like that.”
Ahead, Lubayd had fallen upon the food. He took a bite of a honeyed confection studded with sugared flowers, and his eyes closed in bliss. “This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”
“It is likely poisoned,” Aqisa said.
“It is worth death.”
Ali joined him, his stomach rumbling. It had been years since he’d seen such delicacies. As usual, they’d been piled to impress—an amount not even Ali and his hungry companions would be able to finish. It was a practice he hadn’t thought much about when he was younger, but recalling the visible poverty in Daevabad’s streets, he suddenly saw it as sinfully wasteful.
The door creaked open. “Little Zaydi!”
Ali glanced up to see a barrel-chested man in an officer’s uniform and crimson turban stride into the garden. “Wajed uncle!” he cried happily.
The beaming Qaid pulled Ali into a crushing hug. “By God, boy, is it good to see you again!”
Ali felt some of the tension leave him, or perhaps Wajed’s embrace was merely turning him numb. “You too, uncle.”
Wajed pushed him back, holding him at arm’s length to look him over; there were tears in the older man’s eyes, but he laughed, clearly delighted at the sight of Ali. “Where is the gangly boy I taught to swing a zulfiqar? My soldiers were whispering that you resembled Zaydi the Great, striding up to the palace in your rags with your companions in tow.”
That was not a comparison Ali suspected would sit well with his father. “I don’t think anyone would mistake me for Zaydi the Great,” he demurred quickly. “But meet my friends.” He took Wajed’s arm. “Aqisa, Lubayd … this is Wajed al Sabi, the Qaid of the Royal Guard. He all but raised me when I was sent to the Citadel.”
Wajed touched his heart. “An honor,” he said sincerely. A little emotion crept into the Qaid’s gruff voice. “Thank you for protecting him.”
Ali heard the creak of the door again. His heart skipping a beat, he glanced back, expecting his father.
But it was Muntadhir who stepped into the sunlight.
Ali froze as his brother met and then held his gaze. Muntadhir looked paler than Ali remembered, shadows dark under his eyes. Two thin scars marked his left brow—a remnant of the Afshin’s scourge. But they did little to detract from his appearance. Muntadhir had always been the dashing one, the handsome, rakish prince who won over adoring nobles as swiftly as Ali put them off. He looked striking in the Qahtani royal regalia: the gold-trimmed black robe that swirled like smoke around his feet and the brilliant turban of twisted blue, purple, and gold silk that crowned his head. A length of luminous black Geziri pearls circled his neck and a ruby winked like a drop of human blood from the gold ring on his thumb.
Wajed bowed his head. “Emir Muntadhir,” he greeted him respectfully. “Peace be upon you.”
“And upon you all peace,” Muntadhir returned politely. The familiar sound of his brother’s voice sent a wave of emotion crashing through Ali. “Qaid, my father requests that you escort Prince Alizayd’s companions to the Citadel’s guest quarters. Please ensure that they want for nothing.” He touched his heart and then aimed a dazzling smile at Aqisa and Lubayd. “We are forever grateful for the welcome you provided my brother in your village.”
Ali narrowed his eyes at the pleasantly worded lie, but neither Aqisa nor Lubayd responded with their usual sarcasm. Instead, they looked rather awestruck by the sight of Daevabad’s emir.
Yes, I suppose he makes for a more gripping image than a soaked, starving prince dying in a crevasse.
Lubayd recovered first. “Is that all right with you, brother?” he asked Ali.
“Of course it is,” Muntadhir cut in smoothly. “You’ll understand that we’re eager to spend some time alone with Prince Alizayd.”
Ali didn’t miss his brother’s aggressive use of “we,” a manner of speaking he associated with their father. There was a terseness lurking under Muntadhir’s charming words that Ali didn’t like. And though it probably didn’t bode well for him, he suddenly didn’t mind his friends being far away. “You’ll look after them?” he asked Wajed.
Wajed nodded. “You have my word, my prince.”
It would have to do. Ali trusted Wajed as much as he could trust anyone here. He glanced at Lubayd and Aqisa and attempted a smile. “I’ll see you soon, God willing.”
“You better,” Lubayd replied, snatching another pastry before rising to his feet.
Aqisa pulled him into a quick embrace. Ali went stiff with shock at the utter inappropriateness of it, but then something hard was sliding into the fold of his belt. “Do not die,” she hissed in his ear. “Lubayd would be inconsolable.”
Fairly certain she’d just passed him God only knew what weapon she’d manage to smuggle into the palace, Ali nodded, silently grateful. “Take care.”
Wajed squeezed his shoulder. “Get over to the Citadel when you have a chance. Show my Daevabadi-born brats how we fight back home.”
As soon as they left, the temperature seemed to dip, and the politely vacant smile vanished from Muntadhir’s face. “Alizayd,” he said coolly.
Ali flinched; his brother rarely called him by his formal name. “Dhiru.” His voice caught. “It’s really good to see you.”
Muntadhir’s only reaction was a slight grimace, as though he’d bitten into something sour. He turned, ignoring Ali to descend into the pavilion.
Ali tried again. “I know we didn’t part under the best circumstances. I’m sorry.” His brother said nothing, pouring a cup of wine and sipping it as though Ali wasn’t there. Ali persisted. “I hope you’ve been well. I was sorry to miss your wedding,” he added. Despite his efforts, he could hear the stiffness in his words.
At that, Muntadhir looked up. “All the blandly diplomatic things you could blather about, and you go straight to her.”
Ali flushed. “I only meant—”
“How’s your cousin?”
Ali started. “My what?”
“Your cousin,” Muntadhir repeated. “The Ayaanle one who conveniently fell ill and needed you to continue on in his place.”
The sarcastic implication that Ali had played a part in Musa’s plot set his teeth on edge. “I had nothing to do with that.”
“Of course not. One Ayaanle plot gets you sent away, another one brings you back. And there remains Alizayd, innocent and oblivious to it all.”
“Come on, Dhiru, surely—”
“Don’t call me that,” Muntadhir interrupted. “I meant what I told you that night—you must remember, it was just before you brought the ceiling of the infirmary down on my head—I’m done protecting you.” He took another sip from his cup. His hands were shaking, and though his voice didn’t waver, Muntadhir’s gaze flickered away as though the sight of his little brother caused him pain. “I don’t trust you. I don’t trust myself with you. And that’s not a weakness I intend to let drag me down.”
Stung, Ali struggled for a response, emotions swirling in his chest.
Hurt responded first. “I saved your life. The Afshin … the boat …”
“I’m well aware.” Muntadhir’s voice was curt, but this time Ali didn’t miss the flicker of emotion in his brother’s eyes. “So let me return the favor. Leave.”
Ali stared at him. “What?”
“Leave,” Muntadhir repeated. “Get out of Daevabad before you blunder into something else you don’t understand and get a score of innocent people killed.” A fierce protectiveness crept into his voice. “And stay away from Zaynab. I know she’s been helping you. That ends. I will kill you myself before I let you drag my little sister into one of your messes.”
Ali recoiled, struck speechless by the open hate in his brother’s face. He hadn’t expected Muntadhir to greet him with open arms, but this …
It was of course at that moment that the door opened again, and their father entered the courtyard.
Training and a lifetime of being scolded to respect his elders had Ali bowing before he even realized what he was doing, his hand moving from his heart to his brow.
But he caught himself before he let a certain word slip. “My king,” he greeted Ghassan solemnly. “Peace be upon you.”
“And upon you peace, my child,” Ghassan replied.
Ali straightened up, taking in the sight of his father as he approached. Ghassan had aged far more than Ali expected. Stress lines bored deep around the king’s eyes, echoing the gaunt shadows under his cheeks. A heaviness seemed to have settled on his shoulders, making him appear, if not frail, at least older. He suddenly seemed like a man who’d lived two centuries, a king who’d seen and done far too much.
Ghassan stared back, gazing at Ali with open relief. He stepped closer, and Ali dropped to one knee, reaching out to take his father’s hand and press it to his brow. It wasn’t a thing the Qahtanis did in private, but Ali suddenly found himself retreating into formality, wanting the distance that ceremony and ritual provided. “May God preserve your reign,” he murmured.
He stood and stepped back, but Ghassan grabbed his wrist. “Stay, boy. Let me look at you a moment longer.”
Aware of Muntadhir watching them, Ali tried not to cringe. But when his father touched his face, he could not help but stiffen.
Ghassan must have noticed; there was a brief moment of hurt in his lined eyes, gone in the next instant. “You can sit, Alizayd,” he said softly. “I know you’ve had a long journey.”
Ali sat, crossing his legs underneath him. His heart was racing. “I pray you can forgive my sudden return, my king,” he rushed on. “Bir Nabat could not sustain the Ayaanle caravan, and when that wretched trader abandoned it, I had little choice. I was the only man who could handle the untreated salt.”
“You could have butchered the animals for food and stolen the cargo,” Muntadhir suggested casually. “The djinn of Bir Nabat are raiders like the rest of the north, no?”
“No,” Ali said, matching his brother’s even tone. “We are farmers, and it was a small fortune due to the Treasury. I didn’t want the village to land in any trouble.”
Ghassan raised a hand. “No explanation is necessary, Alizayd. I suspected your mother’s people would cook up some trick eventually to get you back here.”
Muntadhir looked at his father in disbelief. “And you really think he played no part in this, Abba?”
“He looks ready to leap from his cushion and jump on the first carpet that will whisk him back to the desert. So no, I do not think he played any part.” He poured a cup of wine. “He also sent me a letter from every caravanserai between here and Am Gezira suggesting different ways he could avoid this very encounter.”
Ali flushed. “I wanted to be thorough.”
“Then let us be thorough.” Ghassan motioned to the long-healed scar high upon Ali’s cheekbone—the spot where the marid had carved Suleiman’s seal into his skin. “That looks worse.”
“I took my khanjar to it before I reached Am Gezira,” Ali explained. “I didn’t want anyone recognizing it.”
Muntadhir blanched, and even his father looked slightly taken aback. “That wasn’t necessary, Alizayd.”
“Being exiled made me no less loyal to maintaining our family’s secrets,” Ali replied. “I wished to be discreet.”
“Discreet?” His brother scoffed. “Alizayd the Afshin-slayer? The hero out battling muwaswas and turning Am Gezira green while his relatives laze about Daevabad’s palace? That’s what you consider discreet?”
“It was just one muwaswas,” Ali defended, recalling the incident with the rampaging magical sandfish quite well. “And I’m hardly turning Am Gezira green. It’s simple irrigation work, searching for springs and digging canals and wells.”
“And I wonder, how did you find those springs, Alizayd?” his father mused idly. “Those springs locals had never managed to discover themselves?”
Ali hesitated, but there was no lie his father would believe. “I have myself under control. What happened in the infirmary … I haven’t been like that in years.”
Ghassan looked grim. “Then it is a side effect of the marid possession.”
Ali pressed his palms against his knees. “It’s nothing,” he insisted. “And no one there cares. They’re too busy trying to survive.”
His father didn’t seem convinced. “It is still risky.”
Ali didn’t argue. Of course it was risky, but he hadn’t cared. The sight of dying Bir Nabat, the thin bodies of its people, and the children whose hair was streaked with the rust of famine had driven those concerns from his heart.
He met his father’s gaze. “Northern Am Gezira had been suffering for years. I wanted to do some good for the people who sheltered me before I was murdered by assassins.”
He let the charge lie, and though Ghassan’s calm expression slipped slightly, his voice was even when he replied. “And yet you still live.”
Resisting the urge to offer a sarcastic apology, Ali responded simply. “All praise is due to God.” Muntadhir rolled his eyes, but Ali continued. “I have no desire to play politics in Daevabad. My companions need only a short time to rest, and I intend to make the Ayaanle provision us in exchange for the transport of their goods. We can be gone in a week.”
Ghassan smiled. “No. As a matter of fact, Alizayd, you cannot.”
Dread snared Ali’s heart, but Muntadhir reacted first, straightening up like a shot. “Why not? Do you hear him? He wishes to leave.”
“It will look suspicious if he goes back too soon.” Ghassan took another sip of his wine. “He hasn’t been home in five years and leaves in days? People will talk. And I won’t have rumors of our rift spreading. Not with the Ayaanle already meddling.”
His brother’s face shuttered. “I see.” He was gripping his knees as though resisting the urge to throttle someone. Ali, most likely. “Then when is he leaving?”
Ghassan tented his hands. “When he has my permission to do so … permission I’m granting to you now, Muntadhir. Ask the servant at the gate to retrieve the case from my office on your way. He will know what you mean.”
Muntadhir didn’t argue. He didn’t say another word, in fact. He got to his feet smoothly and departed without looking at Ali again. But Ali watched his brother until he vanished, a lump rising in his throat that he couldn’t quite swallow.
Ghassan waited until they were alone before he spoke again. “Forgive him. He’s been fighting with his wife more than usual lately, and it puts him in a foul mood.”
His wife. Ali wanted to ask after her, but he dared not make the situation worse.
But his father had clearly noticed his reticence. “You used to speak far more freely. And loudly.”
Ali stared at his hands. “I was young.”
“You are young still. You’ve not even reached your first quarter century.”
Silence fell between them, awkward and charged. He could feel his father studying him, and it sent a prickle down his spine. It wasn’t the fear of his youth, Ali realized, but something deeper, more complicated.
It was anger. Ali was angry. He was angry about the cruel sentence his father had handed him and angry that the king was more worried about gossip in Am Gezira than its people going hungry. He was beyond angry at what was happening to Daevabad’s shafit in the ghastly ruins of Anas’s mosque.
And he was angry that feeling this way about his own father still filled him with shame.
Fortunately, a servant came in at that moment, bearing a plain leather box about the size of a turban case. He bowed and set it at Ghassan’s side. As he turned to leave, the king motioned him close and whispered an order in his ear Ali couldn’t make out. The man nodded and left.
“I will not keep you, Ali,” Ghassan said. “It’s a long journey and I can only imagine how eager you are for a hot bath and a soft bed. But I have something that should have been given over to you long ago, in keeping with our traditions.” He motioned to the box.
Apprehensive, Ali took it. Aware of his father’s keen gaze, he opened it carefully. Nestled inside was a beautifully crafted straight blade—a Daeva blade.
A familiar blade. Ali frowned. “This is Nahri’s dagger, isn’t it?” She had often worn it at her waist.
“It actually belonged to Darayavahoush,” his father replied. “He must have given it to her when he first left Daevabad.” Ghassan leaned back in his cushion. “Her room was searched after his death, and I wasn’t eager to allow such a weapon to remain in her possession. You killed him. You earned it.”
Ali’s stomach gave a violent turn. They’d stolen this from Nahri to give to him? As though it was some sort of prize?
“I don’t want this.” Ali closed the box with a snap and shoved it away. “The marid killed him. They just used me to do it.”
“That is a truth not to be repeated,” Ghassan warned, his words quiet but sharp. When Ali made no move to touch the box, he sighed. “Do with it as you please, Alizayd. It is yours. Give it to the Daevas if you don’t want it. They’ve a shrine to him in the Grand Temple they think I don’t know about.” He rose to his feet.
Ali quickly followed. “What Muntadhir asked … when can I go back to Am Gezira?”
“After Navasatem.”
Ali swayed on his feet. His father had to be joking. “Navasatem is not for seven months.”
Ghassan shrugged. “There is not a soul in Daevabad who would believe my youngest son—one of the best zulfiqari in our world—would leave before the grandest martial competitions in a century if things were amicable between us. You will stay and celebrate Navasatem with your family. Then we will discuss your leaving.”
Ali fought panic. There was no way he could stay in Daevabad that long. “Abba,” he begged, desperation pulling the word from him. He had not intended to use it with the man who’d sent him to die in the desert. “Please. I have responsibilities in Am Gezira.”
“I’m sure you can find responsibilities here,” Ghassan said breezily. “There will be plenty to go around with the holiday approaching. And Wajed could always use you in the Citadel.” He gave his son a pointed look. “Though he was instructed to thrash you should you get too close to the city gates.”
Ali didn’t know what to say. He felt like the walls were closing in on him.
Ghassan seemed to take his silence as acquiescence. He touched Ali’s shoulder—and then pressed the box containing the Afshin’s dagger into his hands. “I intend to hold a feast at the end of the week to welcome you properly. For now, rest. Abu Sara will take you to your quarters.”
My quarters? Ali remained speechless. I still have quarters? Numbly, he headed for the door.
“Alizayd?”
He glanced back.
“I’ve arranged to have some other property returned to you as well.” There was a note of warning in Ghassan’s voice. “Take care not to lose it again.”