“That is insubordination.”
“I know, and I’m hoping you can forgive it.” Irtemiz paused. “May I speak as a friend?”
Dara let out a disgruntled sound. “Your generation has no sense of decorum, but fine, out with it.”
“You haven’t seemed like yourself since the feast. You barely speak to us, you’re pushing these men too hard …”
Dara flinched. Irtemiz wasn’t wrong. The brief levity he’d felt at the feast—celebrating with his men, his dalliance with the dancer—had been erased by what he’d learned in the crypt. Worse, it felt like a punishment. Dara had dared to enjoy himself and flirt with the feeling of being normal and instead learned he was nothing of the sort. He’d been enslaved on the order of Zaydi al Qahtani and resurrected as an experiment, an abomination cobbled together by ifrit schemes, marid blood debts, and two Nahids blowing each other apart over whether to murder a baby.
It all had indeed left him in a fouler mood than usual. “If I am tense, it is because of this so-called peace summit,” he lied, mentioning the meeting Manizheh was planning with the handful of djinn representatives her new Daeva allies had managed to intrigue. “I have to include at least a few of these fool boys in my security detail to please their fancy families, and they are useless.”
Irtemiz didn’t look convinced. “You had far more patience with us when we trained.”
“You wanted to learn. It makes all the difference.”
A steward emerged from the shadowed archway leading back into the palace. “Afshin, the Banu Nahida wishes to speak to you.”
“I will be right there.” Dara was still doing what he could to get back into Manizheh’s good graces, determined to recover his place in court. Rising, he nodded to Irtemiz’s leg. “How are you healing?”
“I believe the term is ‘leisurely.’”
“If we went very slowly, would you feel up to getting back on a horse?”
Her eyes lit up. “That would be fantastic.”
“Good. See to these brats, and then after the summit, perhaps we can take a loop of the outer walls. It has been too long since I checked them.”
“Only for security purposes, I assume. Not because it could be in any way construed as an enjoyable activity?”
Dara feigned a scowl. “Go wag your tongue at the boy about to stab himself,” he said, nodding at one of the recruits. “Let me see what the Banu Nahida wants.”
DARA FOUND MANIZHEH IN THE GARDEN—CHIEFLY BECAUSE he followed the sounds of her shouting, an act so unlike her that he ran through the underbrush, nearly knocking over a gardener in the process.
“—I will kill her. I will kill her if she hurts him. I will catch her children, make the blood in their veins boil them alive while she watches, and then I will kill her!”
He rushed around the bend. Manizheh and Kaveh were alone in a small glen encased by rose trellises, the peaceful scene at odds with her furious pacing. She had a broken scroll in one hand and was shaking it so hard Dara was surprised it hadn’t ripped in two.
“Banu Manizheh?” he ventured. “Is everything all right?”
She whirled on him. “No. Ghassan’s crocodile wife has my son and is threatening to kill him if I harm her children. No, forgive me, ‘to take twice as long doing whatever is done to Zaynab or Alizayd’ while perpetuating the same on Jamshid,’” she said, reading the letter aloud. “I will cut out her heart.”
Dara jerked back. “The queen has Jamshid?”
Kaveh nodded, giving Manizheh a nervous look. “It seems Wajed made his way to Ta Ntry.” He pointed at the tree where a scaled pigeon was roosting. “We received a message this morning.”
Manizheh tore the letter in half. “I want Zaynab al Qahtani. This week. Tomorrow, even. If she’s not going to respond to my threats against her brother, then I want you to offer her weight in gold and free passage out of the city to anyone who turns her over. To their families. I will give them horses, supplies, enough to make a comfortable life anywhere.”
Dara hesitated. He still hadn’t told Manizheh he’d seen Zaynab at the hospital. “I can send the message, my lady, but we’ve already offered plenty of incentives. According to rumor, she’s the one who warned the rest of the Geziris to remove their relics. They’re not going to betray her. She’s likely surrounded by loyal, well-trained warriors at all times.”
“Everyone has a price,” Manizheh argued. “Maybe you should start demolishing their little city block by block and see how long it takes until someone wants to get out.”
Kaveh cleared his throat. “My lady, a third of Daevabad is behind those walls. We agreed we were going to try and reach out—”
“We have reached out. And for what? It’s been nearly two months, and all we have to show for it is a half dozen merchants more interested in gold than peace. Meanwhile, there are shafit marksmen shooting any Daeva who tries to enter the midan. They are laughing at us. Laughing while they no doubt make more Rumi fire and bullets. Aeshma tells me he sees their forges burning all night.”
“I would not listen to anything Aeshma says,” Dara warned. Not that Manizheh would heed him. The ifrit was such a consistent presence at her side lately that Dara was surprised not to see Aeshma there now.
“And no one is laughing,” Kaveh assured her. “You just need to be a bit more patient.”
“I am weary of patience.” Bitterness creased Manizheh’s face. “Was Ghassan patient? The djinn tribes should be grateful for the mercy I’ve shown them. If they’d defied him like this, he would have slaughtered them. And when it comes to the Geziris and the shafit, we’re being naive. We’re never going to have peace with them. We might as well accept that and do what’s necessary to protect ourselves before they strike first.”
Her words landed heavily in the tense air. They were not surprising—they were indeed what Dara suspected all
