The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy #1) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,201

any daeva—forgive me, any djinn—with a trace of sympathy for the shafit fell under suspicion.” The king shook his head. “Qui-zi could not stand. The Nahids needed to teach us all a lesson, a reminder of what happened when we broke Suleiman’s law and got too close to humans. So they devised such a lesson and selected an Afshin to carry it out, one too young and too stupidly devoted to question its cruelty.” Ghassan eyed her. “I’m sure you know his name.

“Qui-zi fell almost immediately; it was a merchant city in the wilds of Tukharistan with few defenses. His men sacked the houses and burned a fortune in silk. They weren’t there for riches, they were there for the people.

“He had every man, woman, and child scourged until they bled. If their blood wasn’t black enough, they were immediately killed, their bodies tossed in an open pit. And they were the lucky ones; the purebloods faced a worse fate. The throats of their men were packed with mud and then they were buried alive, enclosed in the same pit as their dead shafit fellows and any pureblooded woman unfortunate enough to be carrying a suspect pregnancy. The boys were castrated so that they would not carry on their fathers’ wickedness, and the women given over to rape. Then they burned the city to the ground and brought the survivors back to Daevabad in chains.”

Nahri was numb. She balled her hands into fists, her nails digging into the skin of her palms. “I don’t believe you,” she whispered.

“Yes, you do,” Ghassan said flatly. “And truthfully had that put an end to the rebellion, prevented the far greater number of deaths and atrocities in the war to come . . . I’d have put a whip in his hand too. But it didn’t. Your ancestors were ill-tempered fools. Forget the slain innocents, they destroyed half of Tukharistan’s economy. A commercial grievance wrapped in moral outrage?” The king tutted. “By year’s end, every remaining Tukharistani clan had sworn loyalty to Zaydi al Qahtani.” He touched his turban again. “Fourteen hundred years later, their finest spinners send me a new one every year to mark the anniversary.”

He’s lying, she tried to tell herself. But she could not help but recall the perpetually haunted Afshin. How many times had she heard the dark references to his past, seen the regret in his eyes? Dara admitted to once believing that the shafit were little more than soulless deceptions, that blood-mixing would lead to another of Suleiman’s curses. He said he’d been banished from Daevabad when he was Ali’s age . . . punished for carrying out the orders of her Nahid ancestors.

He did it, she realized, and something shattered inside her, a piece of her heart that would never repair. She forced herself to look at Ghassan, struggling to stay expressionless. She would not show him how deep a wound he’d just struck.

She cleared her throat. “And the point of this tale?”

The king crossed his arms. “Your people have a history of making foolish decisions based on absolutes instead of reality. They’re still doing it today, rioting in the streets and rushing to their deaths for a demand no sensible person would expect me to grant.” Ghassan leaned forward, his face intent. “But in you, I see a pragmatist. A shrewd-eyed woman who would negotiate her own bride price. Who manipulated the son I sent to spy on her to the point where he sacrificed himself to protect her.” He spread his hands. “What happened was an accident. There is no need to derail the plans we had both set in place, no reason we cannot repair what was broken between us.” He eyed her. “So tell me your price.”

A price. She would have laughed. There it was. That’s all anything really came down to: a price. Looking out for herself and no one else. Love, tribal pride . . . they were worthless in her world. No, not just worthless, they were dangerous. They’d destroyed Dara.

But there was something else in what Ghassan had just said. The son who sacrificed himself . . . “Where’s Ali?” she demanded. “I want to know what the mar—”

“If the word ‘marid’ comes out of your mouth again, I will have every Daeva child in the city thrown into the lake before your eyes,” Ghassan warned, his voice cold. “And as for my son, he is gone. He will not be here to defend you again.”

Nahri drew back