The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy #1) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,52

laughed when Ali gave him a startled look. “Come. Zaynab and I picked you out apartments near the waterfall.” They turned the corner. “With the most boring furnishings and least comfortable amenities. You’ll be right at ho—whoa.”

The brothers drew to an immediate stop. They had to. A wall stood in their way, a jewel-colored mural splashed across the stone.

“Well . . .” Muntadhir’s voice was shaky. “That’s new.”

Ali edged closer. “No . . . it’s not,” he said softly, recognizing the scene and remembering his long-ago history lessons. “It’s one of the old Nahid murals. They used to cover the palace walls before the war.”

“It wasn’t here yesterday.” Muntadhir touched the mural’s bright sun. It flashed beneath his fingertips, and they both jumped.

Ali gave the mural an uneasy look. “And you wonder why I’m not excited about moving back to this Nahid-haunted place?”

Muntadhir made a face. “It’s not usually this bad.” He nodded to one of the figures on the cracked plaster facade. “Do you know who that’s supposed to be?”

Ali studied the image. The figure looked human, a man with a flowing white beard and a silver halo above his crowned head. He stood before a crimson sun, one hand resting on the back of a roaring shedu, and the other holding a staff with an eight-pointed seal. The same seal that was on Ghassan’s right temple.

“It’s Suleiman,” Ali realized. “Peace be upon him.” He gazed at the rest of the painting. “I think it depicts the ascension of Anahid when she received her abilities and Suleiman’s seal.” His eyes fell on the bent figure at Suleiman’s feet. Only her back was visible, the long taper of her ears giving away that she was a djinn. Or daeva, rather. Anahid, first of her line.

Blue paint flooded Suleiman’s robes.

“Odd,” Muntadhir remarked. “I wonder why it picked today of all days to start trying to repair fourteen centuries of damage.”

A shiver went down Ali’s spine. “I don’t know.”

7

Nahri

“Raise your arm higher.”

Nahri lifted her elbow, tightening her grip on the dagger. “Like this?”

Dara made a face. “No.” He stepped up to her, the scent of his smoky skin tickling her nose, and adjusted her arm. “Loosen up; you need to be relaxed. You’re throwing a knife, not beating someone with a stick.”

His hand lingered a moment longer than necessary on her elbow, his breath warm against her neck. Nahri shivered; relaxing was a thing easier said than done when the handsome daeva was so close. He finally stepped away, and she fixed her eyes on the scrubby tree. She threw the dagger, and it sailed past the tree to land in a patch of bushes.

Dara burst into laughter as she swore. “I’m not sure we’re going to be able to make much of a warrior out of you.” He opened his palm, and the dagger flew back to him.

Nahri gave him an envious look. “Can’t you teach me how to do that?”

He handed the knife back. “No. I’ve told you enough times . . .”

“. . . magic is unpredictable,” she finished. She threw the dagger again. She could have sworn it landed slightly closer to the tree, but that might have been her own wishful thinking. “So what if it is? Are you truly afraid of what I might do?”

“Yes,” he said bluntly. “For all I know, you’ll send fifty such knives flying back at us.”

Ah, well, perhaps he had a point. She waved the knife away when he tried to hand it back. “No. I’ve had enough for today. Can’t we just rest? We’ve been traveling as if—”

“As if a pack of ifrit are after us?” His raised his eyebrows.

“We’ll travel faster if we’re not exhausted,” she replied, taking his arm and pulling him in the direction of their small camp. “Come on.”

“We’d travel faster if we weren’t carting around a caravan of stolen goods,” Dara retorted, snapping off a twig from a dying tree and letting it burn to cinders in his hands. “How many clothes do you truly need? And you’re not even eating the oranges . . . to say nothing of that entirely useless flute.”

“That flute is ivory, Dara. It’s worth a fortune. Besides . . .” Nahri held out her arms, briefly admiring the embroidered tunic and brown leather boots she’d snatched off a stall they passed in one of the river towns. “I’m just trying to keep our supplies well stocked.”

They reached their camp, though “camp” might have been too kind a word for