The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy #1) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,168

heal the king’s son alone in my bedroom!”

“I think you should try. He was most adamant, and Banu Nahida . . .” Jamshid glanced at the unconscious prince and then lowered his voice. “When a Qahtani gives an order in Daevabad . . . you obey.” They’d switched to Divasti without her noticing, and the dark words in her native tongue sent a chill through her veins.

Nahri took the bloody knife and brought it close to her face. Iron, though she smelled nothing that would indicate poison. She touched the blade. It didn’t spark, burst into flames, or evidence any sort of godforsaken magical malice. “Do you know if this is cursed?”

Jamshid shook his head. “I doubt it. The man who attacked him was shafit.”

Shafit? Nahri stayed her curiosity, her attention focused on Ali. If it’s a normal injury, it shouldn’t matter that he’s a djinn. You’ve healed wounds like this in the past.

She knelt at Ali’s side. “Help me get his shirt off. I need to examine him.”

Ali’s tunic was so badly destroyed that it was small effort to finish ripping it open. She could see three jagged wounds, including one that seemed to go all the way through to his back. She pressed her palms against the largest one and closed her eyes. She thought back to how she’d saved Dara and tried to do the same, willing Ali to heal and imagining the skin healthy and whole.

She braced herself for visions, but none came. Instead, she caught the scent of salt water, and a briny taste filled her mouth. But her intentions must have been clear; the wound twitched under her fingers, and Ali shivered, letting out a low groan.

“By the Creator . . . ,” Jamshid whispered. “That’s extraordinary.”

“Hold him still,” she warned. “I’m not done.” She lifted her hands. The wound had started to close, but his flesh was still discolored and looked almost porous. She lightly touched his skin, and foamy black blood rose to the surface, like pressing on a soaked sponge. She closed her eyes and tried again, but it stayed the same.

Though the room was cool, sweat poured from her skin, so much so that her fingers grew slick. Wiping them on her shirt, she moved on to the other wounds, the salty taste intensifying. Ali hadn’t opened his eyes, but the rhythm of his heart stabilized under her fingertips. He took a shaky breath, and Nahri sat back on her heels to examine her half-completed work.

Something seemed wrong. Maybe it’s the iron? Dara had told her on their journey that iron could impair purebloods.

I could stitch it. She’d done some stitching with Nisreen, using silver thread treated with some sort of charm. It was supposed to have restorative qualities and seemed worth a try. Ali didn’t look like he was going to keel over and die if she took a few minutes to retrieve some supplies from the infirmary. But it was still a guess. For all she knew, his organs were destroyed and leaking into his body.

Ali murmured something in Geziriyya, and his gray eyes slowly blinked open, growing wide and confused as he took in the unfamiliar room. He tried to sit up, letting out a low gasp of pain.

“Don’t move,” she warned. “You’ve been injured.”

“I . . .” His voice came out in a croak, and then she saw his gaze fall on the knife. His face crumpled, a devastated shadow overtaking his eyes. “Oh.”

“Ali.” She touched his cheek. “I’m going to get some supplies from the infirmary, okay? Stay here with Jamshid.” The Daeva guard didn’t look particularly pleased by that but nodded, and she slipped out.

The infirmary was quiet; the patients she hadn’t killed asleep and Nisreen gone for now. Nahri set a pot of water to boil on the glowing embers in her fire pit and then retrieved the silver thread and a few needles, all the while studiously ignoring the sheikh’s now-empty bed.

When the water came to a boil, she added a sludgy spoonful of bitumen, some honey, and salt, following one of the pharmaceutical recipes Nisreen had shown her. After a moment of hesitation, she crumbled in a prepared opium pod. It would be easier to stitch Ali up if he was calm.

Her mind ran rampant with speculation. Why would Ali possibly want to hide an attempt on his life? She was surprised the king himself wasn’t in the infirmary to ensure that his son got the best treatment, while the Royal