Dara forced himself to relax. In the hush of the room, he would swear he heard slumbered breathing.
Kartir let him go. “This is where I brought Banu Nahri on her first day. She came here afterward—not infrequently. She has a good heart. I pray to the Creator that she’s safe wherever she is.” He paused. “I did not ever think to see the two of you on opposite sides.”
Nor did I. Dara leaned against the door frame. “I am not capable of fixing this,” he said. “I am not a prophet, not a priest. I am a murderer.”
“Again with the ‘I,’” Kartir rebuked him. “Tell me, Darayavahoush, what good will you be doing, burning in this hellfire you’re aching to join? Will that help your victims? You have been blessed; you have been granted the power, the privilege, the time—all these centuries you don’t want—to fix things. And when you finally do face our Creator, do you want to say you spent them wallowing in guilt?” Kartir’s expression grew fierce. “Or would you rather say you spent every extra breath fighting for a more just world?”
“This is an easy thing to preach from the Temple. You do not see the threats we do from the palace or bear the responsibilities of protecting tens of thousands of frightened people ready to tear one another apart.”
“You’re right. I don’t. But neither do you,” Kartir countered. “Not alone. If Manizheh wants to rule Daevabad, she should be listening to Daevabad—not just the select Daevas who agree with her. She needs to make peace with the djinn and be seen as a unifier, as someone capable of mercy and reason.”
Dara rubbed his temples, his own slave ring knocking against his skull. It made his stomach churn, recalling the moment he’d considering removing it to kill himself in the hospital.
But he’d survived, once more against the odds.
Could he change? Could Manizheh? Because heartbreakingly, Dara did see hints of the leader she might have been if Ghassan had not brutalized her. She was exceedingly brilliant, measured, level headed, and thoughtful. It was not her powers or name alone that had led people to follow her in the wilderness.
But it would not be easy to sway her.
It will be even harder to sway the djinn. He felt his face fall. “I would not even know where to start with the djinn. Which of them would possibly want to deal with, let alone trust, us?”
Kartir gave him an even look. “If I recall, you have a djinn with plenty of experience navigating tribal politics currently languishing in the dungeon.”
Dara instantly scowled. “Muntadhir would never work with us. He would happily see the entire palace—himself included—crumble into the lake if it meant Manizheh and I went down with it.”
“You don’t know that. Muntadhir has his weaknesses, yes, but I always got the impression he truly cared about Daevabad and had a genuine affection for our tribe. And it might look good for you to suggest such an outreach,” Kartir added. “Pragmatic and careful. If you want Banu Manizheh to listen to you, you must show that your opinions are worth their weight.”
“If I let the emir out of his chains, he is going to try to kill me.”
Kartir clapped him on the back. “A blessing, then, that accomplishing such a feat is so difficult.”
17
NAHRI
It really was beautiful.
Nahri stared at the ocean. It was the first time she’d ever seen the sea, and it was dazzling, painted so beautifully with the rich colors of approaching dawn that it looked as though the Creator had personally blessed it, the water stretching to meet a hazy horizon. A gull cried as gentle waves caressed the soft beach, the surf rushing forward and pulling back in a steadying, hypnotizing motion.
“Please say something.”
It was the second time Ali had begged her to speak since she’d woken to his stammered explanations of sunken boats and mysterious marid. He was a wreck at her side, reduced to only a ragged waist cloth and his weapons belt, mud clinging to his skin and beard. She imagined she looked the same, her dress ruined and scratches covering her skin. Numb, Nahri traced spirals in the sand, disturbing a line of shells and drying seagrass.
“Nahri—”
“Is any of our food left? The coins I exchanged the last gems for?” Her voice came out in a scratchy whisper, her throat smarting from the muddy river water that had poured down it and just as painfully been forced back up.
Ali hesitated. There was worry in that pause, a man wondering how to break bad news.
“I’m sorry,” he said haltingly. “The boat sank so fast. By the time I got you out of the river, everything that wasn’t already gone was on fire. The marid said it would be safer if we left immediately. He said if Qandisha returned with Darayavahoush, he couldn’t protect us.”
Nahri twitched at Dara’s name. She could still taste the Nile on her tongue and remember with wrenching clarity the moment she’d lost the battle to keep her mouth shut. How poetic, both of them drowned by the same ifrit.
Both of them dragged back to life and forced to fight anew.
A salty breeze blew a lock of messy hair across her face. The ocean wind and swaying palms, the rise and fall of the waves like a slumbering liquid behemoth, it was splendid beyond words, as though she and Ali had actually died last night and been whisked away to a sliver of Paradise. A shame they hadn’t. Maybe in Paradise, Nahri would have been allowed to finally rest.
“It’ll be okay,” Ali rushed to say, clearly trying to make her feel better. “There are coconuts if you’re thirsty. I didn’t see anything else to eat, but Sobek said if
