But there was no moving forward without addressing what had gone so terribly wrong in the past.
“When I first woke up after the marid possessed me, I was with my father.” Ali’s heart twisted with the memory, for it had been one of the few times in his life Ghassan had been a father first, fiercely protective and unusually gentle as he assured Ali that everything would be okay. “He was the one to suggest that the marid had possessed me. I didn’t believe him. I said the marid were gone, that they hadn’t been seen for thousands of years. He told me that I was wrong. That the marid had been seen—they’d been seen at the side of Zaydi al Qahtani’s Ayaanle ally during the invasion of Daevabad.”
Nahri blinked. “Zaydi al Qahtani worked with the marid? Are you sure? Because I’ve never heard of anything like that, and let me tell you, you have no idea how much Daeva history I’ve had crammed down my throat in the past few years.”
Ali forgot sometimes that for all Nahri’s cleverness, she was still fairly new to their world. “It wouldn’t be in any Daeva history books, Nahri. No matter how much our tribes bicker and war, we’re supposed to be fire-bloods first. To betray that, to use the marid against each other, that would be a scandal. One my ancestors wouldn’t risk. Zaydi al Qahtani broke the order that had ruled our world for centuries. It would have to look as … clean, as noble as possible.”
Nahri stared at him, some of the friendliness going out of her eyes. “Ah.”
And just like that, he felt the old divide between them, between their families and their peoples, rise up.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I—”
“Stop.” Nahri didn’t sound angry, merely tired. “Just stop. If you and I have to apologize for everything our families did to each other, we’ll never get off this boat. And you might have forgotten, but believe me when I say that I know how the old Nahid Council felt about shafit. How many Daevas still feel.”
Another topic they’d been avoiding. “Is it true what your mother said, then?” Ali ventured. “About you being shafit?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Yes. But we’re not talking about my secrets today. So the marid helped Zaydi overthrow the Nahid Council. Did your father say anything else?”
“Not much. He said until that night he thought it was just a legend to explain the warning Qahtani kings passed to their emirs.”
“What warning?”
“Don’t cross the Ayaanle.”
“That’s the warning? I thought your tribes were allies!”
“We are … sometimes,” Ali said, thinking back to the various coups, religious revolutions, and tax delays his relatives in Ta Ntry had instigated. “But it wasn’t meant as a threat. Zaydi’s Ayaanle ally apparently paid a terrible price for his connection to the marid. We were never to betray their people.”
“What price?”
“I don’t know. My mother caught me out about the marid when I first returned to Daevabad and convinced Ustadh Issa to help us try and learn more. But neither of them seemed to know anything about the marid being involved in the war, and I wasn’t inclined to tell them. Instead, Issa was looking into an old family connection my mother believed we had with the marid.”
Nahri nodded slowly. “That’s right, people say the Ayaanle worshipped the marid centuries ago, don’t they?”
“A lie,” Ali replied, trying to keep the defensiveness from his voice. “Issa told me that the marid used to trick people into making ghastly pacts, convincing them to kill innocents for riches and give up their life’s blood. I wouldn’t call that worship.”
“Sounds like just the kind of creatures you should take as military allies.” Nahri leaned back on her cushion again. “But what I don’t understand is why. Why are a bunch of overpowered water demons so determined to come after us? To trick people in Ta Ntry and overthrow the Nahid Council? To kill Dara?”
“If I had to guess, I don’t think they were as eager to hand over their sacred lake and serve Anahid as Daeva legend would suggest.”
“And revenge was handing their sacred lake over to a different group of fire-bloods?” Nahri groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Creator, every time I think I’ve found the bottom in all of this, I get some new story of murder and vengeance.” She sighed, pushing back the midnight locks that had fallen in her face. “Any more gruesome family secrets?”
She’d asked it mockingly—as if Nahri didn’t think Ali had anything else equally ghastly—and he’d been so busy trying to not follow the movement of her fingers through her hair that the question threw him. “No. I mean, yes. There’s … well, there’s a crypt beneath the palace.”
“A crypt?”
“Yes.”
Nahri stared at him. “Who’s in the crypt, Ali?”
“Your relatives,” he confessed softly. “All the Nahids who’ve died since the war.”
Genuine shock swept her face. “That’s not possible. We keep their ashes in our shrines.”
“I don’t know whose ashes are in your shrines, but I’ve seen the bodies myself.”
“Why? Why has your family been hoarding the bodies of my ancestors in some crypt beneath the palace?”
“I don’t know. I got the impression no one does anymore. The crypt looks ancient, and there are all sorts of wild stories about the earliest Nahids. Legends claiming they could resurrect the dead, trade bodies. Maybe …” Heat crept up his neck in shame. “Maybe it made my relatives rest easier.”
Nahri glared at him. “Oh, how reassuring for them.”
Ali dropped his gaze. This conversation was about to get so much worse. “Nahri, that’s not all that’s in the crypt. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but Darayavahoush’s relic is also down there.”
She sat up so fast that she rocked the boat. “Excuse me?”
“His relic,” Ali repeated, feeling sick. “What we think is his relic. And if it’s truly his, it’s probably the one he was wearing when he was killed
