The Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy #2) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,130

you not remember that we’re supposed to be visiting the Grand Temple today?”

“You know … I did remember, as a matter of fact.” Muntadhir drained his cup.

Nahri threw up her hands. “Then what is this? I can’t take you to my people’s holiest place while you’re drunk and wearing your courtesan’s scarf!”

“I’m not going.”

Nahri blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I’m not going. I already told you: I think this plan to hire and treat shafit is madness.”

“But … but you agreed to come today. And your father told you to!” Her voice rose in alarm.

“Ah, there you are wrong,” Muntadhir declared, wagging a finger in her face. “He did not order such a thing specifically. He said you had our support.” He shrugged. “So tell your priests that you do.”

“They’re not going to believe me! And if you don’t show up, they’re going to think there’s a reason.” She shook her head. “I can’t risk another excuse for them to oppose me. They’ll take this an insult.”

Muntadhir snorted. “They’ll be relieved. You’re the only Daeva who wants to see a Qahtani in your temple.”

The other women laughed in the background again, one throwing dice, and Nahri flinched. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered. “Do you really hate me so much?”

His disinterested expression slipped. “I don’t hate you, Nahri. But you’re going down a path I can’t support, with a partner who destroys everything he touches. I will not sit with my future subjects in a place they hold sacred and make promises I don’t believe in.”

“You could have told me that last week!”

Muntadhir inclined his head. “Last week, Alizayd had yet to threaten my cousin with hellfire in front of a mob of angry mixed-bloods.”

Nahri grabbed his wrist. “He did what?”

“I did try to warn you. Go ask your sheikh about it. Hell, ask him to go to the Temple with you. I’m sure it would be most entertaining.” Muntadhir removed his arm from her grasp and then shut the door in her face.

For a full breath, Nahri stood there stunned. Then she slammed her fists against the door. “MUNTADHIR!”

It stayed closed. As her fury grew, a few cracks appeared in the carved wood and the hinges began to smoke.

No. Nahri stepped back. She’d be damned if she was going to humiliate herself begging her drunken wretch of a husband to keep his word. But damn the bloody princes and their idiotic arguments!

She whirled around, charging down the hall. If Alizayd al Qahtani’s recklessness ruined her plans today, she was going to poison him.

The door to Ali’s apartment was closed when she arrived, and a soldier rose to his feet as she approached. Out of patience and with the palace’s magic whirling in her blood, Nahri had no sooner snapped her fingers then a corner brazier unfurled, tossing its fiery contents to the floor and snaking around the soldier’s ankle. It yanked him to the ground, and the door burst open before her.

She stepped in and then paused, for a moment not certain she’d entered the correct room. Ali’s apartment was in chaos. A half-dozen floor desks were being used by harassed-looking secretaries, and scrolls and record books were everywhere, as were people, pushing papers around and arguing in multiple languages.

Ali’s irate voice drifted to her from across the room. “—and I told you I’ve already awarded the contract. I don’t care who your boss’s uncle is; that’s not how I do things. The hospital’s plumbing is being installed by a guild without a history of hexing their competition.”

She made her way toward him, dodging several startled scribes. Ali noticed her approach at once and quickly straightened up … so swiftly, in fact, that he upset an ink bottle across his pale blue dishdasha.

“Banu Nahida, p-peace be upon you,” he stammered, dabbing at the ink. “Er, aren’t you supposed to be at the Grand Temple?”

“I was supposed to be, yes.” She pushed away the edge of her chador to poke a finger at his chest. “With my husband. That is what my people and priests are expecting. And yet my husband is now in his cups, entertaining company that is definitely not me, and he’s saying you’re responsible. That you were shouting in the streets about how his cousin was going to burn in hell.” She jabbed him again. “Do the two of you not have a single grain of sense between you?”

Ali’s expression instantly grew stormy. “I didn’t say he was going to burn in hell,” he defended. “I suggested he