“I’ll kill you,” she warned under her breath, glaring at the ocean. Maybe it was time she leaned into the fire and brimstone part of her Nahid heritage. “Come for him again, and I’ll kill you all.”
“Well, isn’t that just the kind of level headedness I like to hear from people on my ship.” Nahri glanced up to see Fiza perched on the roof of the tiny cabin, a smoking pipe in hand. “How’s your lover?”
“He’s not my lover,” Nahri insisted, hating the heat in her voice. “Were you spying on us?”
“It’s not spying if it’s my ship.” Fiza grinned. “My ship. What a glorious turn of phrase.”
“Better hope the crew is more loyal to you than it was to al Mudhib.”
“I could make it my life’s goal, and I’d still never be as much of a bastard as al Mudhib, so I expect I’ll be all right. But yes, I am spying on you, so why don’t you make things easier and join me up here where it will be harder for you to dodge my questions.”
You have no idea how capable I am of dodging questions. “I have to prepare some medicine for Ali.”
“If he hasn’t died yet, he can wait a few more minutes.”
Nahri glowered but climbed up. Save for the seaweed carpet of death, the top of the sandship offered a stunning view. The sails might not have shimmered with magic, but the massive canopies of amber and gold were beautiful against the wind. To her far right, the coast was a ribbon of pearly white beaches and lush green palms.
Nahri lifted her face to the sun’s heat. “This is nice.”
“It is,” Fiza agreed pleasantly. “I enjoy flying over the desert, but there’s something special about the sea. How fortunate we are to be in the company of someone who can compel it to race up a creek and seize a boat.”
“Maybe it was a lucky high tide.”
“Luck is a fairy tale we use to make people feel better about the world being unfair as shit. Is he dangerous?”
“Why would you ask that?”
Fiza gave her a pointed look. “Because I’ve sailed with Ayaanle and know they’ve got legends about the demons that live in the waters of this land, legends that rarely end happily.”
“The creative yarns of bored sailors.”
“Daeva, I am enjoying your company more than I imagined I would someone raised to despise my blood, but if you avoid my question again, I’m going to throw you overboard. Which, you might remember, your prince tried to do to himself last night until you knocked him out with an oar. So I’ll ask again: is he dangerous?”
I don’t know. Ali’s haunted confession and doomed eyes came back to her, and this time, there was no denying the rush of tenderness and worry that stole into Nahri’s heart.
She skirted the question. “He’s not dangerous. Not to you and your crew. He’s given you his word about Shefala, and he won’t go back on that. He’s a good man.”
“A good man who’s sworn to the marid?” Fiza gave Nahri a skeptical look. “Sailor, remember? I know the old stories about people making blood sacrifices to them in exchange for power. There’s little room for good men in those tales.”
“Ali would never do something like that,” Nahri insisted. “And you don’t need to worry about it either way. Just get us to Shefala, and then you can take your gold and wash your hands of us.”
“Forgetting something?” Fiza dragged down her shirt collar, revealing the iron snake beneath her skin. “You won’t be rid of us that quickly. I want this out.”
The sight of the brand made Nahri shudder. “Did you really choose to have that put it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” she couldn’t help but ask.
“Because crewing on a sandship for a decade sounded better than where I was.”
“Daevabad?”
Fiza shook her head. “No. I wasn’t living in Daevabad by then. I was stolen from the city when I was a kid.”
Nahri started. “Stolen?”
“Yes, stolen. And you needn’t sound so surprised. Maybe in the palace, you’re ignorant of it, but it happens to shafit all the time. Purebloods kidnap babies to pass off as their own kids. They grab older ones, claiming to be relatives and then forcing them into servitude. Most stay in Daevabad. I was … an exception. For reasons that are my own.”
Nahri found herself struggling for words. She had known these things happened in Daevabad, but hearing it out of the mouth of a woman who’d chosen to have iron put in her neck as an alternative to a worse fate was a stark slap of reality.
“I’m sorry, Fiza,” she said finally. “Truly.”
“So am I.” Fiza shrugged. “So were they, eventually. They ran afoul of al Mudhib’s crew, and I turned on them the first moment I could.”
She’d pulled her collar back up, but Nahri found herself still staring at Fiza’s throat. “I’ll get that brand out of you, I promise. I’ll find a way, magic or not.” She hesitated. “And if Ali and I make it to Daevabad, you’re welcome to come with us. If you have family—”
Fiza flinched. “I don’t know about that yet.” She drew her knees up to her chest, looking younger. “But I don’t need some Nahid’s pity. I know what your people think about ‘dirt-bloods.’”
“It’s not what I think.”
“Why? Because you grew up in the human world? Because you’re supposedly cursed to look like us?” Fiza snorted, taking a drag of her pipe. “I’ve heard your story.”
Nahri’s throat was suddenly thick. “You don’t know my story.”
“Ah, yes. Poor little rich girl. Plucked off the streets by the Scourge and taken to Daevabad. What was harder, becoming a princess or marrying a handsome emir?”
“I’m not a princess, I’m a Nahid healer,” Nahri snapped. “And a shafit, for that matter.”
Fiza dropped her pipe. It fell off the roof, rolling down the deck.
She didn’t seem to notice. “Bullshit. The Daevas don’t go near humans.”
“Why in the name of God would I lie about something like that?”
