The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy #1) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,45

akhi,” he said, his hand over his heart. “Do you have to creep up on me like some sort of assassin?”

“You should work on your reflexes. Where’s Abba?”

Muntadhir nodded rudely toward a thin man in Daeva clothing at the terrace edge. “That one insisted on a public reading of all the charges.” He yawned. “Abba wasn’t wasting his time on that—not when he has me to do it for him. He’ll be here soon enough.”

Ali glanced at the Daeva man: Kaveh e-Pramukh, his father’s grand wazir. Focused on the ground below, Kaveh didn’t appear to notice Ali’s arrival. A satisfied smile played on his mouth.

Ali suspected he knew why. He took a deep breath and then stepped to the edge of the terrace.

Anas kneeled on the sand below.

His sheikh had been stripped to the waist, burned and whipped, his beard hacked off in disrespect. His head was bowed, his hands bound behind him. Though it had only been two weeks since his arrest, he’d clearly been starved, his ribs visible and his bloody limbs thin. And those were only the wounds Ali could see. There would be others, he knew. Potions that made you feel as if you were being stabbed by a thousand knives, illusionists who could make you hallucinate the deaths of your loved ones, singers who could reach a pitch high enough to drive you to your knees while your ears bled. Men didn’t survive the dungeons of Daevabad. Not with their minds intact.

Oh, Sheikh, I’m so sorry . . . The sight before him—a single shafit man with no magical abilities surrounded by hundreds of vengeful purebloods—seemed a cruel joke.

“As for the crime of religious incitement . . .”

The sheikh swayed, and one of his guards jerked him upright. Ali went cold. The entire right side of Anas’s face was smashed, his eye swollen shut, his nose broken. A line of saliva dripped from his mouth, escaping past shattered teeth and swollen lips.

Ali pressed his zulfiqar’s scabbard. Anas met his stare. His eye flashed, the briefest of warnings before he dropped his gaze again.

Earn this. Ali remembered his sheikh’s last command. He dropped his hand away from the weapon, aware of the eyes of the audience upon him. He stepped back to join Muntadhir.

The judge droned on. “The illegal possession of weapons . . .”

There was an impatient snort from the other side of the arena, his father’s karkadann, caged and hidden by a fiery gate. The ground trembled as the beast stomped its feet. A horrid cross between a horse and an elephant, the karkadann was twice the size of both, its scaly gray skin stained and matted with gore. The dust in the arena was heavy with its smell, the musk of old blood. No one bathed a karkadann; none even got near save the pair of tiny sparrows caged next to the creature. As Ali listened, they began to sing. The karkadann settled down, placated for the moment.

“And as for the charge of—”

“By the Most High . . .” A voice boomed from behind Ali as the entire crowd shot to their feet. “Is this still going on?”

His father had arrived.

King Ghassan ibn Khader al Qahtani, ruler of the realm, Defender of the Faith. His name alone made his subjects tremble and glance over their shoulders for spies. He was an imposing man, massive really, a combination of thick muscles and hearty appetite. He was built like a barrel, and at the age of two hundred, his hair had just started to go gray, silver spotting his black beard. It only made him more intimidating.

Ghassan strode to the edge of the terrace. The judge looked ready to wet himself, and Ali couldn’t blame him. His father sounded annoyed, and Ali knew the very thought of facing the king’s legendary wrath had made more than one man’s bowels give way.

Ghassan gave the bloodied sheikh a dismissive glance before turning to the grand wazir. “The Tanzeem have terrorized Daevabad long enough. We know their crimes. It’s their patron I want, along with the men who helped him murder two of my citizens.”

Kaveh shook his head. “He won’t give them up, my king. We’ve tried everything.”

“Banu Manizheh’s old serums?”

Kaveh’s pale face fell. “It killed the scholar who attempted it. The Nahids did not mean for their potions to be used by others.”

Ghassan pursed his lips. “Then he’s useless to me.” He nodded to the guards standing over Anas. “Return to your posts.”

There was a gasp from