He had been so entirely, utterly wrong.
In hindsight, it was obvious he’d lost her here, that night, and Dara had no one but himself to blame. He had taken Nahri’s choice away from her—from her, the only person who’d seen something in him beyond the legendary Afshin, the abominable Scourge, and might have loved him for it.
“Afshin?”
Dara straightened up at Kaveh’s faint voice. The grand wazir stood at the steps that led to the garden, looking pale as parchment and about as stable as the gauzy curtain dancing in the breeze.
“Kaveh.” Dara crossed the room, reaching out a hand to steady the other man. “Are you all right?”
The grand wazir let himself be led to a cushion near the fire altar. Despite the warm day, he was shivering. “No. I … Manizheh said I should wait here, but I can’t.” His bloodshot gaze darted to Dara’s. “You’ve been all over the palace … is it true about the Geziris?”
Dara nodded grimly. “A few survivors removed their relics in time—the emir is one of them—but the rest are dead.”
Kaveh jerked back, one hand going to his mouth in horror. “Creator, no,” he whispered. “The poison, the vapor … it wasn’t supposed to spread beyond the spot in which it was unleashed.”
Dara went cold. “Manizheh told you that?”
Kaveh nodded, rocking back and forth. “H-how many …”
There was no point in pretending. Kaveh would learn the truth either way. “At least a thousand. There were … travelers staying in the garden that we didn’t anticipate.”
The grand wazir let out a strangled sound. “Oh my God, the camp.” He was pressing his fingers so hard against his skull it had to hurt. “There were children there,” he wept. “I saw them playing. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I only meant to kill Ghassan and his men!”
Dara didn’t know what to say. Manizheh had known damn well the vapor would spread—she and Dara had fought bitterly about it. Why had she kept it from Kaveh? Was it because she feared the man she loved would protest? Or was it to spare him the shared guilt since she’d already made the decision to proceed?
She spared him nothing. Manizheh had made Kaveh into an instrument of mass murder, and for that, Dara had no reassuring platitudes. He knew the feeling all too well.
He tried to change the subject. “Is there any news of Jamshid?”
Kaveh wiped his eyes. “Ghassan only said he was holding him with people he trusted.” He started to shake harder. “Afshin, if he was at the Citadel … if he died when we attacked it …”
“You have no reason to believe he was there.” Dara knelt in front of the other man, gripping his arm. “Kaveh, you need to pull yourself together.”
“You’re not a father. You don’t understand.”
“I understand that there are thousands of Daevas who will be slaughtered for our actions if we lose control of this city. Manizheh is out there amputating limbs because she has no magic. She has the ifrit buzzing all around her, searching for a weakness. She needs you. Daevabad needs you. We will find Jamshid and Nahri. I pray as much as you do that the Creator has spared them. But we are helping neither if we don’t secure this city.”
The door opened and Manizheh stepped in. She took one look at them, and weariness creased her expression. “Well, don’t you two look hopeful.”
Dara stiffened. “I was updating Kaveh about the number of Geziri dead.” He met her eyes. “It seems the vapor spread farther than anticipated. Nearly all the Geziris in the palace are dead.”
He had to give her credit—Manizheh didn’t so much as flinch. “A pity. But then I suppose war is often more violent than expected. Had their people ruled justly, we wouldn’t have had to resort to such desperate means. But quite frankly, a few hundred dead djinn—”
“It is not a few hundred,” he cut in. “It is at least a thousand, if not more.”
Manizheh held his gaze, and though she did not directly rebuke him for interrupting her, Dara did not miss the warning in her eyes. “A thousand, then. They still aren’t our most pressing issue. Not when compared with our loss of magic.”
There was a moment of silence before Kaveh spoke. “Do you think it’s a punishment?”
Dara frowned. “A punishment?”
“From the Creator,” Kaveh whispered. “Because of what we did.”
“No,” Manizheh said flatly. “I don’t think the Divine had anything to do with this. Quite frankly, I don’t see the Divine anywhere in this awful city, and I refuse to believe Zaydi al Qahtani could have sacked the place and not suffered similar heavenly retribution if that were the case.” She sat down, looking rueful. “Though I don’t imagine you’ll be the only person to leap to that conclusion.”
Dara paced, too agitated to stay still. A thousand responsibilities pulled at him. “How do we rule a city with no magic? How do we live without magic?”
“We can’t,” Kaveh replied, dourer by the moment. “Our society, our economy, our world depends on magic. Half the goods traded in the city are conjured. People rely on enchantments to wake them up, to take them to work, to cook their food. I doubt one in twenty of us could even light a fire without magic.”
“Then we need to get it back,” Manizheh said. “As soon as possible.”
Dara stopped pacing. “How? We don’t even know why it’s gone.”
“We can make some guesses. You’re both fretting, but we’re not completely in the dark. You still have your magic, Afshin, as do the ifrit.”
He scowled at the comparison. “Meaning?”
“Meaning the magic that vanished is
