Ali opened and closed his mouth, fighting for a response. Her words … this was not the mother he knew.
“Amma, you told me that Abba’s mistake was being so afraid of his people that he crushed them. Now you’re counseling me to do the same?”
“Yes.” Hatset didn’t even hesitate. “I want you to live,” she said fervently. “And if you need to borrow from your father to restore order, so be it. When things are more stable, you can lessen your grip.”
And that’s how it starts. King. A court in Ta Ntry where Ali would watch Daevabad fall apart from afar, letting its bloody, starving instability serve as a warning to allies he’d cajole and blackmail into compliance. Served by soldiers he’d conscript.
That wasn’t the kind of leader he wanted to be.
Then what kind of leader do you want to be?
Again Ali saw his father on the shedu throne, only the latest in a long line of Qahtani kings who had slowly abandoned the ideals of the revolution that had once driven them. Kings who had brutalized Daevabad as much as any Nahid. And then it suddenly became clearer, a decision he realized had been a long time coming.
“I’m sorry, Amma.” Ali spoke softly, because he knew he was about to break his mother’s heart. “But there’s not going to be another Qahtani king.”
Hatset stared at him in disbelief. “Excuse me?” Her gold eyes went wide with fury. “If these two have convinced you to put us all under Nahid rule again …”
“They haven’t. I don’t want to be under Nahid rule, though I will not speak over Nahri and Jamshid,” Ali said, glancing at Nahri. She was watching him carefully, her expression guarded. “Our people do need a new government and an organized response to Manizheh. What they don’t need is another tyrant.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Alizayd.” The anger left Hatset’s face, replaced in a fell swoop by vexation. “This is not the time for your idealism.”
“Yes, it is,” Nahri declared. Ali gaped at her, but she pressed on. “The people aren’t ready to be in charge? Because we’ve ruled them so well, have we? Ghassan was preparing to massacre an entire shafit neighborhood, and Manizheh just murdered thousands. I’d say the Qahtanis and the Nahids have lost the right to tell anyone they know better.” She crossed her arms. “I agree with him. None of us should be on that throne.”
Ali gazed at her, something blazing inside him.
No one else seemed pleased. Jamshid was staring at his sister, visibly aghast, and now even Issa got involved, wagging a finger in the air.
“What the two of you are advocating for is no less than revolution. Anarchy! Such a thing is forbidden, Alizayd al Qahtani. Our faith prioritizes order. Stability—”
“Our faith prioritizes justice,” Ali argued. “It tells us to stand for justice, no matter what. We are to be a community that calls for what is right, that stands as witness.”
“We already did!” Issa said, indignant. “My grandfather fought in Zaydi’s war. He labored his entire life to free the shafit and make the tribes equal, and here you are tossing away his legacy without a care. And for what? Perfection? That is for Paradise, not this life.”
Ali shook his head. He felt closer to his ancestor than he ever had; not to the legend, but to the flesh-and-blood man who had fought so hard, who had grieved his slaughtered family, and who in that anguish had made mistakes Ali never wanted to repeat. “I’m not tossing away Zaydi’s legacy. I’m completing it.”
“You’re being a reckless fool,” Hatset said brusquely. “One who’s going to get himself and everyone around him killed.”
“I’m not being reckless, Amma. You want me to listen? I have been. I’ve been trying to listen, to truly listen, to as many people as possible. And they want a voice in their lives and freedom for their children. Do you know the best thing I did for the shafit? I got out of their way. I got them the money and opportunities they should have always had and then watched them build it all. I don’t believe in kings. Not anymore. And if I did, I would still be undeserving of the throne. I have the blood of innocents on my hands and don’t speak the language of a third of the city’s people. I come from a family that has let them down. No more.”
“So you’ll what? Assemble a committee?” Hatset demanded. “Because I can tell you: ask people to vote between two starry-eyed nobles with vague, pretty words about freedom and a Banu Nahida who gruesomely murders her opponents, and you’ll find Nahri in another cage and the Afshin carving out your heart.”
It was a frightening image. And yet it wasn’t enough. This didn’t feel reckless. It felt just. Too many kings before him had sworn to one day be better, to give their people freedom when they earned it. Ali would not. They were facing terrible odds, and he wasn’t going to order people to their deaths without them having some say in it.
He’d just have to convince them not to do the same to him. “I’m not going to take a vote on our lives, Amma. But I won’t claim the throne. And I’ll make clear when assembling whatever resistance we can that we’re all in this together. And that we’re fighting for a different kind of Daevabad.”
“Then you won’t win.” But Hatset must have heard the resolution in his words, because she was looking at him now like he was a ghost. “I have twice been weighed down with the grief of not knowing whether to mourn you.” She stepped back. “If you finally make me do so, Alizayd, I will not forgive you. Not in this life or the next.” She beckoned to Issa. “Come, Ustadh.”
She slammed the door when she left, and Ali recoiled, her vow cutting
