Utter devastation met her eyes.
Nahri blinked, certain her mind was playing tricks. Because where there had once been blocks upon blocks, lively inhabited neighborhoods that stretched between the hospital and midan, there was now nothing but rubble—as though a great hammer had fallen from the sky to smash everything in its wake. The destruction wasn’t confined to the shafit district either: a vast swath of carnage also stretched across the Ayaanle and Geziri quarters. Their three gates lay in ruins, half buried under the shattered remains of the midan wall.
She kept staring, as though the scene before her eyes would resolve. She wasn’t naive. Nahri knew war, and she knew cruelty; her homeland had been occupied since her birth, and she’d fled through a palace filled with slaughtered djinn. But the enormity of what was before her very eyes … how did one process that? How did one make sense of entire neighborhoods, long-standing places with history and roots and community, simply being erased? Ground up. Homes and schools, tea shops and gardens; the lives and stories they’d contained, the hard work and dreams that kept them standing.
All gone now. Pulverized.
She was shaking. Where are the people? Had they been warned? Or was it a graveyard she was flying over, thousands buried beneath the ruins?
And Nahri knew very suddenly why the peris had finally interfered. This was nothing like the sickness infecting the rest of Daevabad, a slow and steady rot. It wasn’t the kind of devastation the ifrit could wreak. Or Manizheh.
This was the wanton destruction of the daevas of legend. The ones who had traveled the winds to bury caravans in the desert and devour human cities. The daevas it had taken a prophet to beat.
Dara had done this. And Nahri would kill him for it.
As if sensing her wrath, Mishmish roared, a bone-shaking sound that split the sky. Nahri almost hoped they heard it in the palace. She hoped they knew she was coming for them. That she was coming for vengeance.
With her own cry, she urged the shedu forward and cut through the sky.
They were flying faster now, but a quick glance at the Daeva Quarter and Temple revealed nothing out of the ordinary—whatever death Manizheh had visited on their tribe must have been done behind closed doors. The palace veered nearer. Archers were scrambling on the wall, but they didn’t shoot, whether out of shock or uncertainty, Nahri didn’t know and didn’t care. Mishmish vaulted up and up, over the garden in which she’d spent countless hours grieving and healing; the massive library in which a prince had taught her to read and that they had then destroyed together; the throne room where Ghassan had attempted to humiliate her and was instead met with defiance from her tribe …
Then they were there at the top of the ziggurat, the palace Anahid had designed and built while wearing the ring now on Nahri’s hand. Mishmish landed with a flourish, spreading his dazzling wings against the sun and roaring at the sky.
Their epic entrance wasn’t a lonely one for long—it was probably the roaring—and it was only a minute or two before a pair of Daeva soldiers burst through the doors, their swords flashing.
The first paled so fast Nahri thought he might faint. “By the Creator,” he choked. He held out his blade, the sword dipping madly. “Is that a—a …”
Nahri raised a fist, the magic of the palace leaping to her hand like an old friend. Her rage echoed in its old stones. It had always been there, simmering in the walls whose shadows had hidden her when she needed and ripped the rug out from under Ghassan’s feet, but it had new life now. Daevabad’s heart and soul had been gutted, and everything in it cried out to be saved. Healed. Flames burst from her palm, the ring gleaming in the firelight, and she inhaled, power rippling through her.
Nahri snapped her fingers, and the soldier’s sword shattered.
He jumped, gasping and dropping the hilt. The second man hadn’t even reached for his weapon; he was touching his ash mark and whispering prayers.
“Go,” she commanded, offering mercy. “I am here for Manizheh, her Afshin, and the ifrit alone.”
The first man stammered a response. “W-we have orders to protect—”
“Warrior, I am a Nahid standing before you, on a shedu, with Suleiman’s seal. Trust me, your orders did not consider this. Go.”
“You should listen to her.” A quiet voice spoke up. “I wish I had.”
Nahri whirled around.
Dara.
THE AFSHIN HAD APPEARED WITHOUT A SOUND BEHIND them, perhaps even more dazzling than Nahri, on a winged horse of shifting smoke and flashing embers. He was dressed in black, scaled brass armor covering his chest and wrists and glittering in the sun. A matching helmet with a crest of vibrant feathers crowned the ebony hair tumbling down his shoulders.
His horse landed lightly on the parapet and then fell apart in a rain of cinders. Dara approached, looking every bit the beautiful Scourge of legend. He was carrying one now—the foul weapon dangling from his belt along with a sword and a dagger, his bow lying across his back. The helmet threw his face into shadow, but his emerald eyes still shone fever bright, and when Dara moved closer, it took everything Nahri had to not step back. Forget the emotional entanglements between them—she was mad to think she could take on such a man. Why had she even thought this was possible? Because the peris gave her a fancy knife? Dara looked like death itself.
And how did you kill death?
Mishmish growled, baring his teeth and curving one wing around her. Dara stopped, glancing at the soldiers. “Leave us.”
The two men vanished, tripping over each other in their haste to get out the door.
Dara stared at her, his gaze tracing Suleiman’s ring blazing from her smoldering hand to the shedu curled protectively around her.
“You look
