She had one—Dara’s straight dagger now sheathed at her waist. With all the strength he could muster, he tried to reach for it, but his hand felt like it had been pinned by a boulder. He finally lifted his fingertips …
Vizaresh noticed. “He’s fighting your control. You need to be more specific, Banu Nahida. Use the words.”
Dara grunted, roaring in his head as Manizheh pursed her lips. No, he wanted to shout. Please!
“All right,” she started slowly. “Afshin, I wish for you to publicly demonstrate your loyalty. You will neither speak against me, nor do anything to draw suspicion to your state.”
The fight went out of him. Forcibly. Dara’s hands unclenched against his will, his boots ceasing their knocking.
Manizheh continued. “I wish for you to destroy the Geziri, Ayaanle, and shafit districts block by block until Zaynab al Qahtani surrenders. I wish for you not to show mercy. You will not disobey me or allow yourself to come to harm. You will sow as much fear and discord as you did during your rebellion.
“You will be the Scourge.”
Creator, kill me. I beg you. I BEG YOU. But Dara was already sitting up, magic washing over him in waves. His dirty robe transformed, giving way to the black-and-gray uniform he’d worn when they’d attacked the city. Scaled brass armor crawled over his chest and down his arms, climbing up his neck to sweep back in what he knew would be a perfect imitation of the helm he’d once worn. The weight of a sword and a mace at his waist, a bow and sheath on his back.
Then the polished wooden handle of a scourge landed in his hand, barbed lashes sprouting from it like a vile weed.
There was nothing Dara could do. If he had begun to chafe under his Afshin duty to obey, this—this theft of his body and tongue—was the cruelest response imaginable. He turned toward the carriage door and kicked it open like someone was pushing the levers of his legs.
They were in the Daeva Quarter, just behind the gate that led to the midan. The bars keeping it shut were open, revealing the stone wings of the shedu statues that framed it. Dara could still remember how they’d leapt to his aid the day he’d returned Nahri to Daevabad.
Nahri. Oh, little thief, would that I had listened to you that night. Would that Dara had bowed his head to her instead and never set this horror in motion.
His warriors were lined up, as armed as he was, and already on horseback. Uncertain black gazes darted to him, confusion in their faces. After all, had Dara not been cautioning patience? Making quietly clear to his inner circle that the djinn outnumbered them and that to go in would be a bloodbath?
He wanted to tell them to run. Instead, power building in his blood, Dara raised his scourge to the air.
“Today we end this!” he announced. “The djinn have returned our gesture of peace with deception and murder. They need to be taught a lesson. You will show no mercy and take no prisoners. We do not stop until they submit, lay down their arms, and hand over Zaynab al Qahtani.”
As the words poured from him, Dara prayed to see disquiet among their faces. Hesitation.
There was none. He had trained them too well. They roared their approval.
“For the Nahids!” Noshrad cried, brandishing his sword.
“For Banu Manizheh!” Dara snapped his fingers, and magic surged to his hand, a hundred times faster and more powerful than it ever had before, as if he’d jumped into a rushing river and been swept away. One of his conjured winged horses appeared before him, dazzling with a spray of smoldering embers in its ebony mane, the four wings billowing like smoke. He launched himself onto its back.
Dara had no sooner appeared in the midan than gunshots rang out, followed by a barrage of arrows. It didn’t matter. Manizheh had wished for him not to be harmed, and so the curse simply didn’t allow it—the projectiles bursting into flames and falling as ash before him.
“Djinn!” he roared, rising in the air on his winged horse. “I come with a simple message. Submit. Lay down your weapons and hand over Zaynab al Qahtani, or we will destroy you. The longer you take, the more of you will die.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He couldn’t. Manizheh’s wish was tearing through him, energy wrapping around his limbs and crackling down his fingers. His relic seared his skin.
Dara closed his hands into fists, and half the midan came down.
The three great gates, gates that had stood for centuries even when he was a boy—the stark Geziri archway, the studded pyramids with the proud Ayaanle standards, and the tiled columns leading to the warren of shops and shafit homes—crumbled into dust, the copper wall that connected them shattering. The wall came down with such violence that the buildings nestled against it were ripped apart, furniture and bricks and beams crashing down. It didn’t take much effort—the city had been slowly dying, rotting from the inside since its magical heart was torn out. But to see something once so mighty, so old, obliterated in seconds …
We were supposed to be the saviors of Daevabad.
Instead, Dara gazed upon ruins. There were already screams rising from them. Children crying for their parents, the wails of the dying.
But Manizheh had ordered him to bring down the streets until Zaynab was caught. And so Dara raised his hands again, crying out in his mind as people ran to the buildings that had already collapsed, scrabbling at the heap in hopes of rescuing those trapped inside.
He rained down the next block directly on top of them.
That brought silence. For a moment. Dust rose from the rubble, hazy in the air. Dara motioned to his warriors and pressed forward.
He didn’t have to speak. He’d given his orders and his soldiers, having spent the past weeks penned up
