The corridor ended in a pair of low, grimy doors, the lintel barely coming to his shoulders. Lifting his handful of flames, Dara knelt to examine the doors. There were no knobs or pulls, but he could make out the glimmer of a round copper panel about the size of his hand.
A blood seal. The Geziris were fond of them. Perhaps it hadn’t been Nahids who’d built this mysterious place, but rather Qahtanis.
He kicked the doors in. The diminutive entrance was deceptive, for Dara could tell the moment he entered that the chamber was immense, swallowing his handful of flames in gloom. An unpleasant tang hung in the air, and Dara wrinkled his nose as he sent his flames spinning out in dozens of fiery balls. They danced along the ceiling, illumination spreading in uneven waves.
His eyes went wide. “Creator have mercy,” he whispered.
The cavern was full of the dead.
Elaborate stone sarcophagi and crude wooden boxes. Coffins that could have fit four and tiny ones meant for children. Some looked well preserved while others were crumbling into dust, revealing blackened shards of bone.
Dara’s stomach churned. All djinn and Daeva burned their dead within days of their passing, the one tradition they all still held from their earliest ancestors. They were creatures of fire, meant to return to the flames which birthed them. What reason could the Qahtanis possibly have had for building some secret crypt? Was this a sign of forbidden magic, the kind of blood enchantments the ifrit practiced?
Leave. Leave this place now and seal it up. Dara was suddenly, terribly certain that whatever was here, it was meant to stay buried.
But part of him was still the Afshin first, unable to walk away from a secret his enemies had clearly tried to hide.
His dread growing, Dara approached a low desk beside a rack of lead-sealed scrolls. The scrolls themselves got him nowhere—Dara couldn’t read his own language, let alone Geziriyya. Tossing a scroll aside, he knelt to examine the desk, discovering a row of small drawers. He jiggled one free, snapping the soft wooden runner.
Inside was a single item: a smooth copper box. Dara picked it up with a frown, noticing the faint etchings of another blood seal, broken now as all djinn magic was.
Dara held the box for a long moment, his heart racing. And then he opened it.
It took a moment for his mind and his eyes to meet. For the battered brass amulet—the kind his tribe wore to preserve its relics—to register as personally familiar. For Dara to remember the dent in one side was from a dagger strike, the scratches from a simurgh’s talons.
To remember ripping this very same amulet from his neck fourteen hundred years ago when he realized he was not going to escape the ifrit who’d come for him on a moon-lit, blood-drenched battlefield.
Dara dropped the box. It fell softly upon the dank earth, and every conjured flame flickered out.
MUNTADHIR STUMBLED, FALLING TO HIS KNEES BEFORE Dara hauled him back up by his collar. Manizheh and Kaveh followed at their heels, tense and silent. They’d exchanged few words since Dara had reappeared in the throne room as the party wound down, covered in dust and striding for Muntadhir as if there was no one else in the world. They hadn’t needed to say much.
The way Muntadhir’s face drained of color upon hearing the word “crypt” was enough.
The emir hadn’t spoken either, breathing too fast and too loud as Dara dragged him through the musty passageway. They’d reached the end now, and Dara shoved him through the doors, flinging fire into the torches lining the walls.
“Explain,” he demanded.
Manizheh entered, Kaveh at her side.
The grand wazir gasped, recoiling from the nearest tomb. “Are these bodies?”
“Ask the emir.” Dara threw one of the scrolls at Muntadhir’s feet. “These records are in Geziriyya. And while we’re at it”—he lifted his relic in the air, tempted to smash it into the other man’s skull—“I’d like to know how my relic ended up in Zaydi al Qahtani’s possession.”
“What?” Manizheh strode across the room. She snatched the amulet from Dara’s hand.
A thousand emotions seemed to pass over her face, her expression settling on anguish. “They had it,” she whispered. “All this time, all those years …”
“Talk, al Qahtani,” Dara demanded. “What do you know of this?”
Muntadhir was trembling. “No more than you.” When Dara snarled, he dropped to his knees again. “I swear to God! Look around; this place is older than my father. Than his father. We had nothing to do with it. I don’t know how my ancestors got your relic!”
“I can imagine how.” Dara clenched his fists, trying to contain the fire aching to break free. “Qandisha knew where I was. She knew my name. Zaydi must have brokered a deal with them. The coward knew he couldn’t defeat me on the battlefield, so he sold me out to the ifrit.”
The emir was still staring at him, despair and doom written into his face as if Muntadhir knew all too well how this was going to end for him. And still a hint of defiance blazed in his broken voice. “I’m glad he did.”
Kaveh rushed between them, putting himself in front of Muntadhir before Dara could charge. “No,” he warned. “Calm yourself, Afshin.”
“Calm myself? They sold me into slavery!”
“You don’t know that.” Kaveh put a hand on his shoulder. “Look around. He’s not lying about the age of this place. And even if Zaydi did …” His voice lowered. “It wasn’t Muntadhir. He’s proving useful—you yourself said so.”
Manizheh hadn’t spoken again, instead walking into the forest of coffins and sarcophagi. She ran her fingers over a dusty stone slab. “These are Nahids, aren’t they?”
Dara froze, shocked at the suggestion, but Muntadhir’s expression was already crumbling.
“Yes,” he whispered.
She stroked the tomb, as though touching the arm of a loved one. “All of us?”
Shame swept over Muntadhir’s face. “From what my father knew—yes. Since the war.”
“I see.” Grief edged her voice.
