invading, and I’ll let Muntadhir live.”
Jamshid was breathing fast, his hands in fists.
But Manizheh had underestimated her son.
“No,” he said grimly. Jamshid stepped back, again putting himself between Nahri and Manizheh. “I stand with my sister. I stand with my people and my city. And it is clear you are an enemy to all three.”
His words went straight to Nahri’s heart. To the vulnerability and fear that had so long left her in knots when it came to her identity. She could have hugged him.
Except she was fairly certain he’d just doomed them both.
Manizheh stared at him. Flames flickered in her eyes, whether a reflection of the lethal rain she was using to scorch their home or something deeper, Nahri didn’t know.
“You were all I wanted,” Manizheh said. “I dreamed of seeing you again every night. When things were at their worst, I would close my eyes and envision you one day upon the throne, grandchildren at your feet. I imagined teaching you to heal.” Her voice was eerily steady, and when she turned her attention back to Nahri, Manizheh’s expression was still glowing, as though she were lost in that future that would never come. “I will make you suffer a hundred years for taking him from me.”
At that, Dara stepped away from his warrior, looking like he was very done with the Nahid family feud.
It was a mistake. Because he’d no sooner left the young man’s side—too far to help—when a smoldering globule of blood came hurtling from the sky.
It struck the soldier directly in the chest.
What happened next was almost too horrific for words. The foul sludge burned straight through the other man, leaving a diseased, pustule-ridden cavity where his chest had been. If there was any mercy, it was that the onslaught was quick. The soldier had time only for a short hair-raising wail before he was dead, another life cut short in a night that had already seen too many of them extinguished.
Dara cried out, rushing to his warrior. Manizheh glanced back, and Nahri shot free of Jamshid. She grabbed the knife Aqisa had given her and whirled on her murderous aunt.
Ah, but she’d forgotten how fast her Afshin was. There was a glimpse of his bow and a flit of silver. A whistle on the wind …
And then a punch of searing pain that knocked the breath from her lungs.
Dazed by the blow, Nahri looked numbly at Dara as she stumbled, not understanding right away that the bow still pointed in her direction and the silver shaft protruding from her chest were connected. They couldn’t be.
Jamshid let out a bellow of outrage, but he hadn’t taken two steps toward the Afshin when Dara snapped his fingers, instantly wrapping her brother in thick, binding tendrils of smoke.
“Enough,” Dara said quietly, and the lethal command in his voice seemed to silence even Manizheh. He closed the eyes of his dead warrior, his gaze still on the man as he spoke again. “You could have surrendered, Nahri. She offered you a fair deal. A life. And instead you chose to bury our home in more death.”
Nahri was speechless with pain and betrayal. He’d shot her. Dara had looked her in the face and put an arrow through her body.
And it hurt. It hurt so much. There was blood in her mouth when she spoke, trying to deny his words. “I didn’t … that was blood magic. Manizheh—”
“There are marid ships in the palace!” The words exploded from him, and then Dara spun back on her, grief raging in his eyes. “We always wondered, you know, how Zaydi brought his army through the lake so quickly. All the survivors had the same story, ships rising through the mists like magic.” He jabbed a finger at a ghastly dhow of bones and broken timbers beached on the opposite wall. “A ship like that brought the army that slaughtered your ancestors. The army that hunted and tortured and murdered my family. My little sister.” His voice broke. “And you brought them back here. You fight with them.”
Manizheh spoke up. “Afshin …”
“No.” Dara was trembling, his eyes wet with tears, but his tone was firm. “No. You told me I could speak when it came to defending our home, and I am. You’re not the only one who gets to use Tamima’s memory.” He turned back to Nahri. “I loved you. I would have served you to the end of my days, and you chose a Qahtani.”
Nahri had never truly been