The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy #1) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,110

as an ifrit slave?”

“That’s exactly what I mean to say.”

The king pressed his fingers together, looking down his long nose. “Forgive me for speaking plainly, but I’ve known hardened warriors driven to gibbering madness by less than three centuries of slavery. What you’re suggesting . . . no man could survive it.”

What? Ghassan’s dark words sent ice flooding into her veins. Dara’s life as a slave was the one thing she hadn’t pressed him on; he didn’t want to talk about it, and she didn’t want to think about the bloody memories she’d been forced to relive alongside him.

“I didn’t say I survived it,” Dara corrected, his voice curt. “I remember almost nothing of my time as a slave. It’s difficult to be driven insane by memories you don’t have.”

“Convenient,” Muntadhir muttered.

“Quite,” Dara shot back. “For surely a—what did you say, a gibbering madman?—would have little patience for all this.”

“And your life before you were a slave?”

Nahri startled at the sound of a new voice. The younger prince, she realized; Alizayd, the one she’d mistaken for a guard.

“Do you remember the war, Afshin?” he asked, in one of the coldest voices Nahri had ever heard. “The villages in Manzadar and Bayt Qadr?” Alizayd stared at Dara with open hostility, with a hatred that rivaled how Dara himself had looked upon the ifrit. “Do you remember Qui-zi?”

At her side, Dara tensed. “I remember what your namesake did to my city when he took it.”

“And we’ll leave it at that,” Ghassan cut in, throwing his youngest son a warning look. “The war is over, and our peoples are at peace. A thing you must have known, Afshin, to willingly bring a Nahid here.”

“I assumed it was the safest place for her,” Dara said coolly. “Until I arrived to find an armed mob of shafit preparing to sack the Daeva Quarter.”

“An internal matter,” Ghassan assured him. “Believe me, your people were never in any danger. Those arrested today will be thrown in the lake by week’s end.”

Dara snorted, but the king remained impassive. Impressively so—Nahri sensed it took a lot to rattle Ghassan al Qahtani. She was not sure whether or not to be pleased by such a thing but decided to match his frankness. “What do you want?”

He smiled—a true smile. “Loyalty. Pledge yourselves to me and swear to preserve the peace between our tribes.”

“And in return?” Nahri asked, before Dara could speak.

“I will declare you Banu Manizheh’s pureblooded daughter. Shafit appearance or not, none in Daevabad will dare question your origin once I speak on such a thing. You’ll have a home in the palace—your every material desire granted—and take your rightful place as Banu Nahida.” The king inclined his head toward Dara. “I will formally pardon your Afshin and grant him a pension and position commensurate with his rank. He may even continue to serve you should you wish.”

Nahri checked her surprise. She could not imagine a better offer. Which of course made her distrust it. He was essentially asking for nothing, in return for giving her everything she could imagine wanting.

Dara dropped his voice. “It’s a trick,” he warned in Divasti. “You will no sooner bend the knee to that sand fly than he will ask some—”

“The sand fly speaks perfect Divasti,” Ghassan interrupted. “And does not require the bending of any knees. I am Geziri. My people don’t share your tribe’s love for overinflated ceremony. For me, your word is sufficient.”

Nahri hesitated. She glanced again at the soldiers behind them. She and Dara were thoroughly outnumbered by the Royal Guard—not to mention the young prince clearly itching for a fight. However abhorrent the thought was to Dara, this was Ghassan’s city.

And Nahri hadn’t survived this long without learning to recognize when she was outmatched. “You have my word,” she said.

“Excellent. May God strike us both down if we break it.” Nahri flinched, but Ghassan only smiled. “And now that we have that unpleasantness behind us, may I be honest? You both look terrible. Banu Nahida, there appears to be a journey’s worth of blood on your clothes alone.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted. “It’s not all mine.”

Kaveh blanched, but the king laughed. “I do believe I am going to like you, Banu Nahri.” He studied her for another moment. “You said you were from the country of the Nile?”

“Yes.”

“Tatakallam arabi?”

The king’s Arabic was rough but comprehensible. Surprised, she nonetheless replied, “Of course.”

“I thought so. It is one of our liturgical languages.” Ghassan paused, looking thoughtful. “My Alizayd is a rather