“Resting.” Manizheh stepped behind him and then gasped at the sight of his wound. “Did they shoot you?”
“With an iron bullet. Else I would have returned sooner.”
There was a long moment of silence. “I see.” She pressed a soaking compress to his skin, and Dara flinched at the cool liquid. “I’ll clean and stitch it. Hopefully your magic will allow you to recover more thoroughly.”
He said nothing, and she set to work. Manizheh was as precise and professional as always, which made it harder. Had she been openly mad or treated him with rough impatience, it would have been easier to stay angry. But she was gentle and careful as she tended his wound, healer first.
“I am sorry,” Dara finally apologized as she tied off a stitch. “I had to get Irtemiz out of there, but I did not realize the extent of their weapons.”
Manizheh pierced his skin once more with her needle and pulled the wound closed. “I’m certain you didn’t.” She laid a bandage over the stitches. “Lift your arm so I can wrap this in place.”
Dara obeyed, trying to catch her eye as she wound a length of gauze around his shoulder and torso. “It will not happen again,” he added.
“No, it won’t.” Manizheh stepped back. “Confine yourself to your quarters for at least three days. No heavy lifting, no training, and absolutely no archery. Rest.”
“Understood,” Dara said, trying for more deference. “I will have Noshrad take over in my place during that time.”
“Is he your best?”
Dara nodded. “He has a half century on his fellows, and they respect him. Irtemiz and Gushtap are the better warriors, but Noshrad is a more experienced leader and can stand in for me at court.”
“Then he will be doing that from today on.”
“You mean, until I recover?”
Manizheh leveled her gaze on him. “No, I mean from today on. You are my Afshin and you will continue to lead my army, but I will require neither your council nor your presence at court.”
Dara stared at her in shock. “Banu Manizheh—”
She held up a hand. “You disobeyed a direct order, put your life—and thus the lives of all your fellow Daevas—at risk, and showed our enemy the best way to take you down. I have been willing to indulge your temper because I care for you, Afshin, and I know how much you’ve suffered, but I won’t abide disloyalty. I want to trust you, I do,” she added, a flicker of emotion in her eyes. “But if I can’t, I need to find other ways to keep our city safe.”
He opened and closed his mouth, struggling for a response. “I have only ever tried to serve my people.”
“That’s just it, Afshin. I don’t need you to serve the Daevas. I need you to serve me so that I may lead the Daevas. I have plenty of councilors, and I don’t need another arguing voice. I need someone to carry out my commands.”
“You need a weapon.” This time there was no keeping the bitterness from his voice.
“There is honor in being a weapon. Your family believed that once.” She picked up her tray and began putting away her supplies. “Did you at least learn anything useful nearly getting yourself killed?”
The blunt question took him aback, as did the immediate answer rising to his mind. Dara had indeed learned something useful—he’d learned where Zaynab al Qahtani was hiding. And had he succeeded in capturing her, he knew Manizheh would have greeted him with gratitude and praise rather than a demotion.
He started to reply … and then Razu’s words returned to him.
What would happen to the hospital he’d already ravaged if Manizheh learned the princess was there? Dara suddenly envisioned her ordering the ifrit to charge in, Aeshma and Vizaresh laughing as they slaughtered women and children and hunted down Elashia and Razu.
Zaynab has probably already fled. The princess was clearly no fool and it would have been suicidal to stay in a place her enemies had spotted her.
“No,” Dara replied, the deception settling over him. It was different from flouting Manizheh’s orders to rescue Irtemiz. This was an open lie, the kind of treason that in another life he might have had his tongue plucked out for. “I saw nothing.”
Manizheh looked at him for a very long moment. “That’s unfortunate.” She turned for the door. “Rest, Afshin. We wouldn’t want anything else to happen to you.”
PART TWO
14
NAHRI
Nahri teased aside the tissue-thin pomegranate skin with her scalpel, revealing a section of ruby clusters. Holding the splayed fruit between her knees, she set down the scalpel and picked up her needle. She pierced the skin, drawing a section of thread through the rind to stitch it in place. She’d piled her hair into a bun on the top of her head, and the sun beat on the back of her neck, pleasantly warm.
It was an idyllic scene. They’d pulled the boat alongside a jumble of ruins, and Nahri sat on a downed column carved with pictograms that jutted out of the water. Ali was gone, swimming in the river, and so Nahri was alone with her instruments and the quiet. A breeze played over her face, smelling of wildflowers, and above, birds twittered sweetly as they built a nest in the remains of the monument’s pockmarked ceiling.
She finished another stitch, admiring the neat row she’d made so far. The pomegranate tissue was even more delicate than flesh, and yet her sutures were perfect.
Nahri clearly wasn’t the only one who thought so.
“That looks very impressive,” enthused a male voice just past her ear.
Nahri jumped, letting out a yelp of surprise as she nearly stabbed herself with the needle. “Ali, for the love of God—I thought you were swimming!”
“I was.” Ali nodded to where his footprints still gleamed wetly across the stone. “I am done.”
“Then can you
