“I deserved every hardship. Duriya, she came to me about the pregnancy, and I—” Her grandfather briefly shut his eyes, pain crossing his face. “You grew up in our country, you know how things are. I was afraid and upset, but it’s no excuse. I said things I’ll never be able to take back, and then I lost her forever.”
Nahri didn’t know what to say. Her heart ached with the knowledge of her parents’ fates. They had fought so hard to save her and to build lives for themselves in an impossible world, only to be cut down by Manizheh.
And yet she’d also seen enough to know they’d be proud of her. Nahri felt a yearning, intimate closeness with her mother, their lives almost mirrored. The lonely little girl set apart in the human world by magic, who’d been crushed in Daevabad. The woman who’d fought tooth and nail to get back to her homeland with an infant still at her breast. Nahri was a survivor, but she didn’t think even she had as much strength as her mother.
I am as much Duriya as I am Rustam. Nahri had spent so much of her life focused on her Nahid heritage, and yet it was her mother, the smooth-talking shafit fighter who’d outwitted Manizheh in death to protect her child, whom Nahri had more in common with.
It gave her more peace than she would have imagined possible.
“We have each other now,” Nahri said finally, still holding her grandfather’s hand. “And we’ll honor her memory.”
For Nahri was going to bring forth a world in which her mother would have been free.
EPILOGUE
Six months after she first had tea with her grandfather, Nahri lounged on the shedu throne.
She sighed, pressing her back against the hammered gold and trailing her fingers over the priceless gems making up the wings and rising sun. The cushion was wondrously plump, and Nahri reclined, taking full enjoyment of the ludicrously expensive throne.
She tossed an apricot to Mishmish. The shedu, who seemed content to stay in Daevabad and follow her around instead of returning to the peris, caught it easily, swallowing the fruit in one gulp before returning to the nest he’d made by tearing up the carpet.
The doors to the throne room opened, revealing a man so bowed down with scrolls his tall frame was bent as he entered.
Nahri raised a palm. “Bow before me, djinn peasant. Hand over your gold, or I shall take your tongue.”
Ali offered his scrolls. “Would you accept extensively detailed notes on the condition of the Treasury instead?”
“No, Ali. No one would. Everything about that sounds miserable.”
“Alas.” He nodded at the throne as he approached. “Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts.”
“If I was having second thoughts, I would have kicked you out of my house last night and gotten a proper amount of sleep instead of letting you yammer on about tax rates.”
“Blame your grandfather’s tea,” he replied, setting down his scrolls and holding out his hand to help her down. Workers had been spending the past week starting to carefully crate up the throne so it could be taken to the Grand Temple and put on display. “It’s like drinking lightning. I can’t sleep for hours.”
“I would never blame anything on him. He’s a sweet old man who fills my house and the hospital with pastries at all hours of the day. There is a place reserved for him in Paradise.”
“Undoubtedly.” Ali smiled. “Are you coming down?”
Nahri stroked the jeweled arms a final time. “Yes. I just had to sit here at least once.” She took his hand, clambering over the crate.
“Couldn’t you sit on it at the Temple?”
“It’s going to be mobbed by children day and night. Seems undignified to fight them for a seat.”
She swung down, letting Ali catch her. Nahri didn’t really need the help, but he looked rather dashing in a billowing silver-dark robe, and she allowed herself to enjoy the flutter in her stomach at the brief press of his hands before locking it down. She was getting better at doing so: allowing herself to savor pockets of happiness instead of worrying they’d be ripped away. Tea with her grandfather as he told stories about her mother’s childhood. Venting over difficult patients with Subha and Jamshid and cracking horribly grim and inappropriate jokes. Playing the addictive human card game Fiza had introduced her and Razu to—with which the former pirate was steadily enriching herself at their expense.
Ali set her down and picked his scrolls back up. “Nervous?”
“A bit,” Nahri admitted as they walked. “I’m the more ‘conning everyone into compliance’ than ‘actually making genuine alliances and compromises’ type.”
“Bah, it’s just like bargaining in the bazaar. But with actual life-and-death consequences. As long as we’re diplomatic and patient, it will be fine, God willing. After all, what is it they say in Divasti?” he asked, reciting a very mangled and rather filthy verse in her language.
Nahri stopped, scandalized. “What did you say?”
“‘A pleasant voice brings a snake out of its hole,’” Ali repeated, this time in Djinnistani. “Jamshid taught it to me.” Nahri covered her mouth, failing to suppress a laugh. “Wait, why?”
She tried to be merciful. “That’s not the exact way we say that phrase. The word he told you was ‘snake.’ There’s another, more common meaning. For a man’s, well …”
“Oh no.” Ali looked horrified. “Nahri, I’ve been saying that to the Daeva delegates. I said it to the priests.”
“Consider it a creative way to break the ice?” Ali groaned, and Nahri took his arm. “Next time, make sure you clear with me in advance any Divasti phrases Jamshid teaches you. Though I’m sure he and Muntadhir got quite the kick out of it.”
“I am going to command all the liquid in the pipes running under their house to back up.”
“Let me find a plumber who will give us a cut of the repair costs, and I’ll help you.”
Ali grinned. “Partners?”
They were at the
