The first person he spotted, lying unconscious on the floor, was Nahri.
Overwhelmed by worry, Ali lurched for her. He did so too quickly, nearly blacking out again as he crashed to his elbows next to her head. Closer now, he could see clearly the rise and fall of Nahri’s chest as she breathed. She murmured in her sleep, curling tighter into a ball.
Sleeping. She’s just sleeping. Ali forced himself to relax. He wasn’t helping either of them like this. He pushed himself back into a sitting position, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes until his head felt like it had mostly stopped spinning.
Better. So first, where were they? The last thing Ali remembered was feeling like he was about to die in a ruined mosque overlooking the Nile. Now they appeared to be in some sort of storeroom, an extremely disorganized one, packed with broken baskets and drying herbs.
Nahri must have gotten us here. He glanced again at the Banu Nahida. Her royal garments had been swapped for a worn black dress that looked several sizes too big, and the scarf tied around her head was doing little to contain her hair, the curls spilling out in an ebony halo. A few rays of dusty light striped her body, highlighting the curve of her hip and the delicate expanse of the inside of her wrist.
His heart skipped, and Ali was self-aware enough to recognize that it wasn’t grief alone spiking through him. Clever, stubborn Nahri who’d somehow kept him alive and gotten them from the river to wherever this was. She’d saved his life again, another debt in the ledger he knew she never forgot. She looked beautiful, sleep easing her features into a peaceful expression Ali had never seen before.
Muntadhir’s words from the arena stole through his mind. Abba will make you emir; he’ll give you Nahri. All the things you pretend you don’t want.
And now Ali had them, technically. All it had cost him was everything else he loved.
Ali swayed. Don’t do this. Not now. He’d already had to pull himself together once.
But before he dropped his gaze, he noticed something else. Scratches marred Nahri’s skin. Nothing serious, just the small gashes one might expect had they been dumped in a river and climbed through underbrush.
Except Nahri shouldn’t have had scratches. She should have healed.
Suleiman’s seal. Our magic. The memories tumbled through him again, and Ali instantly reached for his chest. The scorching, barbed pain that had driven him to his knees when they first arrived in Egypt was gone. Now Ali simply felt … nothing.
That can’t be. He tried to focus, closing his eyes and searching for something that felt new. But if there was some connection he was supposed to pull on to lift Suleiman’s seal, it was a power he couldn’t sense. He snapped his fingers, attempting to conjure a flame. It was the simplest magic Ali knew, something he’d been doing since he was a child.
Nothing.
Ali went cold. “Burn,” he whispered in Geziriyya, snapping his fingers again. “Burn,” he tried in Ntaran and then Djinnistani, raising his other hand.
None of it worked. There was not the slightest hint of heat, nor the shimmer of smoke.
My zulfiqar, my weapons. Ali looked wildly around the room, spotting the hilt of his sword poking out from a pile of filthy clothes. He lurched to his feet, stumbling across the room and reaching for his zulfiqar like a long-lost friend. His fingers closed around the hilt, and he desperately willed flames to rise from the blade he’d spent his life mastering—the blade tied so intimately to his identity.
It stayed cold in his hand, the copper surface dull in the dim light. It wasn’t just Nahri’s magic that was gone.
It was Ali’s.
That’s not possible. Ali had seen his father wield magic while using the seal to strip it from others. That was part of the ring’s legend—making its bearer the most powerful person in the room.
Panic raced through him. Was this a normal part of taking the seal, or had they done something wrong? Was there an incantation, a gesture, something that Ali was supposed to know?
Muntadhir would have known. Muntadhir would have known what to do with the seal had you not gotten him murdered with this very blade.
Ali dropped the zulfiqar. He stepped back, stumbling on his discarded blanket, the fragile veneer of control he’d pieced together slipping away.
You were supposed to protect him. It should have been you who held off the Afshin, you who died at his hand. What kind of brother was Ali, what kind of man, to be hiding in a storage room half a world away from the palace in which his father and brother had been murdered and his tribesmen and friends slaughtered? Where his sister—his sister—was trapped in a conquered city and surrounded by enemies?
Nahri mumbled in her sleep again, and Ali jumped.
You failed her. You failed all of them. Nahri could have been back in Daevabad right now, with the world and a throne at her fingertips.
I have to get out of here. Ali had a sudden driving need to get out of this claustrophobic little room. To breathe fresh air and put space between himself, Nahri, and his awful, bloody memories. He crossed the room, reaching for the door and stumbling through. He caught a glimpse of crowded shelves, the scent of sesame oil …
Then Ali crashed directly into a small, elderly man. The man let out a surprised yelp and stepped back, nearly upsetting a tin tray of carefully heaped powders.
“I’m sorry,”
