“I was wondering when you would call for us,” Aeshma said in greeting. “Such exciting things happening below. You know, I could be wrong, but I do believe the marid have returned to avenge themselves on you.”
“Those boats will be the grave of everyone upon them.” Manizheh turned to Vizaresh. “You told me you could make those slain on the lake rise, yes?”
“For a price.”
“Your price awaits in the Grand Temple. There’s a small pavilion on the third level facing the south. Behind that is the room you seek.”
“And my price?” Aeshma asked sharply.
Manizheh handed over the knife, still wet with Nahri’s blood. “Consider our pact complete. I want my enemies destroyed. Those on the lake. Those in the city. Those in the palace. Any who would dare stand against me.”
Nahri was moving forward before her mother had even finished her genocidal demands. The room in the Grand Temple … she knew that room. Knew what was kept in the room. And Nahri would be damned if the ifrit were getting in there.
Aeshma struck the bloody knife against the chains he was holding and then turned to her with a wicked smile. “Banu Golbahar e-Nahid, won’t you stand down?”
Nahri’s hold on the palace magic vanished.
As though she’d drunk an entire carafe of wine, Nahri was suddenly unbalanced, her mind fuzzy and her body heavy. She tripped, trying to steady herself on the parapet.
“What …” Her tongue was thick in her mouth. “What did you call me?”
Aeshma was working the knife against the chains like a blacksmith’s hammer, sparks flying. “Your true name,” he replied. Blood flowed from the knife, coating the links, far more blood than could have possibly stained it. With every surge, Nahri felt weaker, as though it were being drawn from her very own veins. “Unlucky girl. The fewer people who know your true name, the more power it holds. A name that only one person knows and not even its bearer? Oh, the magic in that.”
He snapped the chains. “I’ve been forging these for weeks, chanting your name—Golbahar! Golbahar!—adding all the bits you Daevabadis are too cloistered in your city to beware leaving out. A brush with a bit of hair, silk cut from the sheets of your marriage bed, the incense you would have touched in prayer … just needed one last spice,” Aeshma added, chuckling as he tossed away the bloody knife.
Golbahar. Golbahar. Nahri felt like she’d just been thrown into a realm of dreams, a dozen voices whispering the name to her.
“Golbahar, finish your letters!”
“Golbahar—such a strange foreign name. That mother can’t be trusted—”
“Gol-love, just ahead. The Nile, do you see it?”
She was vaguely aware of the ifrit moving for her. Nahri tried to fight back, but her movements were labored and then the chains were wrapping around her, robbing her of the rest of her senses. She collapsed, falling heavily to the cold stone. Her eyes fluttered, half-closing as drowsiness smothered her mind.
Manizheh was suddenly there, although blurry. “The seal ring is mine.” She seized Nahri’s hand, only to hiss in pain.
Aeshma’s voice instantly darkened. “Can you not retrieve it?”
Her mother tried again, and now even Nahri felt the heat as she touched the gold band.
Manizheh jerked her hand back. “No. Try yourself.”
Aeshma twisted Nahri’s fingers, painfully hard, but the ifrit had no better luck. “The blood magic,” he said grimly. “You’ve been as tainted with it as we are.”
“What do you mean, tainted? She’s supposed to use that ring to free us from Suleiman’s curse!” Vizaresh sounded enraged. “That was what you promised us! Why we … what is that blade at your waist?”
Manizheh answered guardedly. “Nahri arrived with it. Do you know what it is?”
“I certainly do! It’s—”
“It’s a distraction.” Aeshma cut in, snarling. “I don’t care if it’s the Creator’s own knife. That’s not what matters right now. Manizheh, you knew my price, and it wasn’t just for your daughter. It was for freedom from Suleiman’s curse.”
“Aeshma,” Vizaresh hissed. “We need to leave.”
“So go,” Manizheh said. “Take her and the ring. You’re the ones who are so clever, aren’t you? Figure out a way to put her in your thrall and get your own powers back.”
“That was not our deal!”
“Consider the terms changed. Now go. I have an army to destroy.”
Aeshma cursed. “Cowards and blood-poisoners. Lying blood-poisoners. As selfish and unreliable as your ancestor.” Nahri saw his mace rise in the air.
Then it came down, and she saw nothing at all.
43
ALI
Ali stood on the prow of the small ship he and Fiza had originally sailed into the sea—the last one they’d brought up from the deep. It had taken some wrangling, since it was in Tiamat’s realm, but in the end, the mother of chaos seemed to enjoy the outrageous plan he had in mind.
It’s preposterous and will almost certainly result in many, many deaths.
Go with my blessing.
And now Ali was here, back in Daevabad—albeit a lot sooner than he’d intended.
Please be safe, my friend. Ali had not known his heart could experience the level of panic it had when Jamshid had flown up with Fiza on what appeared to be a half-dead simurgh, informing him that not only were his brother and sister due to be executed in two days, but that the woman he loved was flying back to Daevabad, alone on a shedu, with a magical ice dagger the peris had given her to kill the Afshin.
Nahri said she hoped they caught up in time.
And she calls me reckless … “All the boats are through?” Ali asked Fiza softly. He tried not to raise his voice unnecessarily around others, learning his appearance—his eyes now yellow and black like Sobek’s, fog wreathing his ankles—was startling enough.
Fiza, God bless her, had stopped finding anything about his transformation intimidating
