Dara moved as if to interfere, but then another pair of Manizheh’s hellish blood beasts descended—one a winged serpent and the other an oversize rotting vulture—and he turned back with a groan.
Which was fine. This was between Nahri and her mother.
“You black-hearted bitch,” Nahri shouted. “It wasn’t a shafit who told Vizaresh where to find the vessels in the Temple. It wasn’t a shafit who enslaved Dara and used him to slaughter thousands.”
Manizheh’s eyes flared. “How dare you judge me? You know nothing of our world. You think your pathetic human existence was anything compared to the suffering the Daevas have endured? You think a few paltry years here makes you one of us?” Her voice hardened as she glanced back at Dara. “I’ve had enough. Afshin, I wish for you to—”
“No!” Jamshid shoved himself in front of Nahri. “Don’t hurt her!” He sounded close to tears. “Mother, please. I don’t want either of you to die. Nahri is my sister. She saw me through the darkest years of my life—”
“Before or after she pushed you off the wall in the hopes you’d land on a shedu? She’s not worthy of your loyalty, Jamshid. And she’s not your sister. That’s a piece of protective fiction I’ll end right now. She’s Rustam’s mistake,” Manizheh hissed. “An error in judgment in the form of a wretched kitchen girl from Egypt. Another thief. One who couldn’t keep her legs closed or her hands off things that didn’t belong to her.”
Nahri felt the entire palace shake. The complex was in chaos, fire and water raining from the choked sky, and beasts of various elements and states of death rampaging around them. Her people were dying, Daevas and djinn and shafit all, the acrid air thick with wails.
But everything suddenly seemed very distant.
“My mother was an Egyptian?” she whispered.
She wasn’t the only one to react. Dara decapitated the serpent and then spun around, still fighting back-to-back with the other Daeva soldier.
“Rustam? She is Rustam’s daughter? But you told me—”
“I told you to be silent,” Manizheh commanded, and Dara’s mouth snapped shut. “Unless it has to do with keeping Daevabad safe from the horde breaking through the walls, you will keep your counsel to yourself, Afshin.”
But Nahri was already putting the pieces together. Rustam, the quiet shadow to Manizheh’s bright star. The uncle she knew so little of, whose orange grove she used to take shelter in.
Her father. Manizheh’s brother. The accusations the ifrit had been hurling as they argued …
“You—you killed Rustam,” Nahri stammered out. “Aeshma said you killed him.”
Manizheh rolled her eyes. “So I’ve enslaved Daevas, given Temple vessels to the ifrit, and murdered my own brother? Are there any other wild accusations you’d like to make, or do you need a few moments to think of your next lie?” She turned to her son. “Jamshid, listen to me. I know you’re a good man. I know you love her as your sister. But she is shafit, and her loyalties will always lie with the djinn first. She was just willing to murder the woman she believed her own mother! She was willing to let you be killed by Ghassan to save her djinn prince!”
Now it was Jamshid who stiffened. “What are you talking about?”
“Did she not tell you?” Manizheh goaded. “Ghassan wanted her to convince his lunatic son to lay down arms. He told Nahri and your father that he’d kill you if she didn’t agree. And faced with the choice of your brother or Alizayd, who did you choose to save, Nahri?”
The vulnerability in Jamshid’s eyes tore at Nahri’s heart. Manizheh had read him just as clearly—Nahri knew how fragile and new his sympathies toward the shafit were.
She knew he believed Ali a weakness for her.
Nahri swallowed. “Ghassan would have slaughtered half the city if the coup failed. Ali stood a good chance of taking him down, of getting rid of the man oppressing our people. Jamshid,” she cried as he swore. “Please! I was just trying to put Daevabad first!”
Jamshid looked like he’d been punched. “I know. Your husband used to say the same.”
Manizheh swept in. “He’s still alive, my son. Leave her side, tell me what you know of the enemies invading, and I’ll let Muntadhir live.”
Jamshid was breathing fast, his hands in fists.
But Manizheh had underestimated her son.
“No,” he said grimly. Jamshid stepped back, again putting himself between Nahri and Manizheh. “I stand with my sister. I stand with my people and my city. And it is clear you are an enemy to all three.”
His words went straight to Nahri’s heart. To the vulnerability and fear that had so long left her in knots when it came to her identity. She could have hugged him.
Except she was fairly certain he’d just doomed them both.
Manizheh stared at him. Flames flickered in her eyes, whether a reflection of the lethal rain she was using to scorch their home or something deeper, Nahri didn’t know.
“You were all I wanted,” Manizheh said. “I dreamed of seeing you again every night. When things were at their worst, I would close my eyes and envision you one day upon the throne, grandchildren at your feet. I imagined teaching you to heal.” Her voice was eerily steady, and when she turned her attention back to Nahri, Manizheh’s expression was still glowing, as though she were lost in that future that would never come. “I will make you suffer a hundred years for taking him from me.”
At that, Dara stepped away from his warrior, looking like he was very done with the Nahid family feud.
It was a mistake. Because he’d no sooner left the young man’s side—too far to help—when a smoldering globule of blood came hurtling from the sky.
It struck the soldier directly in the chest.
What happened next was almost too horrific for words. The foul sludge burned straight through the other man, leaving
