The seal ring was freezing.
Frosty patterns traced over the black pearl, winding around the gold band. And not just the ring, but the very ground. The air. Her breath steamed as snow began to fall, and Dara’s green eyes brightened in fevered wonder.
“Nahri.” It was Jamshid. He’d laid his mother on the ground and closed her eyes. A storm of hurt raged in his expression, but the alarm with which he spoke Nahri’s name cut through all that. “You made a deal with them.”
“I don’t care!” Nahri reached for Dara again.
This time, the punch of air was enough to knock her back.
You promised. Angry screeches in her head, icy pinpricks stabbing her skin. You promised.
The peris.
“Manizheh is already dead!” she yelled.
In response, a viciously cold wind spun across the pavilion, hurling bricks and debris. Hail the size of her fist plummeted through the sky, ricocheting around her.
Because it had never been about Manizheh, not truly. Or Daevabad. The peris themselves had confessed to not caring about the “squabbles” of her people. It was about Dara. The abomination, they’d called him. A daeva whose power threatened theirs.
They wanted him dead.
Dara touched the snow gathering on his face. “Peris,” he said just as knowingly.
Jamshid pulled free the icy dagger from Manizheh’s belt. “They aided us on the condition … on the condition we got rid of you,” he confessed.
“Oh.” A kind of weary despair, like he’d known all along how this was going to end, like he’d stopped even hoping, swept Dara’s ashen face. “I suppose I should not have said all those things about burning down the wind.”
Jamshid swallowed loudly. “I can do it. I’ll be quick.”
Dara shivered. “No, Baga Nahid, I cannot ask that of you. I—”
“Will you two shut up? I can’t hear myself think!” Nahri snatched the peris’ dagger out of Jamshid’s hands and shot to her feet.
The wind tore at her clothes, whipping her face with stinging needles of ice. The peris’ words from the mountain—the promise they’d made her swear—swirled in her head. As she had flown over Daevabad, this had all seemed so simple, so just. Dara was a killer. He needed to be brought to justice.
This was not justice, though. It was murder. And it wouldn’t end at Dara. What was to keep the peris from “correcting” again? From sticking their beaks in her people’s business and selecting yet another djinn to toy with?
She glanced out at the battling city. Nahri could hear death cries, the screams of those who were suffering for no good reason and the moans of ghouls and monsters. She tried to reach for the ring. With their powers restored, she knew the people below might have a fighting chance.
But nothing happened. Nahri felt no closer to granting anyone else magic. The peris had spoken of an act to bond the ring to herself, snobbishly declaring she was no Anahid.
In the distance, a tornado spun out of the sky, tearing across the terraced fields. Nahri stared at her broken home, made the plaything once again of overly powerful beings, and then she ran a finger down the icy edge of the peri’s dagger.
It was so very sharp, immediately drawing a drop of blood. She stared at the dark crimson blood, at the color that unfairly defined so much.
Her lesser blood.
“Nahri …” Concern filled Jamshid’s voice. “Nahri, what are you doing?”
Nahri looked again at her city. She gripped the dagger. “Calling a mark.”
She plunged the icy blade toward her chest.
THERE WAS A SHRIEK ON THE AIR, A DOZEN BIRDLIKE voices crying out, and then taloned hands tugging at her. No! they shouted. Do not! Cold, invisible fingers grabbed hers mid-thrust.
Nahri’s own quick hand still whipped forward—years of snatching purses keeping her reflexes sharp—dragging the peri with her as she shoved its blade into her heart.
The pain drove her to her knees, and then blood was gushing over her hands, pouring from her mouth. Suleiman’s ring scorched on her hand, her magic going wild as her body frantically tried to save itself, tissue trying to close.
But there was no healing with the dagger in her heart.
Jamshid cried out, rushing toward her. “Nahri!”
With her dying strength, she called to the palace once more. The floor bucked up, tossing him away.
The sky changed, the clouds growing so thick it might have been a pit of gray she’d been tossed down into. The stone floor turned slick with snow and ice, wind lashing her face. Spots blossomed across Nahri’s blurred vision, her mind fuzzy. But they were there—wings in dazzling jeweled colors. Angry, chirpy shouts, a great debate.
Save yourself!
A liar, she has deceived us!
This was not foreseen; this is not permissible!
The pearl peri appeared before her, her hand still pinned to Nahri’s on the dagger. “Heal yourself!” she ordered. “We cannot have your blood on our hands!”
Oh, Creator, this hurt. It hurt so much. Nahri knew enough about hearts to be able to keep a bit of blood pumping through her body, but she had only moments before she died.
So she gave herself enough strength to spit in the peri’s face, more blood now than saliva, vividly crimson. “You will have my blood on your hands,” she choked out. “My human and daeva blood. My lesser life. You will be in debt to my people for a thousand years.”
The screeches started up again. God, these creatures were dramatic hypocrites. No wonder Khayzur had chosen to spend time in Dara’s company.
She has ruined us! She has destroyed the balance!
“No.” It was the sapphire peri, appearing at the edge of Nahri’s darkening vision. A cloak of pale blue fog, like a dawn sky, draped their head. “She is waiting for our offer.”
Nahri briefly closed her eyes, grimacing in pain. A half dozen sarcastic responses hovered on her tongue, but not even she was acerbic enough to waste the moments of life she had left spitting them out. “You will remove any debt I have to you—any debt my people have to you. I
