The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy #1) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,19

nothing worked.

Did daevas eat? If so, he must have some food, probably hidden in that robe of his. Nahri made her way back to the small grove. The sun had risen, hot and searing, and she hissed as she crossed a patch of scorched sand. God only knew what had happened to her sandals.

The daeva was still asleep; his gray cap was tipped over his eyes, his chest slowly rising and falling in the fading light. Nahri crept closer, studying him in a way she’d been too wary to do before. His robe rippled in the breeze, undulating like smoke, and hazy heat drifted from his body as though he was a hot stone oven. Fascinated, she moved even closer. She wondered if daeva bodies were like those of humans: full of blood and humors, a beating heart and swelling lungs. Or perhaps they were smoke through and through, their appearance only an illusion.

Closing her eyes, she stretched her fingers toward him and tried to concentrate. It would have been better to touch him, but she didn’t dare. He struck her as the type to wake in a foul mood.

After a few minutes, she stopped, growing disturbed. There was nothing. No beating heart, no surging blood and bile. She could sense no organs, nothing of the sparks and gurgles of the hundreds of natural processes that kept her and every other person she’d ever met alive. Even his breathing was wrong, the movement of his chest false. It was as though someone had created an image of a person, a man out of clay, but forgotten to give it a final spark of life. He was . . . unfinished.

Not an ill-formed piece of clay, though . . . Nahri’s gaze lingered on his body, and then she stilled, catching sight of a green flash on the daeva’s left hand.

“God be praised,” she whispered. An enormous emerald ring—large enough for a sultan—rested on the daeva’s middle finger. The base looked to be badly battered iron, but she could tell from a single glance that the jewel was priceless. Dusty but perfectly cut, with not a single blemish. Something like that had to be worth a fortune.

As Nahri contemplated the ring, a shadow passed overhead. Idly, she glanced up. Then, with a yelp, she dove into the thick brush to hide.

Nahri peeked through a screen of leaves as the creature flew across the oasis, enormous against the spindly trees, and then landed next to the sleeping daeva. It was something only a deviant mind could dream up, an unholy cross between an old man, a green parrot, and a mosquito. All bird from the chest down, it bobbed like a chicken as it moved forward on a pair of thick, feathered legs ending in sharp talons. The rest of its skin—if it could be called skin—was covered in silvery gray scales that flashed as it moved, reflecting the light of the setting sun.

It paused to stretch a pair of feathered arms. Its wings were extraordinary, the brilliant, lime-colored feathers nearly as long as she was tall. Nahri started to rise, wondering whether to warn the daeva. The creature was focused on him and seemingly oblivious to her, a situation she preferred. Yet if it killed him, there’d be no one to get her out of the desert.

The birdman let out a chirp that made every hair on her body rise, and the sound roused the daeva, solving her problem. He blinked his emerald eyes slowly, shading his face to see who stood before him. “Khayzur . . .” He exhaled. “By the Creator, am I glad to see you.”

The creature extended a delicate hand and pulled the daeva into a brotherly embrace. Nahri’s eyes widened. Was this the person the daeva had been waiting for?

They settled themselves back on the rug. “I came as soon as I got your signal,” the creature squawked. Whatever language they were speaking it wasn’t Divasti; it was full of staccato bursts and low whoops like birdsong. “What’s wrong, Dara?”

The daeva’s expression soured. “It’s better seen than explained.” He glanced about the oasis, and his eyes locked on Nahri’s hiding spot. “Come on out, girl.”

Nahri bristled, annoyed to be found so easily and then ordered about like a dog. But she emerged anyway, shoving the leaves aside and coming forward to join them.

She stifled a gasp when the birdman turned to her—the gray tone of his skin reminded her far too much of the ghouls. It