Nahri shrugged. “Five? Six? I don’t really know. I had issues with speech—all the languages in my head.” Nostalgia swept her. “The little river girl, they called me.”
“Bint el nahr.” They’d been switching between Djinnistani and Arabic, but he said the words in Arabic, glancing up at her. “Nahri.”
“Nahri,” she repeated. “One of the few things I could decide for myself. Everyone was always trying to stick proper names on me. Never fit. I’ve always liked choosing my own path.”
“That must have been hard in Daevabad.”
A half-dozen sarcastic responses hovered at her lips. But the devastation still felt too close. “Yes,” she said simply.
Ali was silent for a long moment before speaking again. “Can I ask you something?”
“That depends on what it is.”
He looked at her again. Creator, it was hard to hold his gaze. Ali had always been an open book, and the achingly raw grief in his bloodshot eyes was nothing like the reckless, know-it-all prince she’d unwittingly befriended. “Were you ever happy there? In Daevabad, I mean.”
Nahri sucked in her breath, not expecting that question. “I … yes,” she replied, realizing it was the truth as she said it. “Sometimes. I liked being a Nahid healer. I liked the purpose it gave me, the respect. I liked being part of the Daevas and being able to fill my mind with books and new skills rather than fretting over where to find my next meal.” She paused, her throat hitching. “I liked the hospital a lot. It made me feel hopeful for the first time. I think …” She dropped her gaze. “I think I would have been happy working there.”
“Until my father found a way to crush it.”
“Yes, admittedly, the constant fear your father would murder someone I loved and being forced to marry a man who hated me were less than ideal.” She stared at her hands. “But I’ve got a lot of experience finding slivers of light to cherish when life gets more miserable than usual.”
“You shouldn’t have to.” Ali sighed. “My Divasti is, well, pretty awful, but I heard some of what Manizheh was saying to you that night. She wanted you to join them, didn’t she?”
Nahri hesitated, wondering how to respond. Ali was a Qahtani, she was a Nahid, and their peoples were at war. It seemed foolish to point out that she had a foot in each camp.
But right now, Ali didn’t look like her enemy. He looked like a man grieving for his dead, like the optimist she knew had desperately wanted a better world for all of them—and then had seen his hopes destroyed.
Nahri could relate. “Yes, Manizheh wanted me to join them.” Alone by the river, she’d removed her veil, and she worried it between her hands now. “Dara too.” Her voice, which had been steady, trembled at Dara’s name. “He said he was sorry, that I was supposed to be in the infirmary with Nisreen and … oh. Oh.”
“What?” Ali immediately moved closer, sounding worried. “What is it?”
But Nahri couldn’t speak. I was supposed to be with Nisreen the night of the attack. Nisreen’s comments about future training, her determined assistance in preventing Nahri from having a child with Muntadhir …
Just get through Navasatem, Nisreen had urged their last night together, as they drank soma and made peace after months of estrangement. I promise you, things are going to be very different soon.
Nisreen had known about Manizheh.
The mentor who’d been like a mother, who’d died in Nahri’s arms, had known. Along with Kaveh. Dara. Who else among the Daevas, among the people Nahri had thought she could trust, had quietly plotted the slaughter of the djinn they lived among? Who else had let Nahri dream, knowing it was just that—a dream?
“Nahri?” Ali started to reach for her shoulder and then stopped. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head. She felt like she was going to throw up. “I think Nisreen knew about Manizheh.”
“Nisreen?” Ali’s eyes widened. “So, if Nisreen knew, and Kaveh knew, you don’t think Jamshid—”
“No.” But Jamshid … her brother’s name was another knife through her heart, one Nahri did not feel remotely capable of extracting right now. “Jamshid would never have taken part in such a thing. I don’t think either of us was supposed to be involved. I guess they figured if they swept in, killed your father, seized the throne, and disposed of the bloody evidence, we’d just be happy to be saved.” The words were bitter in her mouth.
Ali looked sick. “Every time I think there’s no lower our world can sink, we all plunge deeper.”
“Some of us rise,” she countered. “What Muntadhir did … that was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen.”
“It was brave, wasn’t it?” Ali hastily wiped his eyes, doing a poor job of hiding his tears. “I can’t stop thinking about him, Nahri. I feel like I’m losing my mind. I can’t stop wondering how long it took, how much pain he was in, if he blamed me at the end—”
“Don’t. Ali, don’t do that. There’s no way Muntadhir blamed you, and he wouldn’t want you killing yourself thinking that.”
Ali was shaking. “It should have been me. I still don’t understand what happened, why I couldn’t fight Darayavahoush …”
Another subject Nahri wasn’t ready to discuss. “I can’t—I can’t talk about him right now. Please.”
Ali blinked at her, his eyes wet and uncertain. He managed a nod. “All right.”
But the silence that stretched between them didn’t last long. Because no matter how much Nahri didn’t want to talk about Dara, she remembered the rage of the woman who commanded him, and right now Nahri and Ali were powerless.
“Have you had any luck lifting the seal?” she asked, trying to keep the hope from her voice.
Ali’s expression was not inspiring. “No. The ring has mostly stopped feeling like it’s going to explode in my heart, but I can’t detect anything of its magic.”
“Muntadhir said it might take a couple of days.”
“It’s been a couple
