And Dara didn’t blame them. “I should have stood up to Manizheh sooner,” he said bitterly. “Creator, a day earlier. An hour. So many people would still be alive.”
“Afshin, if you’re looking for absolution, you won’t find it from me,” Razu replied. “But I don’t think any of us realized how far she’d fallen. Not in a thousand years would I have believed her capable of murdering other Daevas for blood magic, let alone enslaving her own Afshin.”
That’s not all she was capable of. In his bones, Dara knew the nobles weren’t the only Daevas she’d killed: Manizheh had murdered her brother as well. The story she’d told of Rustam wanting to sacrifice his newborn niece—Dara would put money on those roles being reversed.
“I cannot even imagine how we fix all this,” he confessed.
“Bit by bit. I find even the most impossible tasks seem less daunting from the inside. And we all have our own strengths, our roles to play.”
Dara grimaced. “I suppose.”
“Afshin, can I ask you something?” When he nodded, Razu ventured forth. “Do you love her? Truly love her?”
“I did not say you could ask me that.” If Dara had doubted his feelings for Nahri would survive all their betrayals and battles, he’d known the moment she’d smiled at him from her hospital bed that he was besotted as ever.
“Yes,” he answered after a time. “I love her. More than my life. I do not imagine I will ever love another in such a manner.”
Razu gave him a sad smile. “Then make sure you follow your own words back there. She is young and brilliant, and despite everything, seems to have pulled through with soul intact.” Her smile faded. “Make sure you are not her burden.”
KARTIR SAT BACK ON THE CUSHIONED BENCH, DESPAIR in his face as he gestured to the scattered relics across the floor. “They’re gone. Every single vessel we’d been keeping safe.”
Dara knelt on the ground, picking up one of the relics. “How many?”
“Thirty-seven.” Kartir’s voice was hollow. “And that’s only from our records. I strongly suspect Manizheh gave the ifrit some of the ‘traitors’ she had arrested as well. She threatened us with that during interrogation. I would never have wanted to imagine such a thing, but men went missing, and …” He trailed off, looking very old. “Vizaresh travels on lightning. He could have scattered them across the world by now, and there’s no way to trace them.”
Dara kept picking up the relics. It didn’t seem right for them to be on the floor. And yet the djinn and Daevas they belonged to were already possibly in a far worse state of affairs, waking to new human masters after the somber peace of the Temple. His memories of Manizheh’s awful, gripping control came back to him, the way he’d been reduced to wailing in his head as his lips commanded destruction and his hand cut through innocents.
He swayed on his knees and reached out to steady himself on the bench. No one should have to go through that. “If they can’t be traced, how were the vessels found in the first place?”
Kartir sighed. “Luck. On occasion, the ifrit would return one themselves, usually a victim who’d been particularly traumatized, to terrorize us further. But mostly it’s luck. A djinn traveler hears a rumor of an oddly powerful human or an event with possibly magical roots. It’s like looking for a particular grain of sand on the beach.”
Creator have mercy. That went beyond luck—it sounded like an impossible task.
Dara set the collected relics aside and joined Kartir on the bench. “I still cannot believe she gave them to Vizaresh.”
“She slaughtered scores of innocents for blood magic and had you destroy a fifth of the city. I’d think it would be easy to believe her capable of doing worse to victims who couldn’t protest.” Kartir rubbed his brow, his head uncharacteristically bare. “I keep wondering if I could have changed things. I’d known Manizheh since she was born, watched her grow up. Watched her be crushed,” he said more softly. “I failed her. I should have counseled her better.”
“She didn’t need your counsel, my friend. She needed a different world.” For no matter what Manizheh had done, part of Dara would always mourn her in a way he suspected no one else would, not even Jamshid. Dara had been in Manizheh’s place—had seen his loved ones killed and his people crushed—and had believed, truly believed, that their cause was worth any amount of bloodshed.
He hadn’t lied to her on the roof, even as he’d twisted his words to seize his freedom. Dara had understood Manizheh. He’d wanted peace for her.
He hoped wherever she was now, she found it.
“A different world,” Kartir repeated faintly. “I pray we can create it. I do have faith, at least, that Banu Nahri and Baga Jamshid will be better.”
“Do you think Nahri will take the throne with Muntadhir?”
The priest laughed. “They are already divorced. When I visited the Banu Nahida at the hospital this morning, I found them taking tea over the burning remains of their marriage contract, and it was the happiest I’ve ever seen them together. When I asked her about the throne, she told me she’d rather deal with vomiting patients than ‘sit in a fancy chair I would just as soon pawn while listening to useless petitions.’”
“That sounds like her.”
“I can’t say I blame her. She’s got enough work at the hospital and at least seems to enjoy that. She also told me that she and Alizayd have been in talks with the other tribes and the shafit about power sharing. Committees and reparations and all these other modern things.”
Power sharing. Despite everything, Dara still bristled at the thought. Nahri had flown to Daevabad on a shedu and harnessed magic like Anahid herself to save the city, appearing like a goddess as she healed him with a snap of her hand. Dara could see
