daeva your blood-poisoning little Nahid murdered at the Gozan?”
“No,” Dara shot back. “I doubt you demons are capable of any real affection. And you are not daevas, you are ifrit.”
“We called ourselves daevas millennia before you were even born. Before Anahid betrayed us and—”
“Vizaresh.” Aeshma’s voice was thick with warning. “That is enough.” He jerked his head toward the palace. “Go.”
The smaller ifrit stalked off but not before shooting Dara another hate-filled scowl.
Aeshma looked equally annoyed. “You are impossible, do you know that?”
Dara wasn’t in the mood to hear comments about his character. “Why are you here?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why are you here? Why are you helping Banu Manizheh if your people hate the Nahids?”
“Oh, are you asking questions now? I thought that part of your mind was removed during training.”
“Why are you here?” Dara snarled a third time, baring his fangs. “If I need to repeat myself again, I will drop you from the sky.”
The ifrit’s eyes danced with malice. “Maybe I want to be like you. Maybe after ten thousand years, I’m dying and would settle for peace and a taste of my old magic. Or maybe I simply find your Manizheh amusing and novel and enjoy the entertainment.”
“That does not answer my—”
“I do not answer to you.” The jest was gone from Aeshma’s voice. “My alliance is with your master, not her dog.”
Rage boiled down Dara’s arms, flames twisting through his hands. “I have no master,” he snapped. “I am a slave no longer.”
“No?” Aeshma nodded to the emerald gleaming on Dara’s finger. “Then why do you still wear that ring? Because it’s pretty? Or because you’re too frightened to try and remove it?”
“I could kill you,” Dara said, stepping closer. “It would be nothing.”
Aeshma laughed. “You’re not going to kill me. You don’t have it in you to defy your Banu Nahida, and she’s made it clear we’re not to be harmed.”
“She will not always need you.”
The slow, vicious smile that spread across Aeshma’s face sent a thousand warnings screaming through Dara’s mind. “But she will. Because I can give her magic she can wield herself instead of power she can only watch you wield in her name.” Aeshma stepped back, gesturing to the shedu. “Which I believe is what you’re meant to be doing now, yes?” He clucked his tongue. “Best hurry, Afshin. You wouldn’t want to make your betters angry.”
Dara reached for his magic, sweeping it over his body. The fiery flush vanished from his skin as he shifted to his mortal form, his plain tunic and trousers transforming into a brilliant crimson and black uniform. Glittering scaled armor crawled into place, and then Dara spread his hands. A magnificent silver bow appeared before them, flashing in the sun.
“You still cannot do this,” he said coldly. “And you never will. Bluster and puff all you want, Aeshma, for when the day finally comes that you cross a line and threaten my Banu Nahida, I will be there to deal with you.”
“Odd,” Aeshma replied as Dara turned and walked away, retrieving the quiver of arrows he’d prepared before returning to the shedu’s side. “For I told her much the same about you.”
Dara stilled for a moment, his back to the ifrit. But it was only for a moment—he was not letting Aeshma toy with him any longer.
Instead, he considered the shedu before him. Dara was an accomplished rider, but horses and flying lions were rather different beasts—particularly since this shedu was no true animal, but rather an extension of his own magic, a feeling more akin to a limb.
A very new limb. Gripping its mane, Dara pulled himself onto the shedu’s hazy back. A thrill raced down his spine. His circumstances might have been bleak, but part of Dara felt like a giddy little boy, the child who’d grown up listening to the hair-raising legends of the Afshins of old and their mighty Nahids.
With but a thought, the creature shot into the sky, and Dara gasped, seizing its mane as its wings whipped overheard. The palace shrank beneath him, a tiny jeweled toy, and he could not help but laugh, an uncharacteristically nervous sound, before gaining some semblance of control. He could see everything from this distance: the midnight lake and lush forests, the neatly terraced fields beyond the walls, and intricate Daevabad, a miniature of twisting streets and stone towers.
But it was the mountains that called to him, the wide world beyond. A smarter man would fly for them, would take the opportunity