“I’ve taken to executing traitors. I have no choice; that’s the only law this city recognizes. Believe it or not, I tried to reach out to the djinn. They responded with deception, as they always do—which you must know if you were there when my envoy arrived. Did he tell you about the coup your sand fly husband instigated? The way they murdered Kaveh?”
“Kaveh chose his path when he let that vapor free. Or you did, giving it to him.”
That landed. “Kaveh was fighting for our people decades before you were even born,” Manizheh snapped. She steadied her voice. “You’re angry; I understand. But you’re also very young, Nahri, and new to our world. I offered you mercy once, and you threw it in my face. Don’t make that mistake again.”
“I told you, I’m not looking for your mercy. I’m here to save our people.”
“‘Save our people.’” Manizheh pinched the bridge of her nose in an expression of pure frustration. “Do you hear yourself, child? Do you have any idea how naive you sound?”
Nahri bristled at the condescension in her mother’s remark. “I’m no child.”
“You are,” Manizheh exploded. “An ignorant, self-righteous child who has no idea what she’s talking about and is lucky to be alive. One who is very alone and exceedingly outmatched. But never mind all that. Where is your brother? He is the one my envoy was actually intended to escort back.”
“I left him behind. Jamshid is safer in Ta Ntry than with you.”
“Safer? Do you have any idea what Ghassan’s wife threatened to do to him?”
Nahri shook her head. “Hatset won’t hurt him. We made a deal.”
Her mother didn’t look reassured by that—indeed, she looked even angrier. “So you make deals with djinn but not your own family? Why is that? All I hear about you is your supposed pragmatism. How willing you were to work with the djinn and the shafit, with the Qahtanis. You went to Muntadhir’s bed, called Ghassan father—”
“You think I had a choice?” Nahri raged at the judgment in her mother’s voice. “I had no one and nothing! They were hanging Daevas from the palace walls!”
“Which is why I killed them! You think you didn’t have a choice? Try living under your enemies for a century, Nahri, instead of five years. Watch your brother beaten for your defiance and have it be Ghassan, not Muntadhir, trying to touch you. Burn a mark into your newborn child’s shoulder, stealing his heritage and abandoning him forever. Then you can lecture me about choice. I did not want this violence. It will haunt me to the end of my days, but I will be damned if it was for nothing.”
Manizheh’s calm was gone, the words bursting out of her as if they had been penned up for far too long. And what was worse was that Nahri understood.
But that didn’t justify it.
“I saw what the two of you did out there,” Nahri agrued. “You’ve gone too far.”
“And because you’ve somehow wrangled up a shedu and cut a gem from your prince’s heart, you think you’re capable of removing me?” Her mother’s voice was sarcastic and annoyed, and it hurt, because despite everything, Nahri could hear the undercurrent of familiarity beneath it, a parent dealing with a wayward child.
But Manizheh wasn’t done.
“Enough of this.” She sighed. “Nahri, please. I will offer you this chance again, but only once. You’re my daughter. You are, by all accounts, an extremely promising healer. Surrender. Call off your shedu and hand over the ring. You won’t be free, but I will see to your comfort and your education, and you’ll be permitted to return to the infirmary. Play your part, and you could have a life here, a family—the kind of opportunities I never had.”
Dara had remained at Manizheh’s side, a silent sentinel. His gaze was downcast, and in his dazzling uniform, he was the perfect picture of obedience.
And that was what Manizheh would make her—the daughter who’d gone astray but returned to the fold, living proof of Manizheh’s beneficence. Nahri would be a healer again, quiet and dutiful, dragged out and decorated for festivals, expected to keep her mouth shut about whatever new atrocities her mother committed to keep the gilded illusion of their power.
It wasn’t an opportunity Manizheh was offering, it was a nightmare.
“No,” Nahri replied. “Never. You call me outmatched, and yet you have a single Afshin and a pair of unreliable ifrit. I have the seal, our magic, and the city itself.”
“You have a broken ring, a bleeding shedu, and a handful of angry trees. But you clearly don’t want to listen to me. Fine. Let’s see if someone else can make you see reason. Darayavahoush—” Dara’s head snapped toward Manizheh. “You had to be brought more forcibly back into line. Speak freely. Tell my daughter how that’s been.”
Dara … broke.
The consummate Afshin—so obedient, so strong—crumpled to the ground. He ripped away his helmet, revealing the jagged lines of light breaking over his face.
“Nahri.” Dara fell weeping at her feet, pressing his brow to the dirt as his entire body shook with sobs. “I am sorry. I am so sorry. I did not want to hurt you. She gave me no choice. She made me destroy the city,” he blurted out, pushing himself up on his knees to look at her. His eyes were wild, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Please.” He clutched at Nahri’s dress. “Surrender. I cannot watch her kill you. I cannot—” He broke into louder sobs, his words incoherent, and then simply threw his arms around her knees, holding her tight.
Nahri was speechless. Lost for words—for any explanation as to what could have rendered the legendary warrior, the man who looked like death incarnate, into the shattered Afshin at her feet, she glanced up.
Manizheh met her gaze, raised her hand, and pulled free a black glove.
An emerald ring glittered on one of her
