Now another Nahid had betrayed her promise and handed them over to the very creatures who’d enslaved them in the first place. Vizaresh ran his claws over the chain of stolen souls like a perverse twist on prayer beads, his eyes lighting with pleasure.
Then he noticed her.
“Well, look who’s awake.” His mouth curled in a smile, half giddy, half frantic—as if he still couldn’t believe what he’d done to his companion, vacillating between regret and thrill. He was trembling madly, bouncing on his feet—a frame of mind that Nahri suspected did not bode well for her, his brother’s murderer.
Sakhr was clearly on Vizaresh’s mind as well. “I know who he is,” the ifrit growled. “Your brother, Jamshid. A long time Manizheh held that secret, but we eventually pried it loose.” He hefted his ax again. “I had hoped one day to kill him before you. What is it the humans say, an eye for an eye? I wanted your brother to suffer, to make his death as painful as a blood-poisoning.”
There was genuine grief in his voice. Nahri remembered Qandisha’s anger back at the Nile and Vizaresh’s own keening howl when he’d discovered Sakhr’s body. She knew now that in some way Sahkr had acted in good faith back at the Gozan—he truly had been working with her mother.
And Nahri had killed him.
My name is Nahri. She breathed, and her voice returned to her. “I don’t imagine you’ll believe me, but part of me is truly sorry.”
Vizaresh scoffed. “You’re right, I don’t believe you. You come from a line of liars. Liars and dirt-bloods, and even if your apology was sincere, I would not want it.” He lifted the chain of vessels around his neck, caressing the rings again. “I think after I kill you, I’ll drop a few of these in your human land and see what chaos they may bring. For now, shut your mouth, Golbahar, and do try to lie still.”
But Nahri was done with lying still. As Vizaresh raised the ax again, she called to Daevabad’s magic, to the seal, and to her own strength.
To the little girl who’d chosen her own name.
Her shackles and chains burst apart.
Vizaresh froze in midstep. “But your name …”
“I have another.”
He recovered, swinging the ax anyway. Nahri ducked and then rolled to her feet. She raised her hands, calling again to her magic and preparing for his next attack. She was going to rip that foul chain off his neck.
This time, though, Nahri hadn’t read her mark. Because Vizaresh took one look at her, roiling with unknown magic, another look at the seething city—blood falling from the sky and marid waves beating the walls—and then vanished in a bolt of bright lightning.
“No!” Nahri threw herself on the spot where the ifrit who’d declared himself a survivor had just been, but he was gone. Along with the dozens of souls he’d stolen.
And Nahri couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Not when nearer catastrophes loomed. Jamshid being hunted by Dara. Howls from the lake she couldn’t even comprehend. And, behind it all, her mother, who would pay any price, including enslaving her people and handing her daughter over to demons, to stay in power.
Nahri closed her fists. The seal ring held tight.
And then she turned back to Daevabad. It was time to end this.
NAHRI WAS NO STRANGER TO VIOLENCE. SHE’D watched the Navasatem parade turn to carnage and had survived her mentor dying badly in her arms. She’d fled through a palace filled with murdered djinn, and watched, helpless, as innocent scholars were swallowed by blood beasts. She’d flown over entire neighborhoods that had once been lively, bustling places and were now reduced to crushed tombs, untold dead beneath the rubble.
None of it had prepared her for Manizheh’s last stand.
Fiery blood fell from the sky in clumps, its smoke illuminating twisting, terrible beasts both conjured and resurrected. Half-dead simurgh, rotting elephants and lions, and vacant-eyed karkadann ran wild through the palace, trampling fleeing servants and screaming soldiers. Ghouls stalked the corridors—the Daeva nobles Manizheh had massacred. Still dressed in bloodstained finery, their relics gone, they fell upon the living with no discrimination between Daevas and djinn. Nahri wasn’t sure if her mother had intended such chaos or if the blood magic was out of her control. She suspected Manizheh didn’t care. A victory would be a victory, no matter the cost.
But it wasn’t all lost, not yet. A fierce rain poured down, water extinguishing some of the smoldering patches of blood, and Nahri raced through the outer gardens to see lake creatures—marid—climbing over the walls, crab-men and water snakes, attacking the ghouls and conjured beasts. With a great crash, the wooden doors smashed in, and a mixed troop of soldiers rushed through—a Daeva acolyte on horseback shouting to a group of similarly garbed youths and a Geziri warrior woman brandishing a zulfiqar.
“Aqisa?” Nahri shouted over the mob, recognizing Ali’s companion.
Aqisa fought her way over, slicing the head off a ghoul, and Nahri raised her hands, calling for the palace magic to bring down a wall on the karkadann about to stampede through the djinn and Daeva warriors.
“Nahid.” Aqisa clasped Nahri’s wrist. “We thought you might need some reinforcements.”
“You thought right. Have you seen Ali?” Nahri asked.
“No, though I’m guessing the giant crab creatures are courtesy of the man who used to summon springs in the desert?”
“I’m working on that assumption, yes.”
A bloodcurdling scream came from inside the palace.
Aqisa gripped Nahri’s shoulder, the humor vanishing from her face. “Manizheh has hundreds of people locked up in the dungeons who are going to be slaughtered if these ghouls get any farther.”
“Then save them.” Nahri
