The Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy #2) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,149

and I am not unaware as to who’s been whispering in your ear and putting gold in your hands. That ends today.”

Ali shot to his feet, his eyes burning. “Excuse me?”

Ghassan stared back at his son. “You’ve made clear your life means nothing to you, but you can’t act so heedlessly and not expect to hurt others.” His expression sharpened. “So you can be the one to tell your sister she’ll never see her mother again.” He turned on his heel, striding back to his horse. “Kaveh, arrange a ship. Queen Hatset will be leaving for Ta Ntry tomorrow.”

The lake Dara had ravaged six months ago was already recovering. The gash he’d torn into its bed was barely visible, hidden beneath a sinuous net of sea-green waterweeds that reached out and twisted across opposite ends to knit together like lace. The surrounding trees were blackened, skeletal things, and the beach itself was dusted with ash and littered with the tiny bones of various aquatic creatures. But the water was returning, cool, blue, and smooth as glass, even if it only came to his knees.

“Did you think it would not heal?”

Dara shuddered at the sound of the marid’s raspy voice. Though they’d been told to return here, he hadn’t been certain what they’d find.

“I thought it might take more time,” Dara confessed, clasping his hands behind his back as he gazed at the horizon.

“Water is unstoppable. Eternal. It always returns. We return.” The marid fixed its dead eyes on him. It was still in the form of its murdered human acolyte, the body now reduced to salt-bleached bones and rotting gristle in the places where it wasn’t armored with shell and scales. “Water brings down mountains and nurtures new life. Fire burns out.”

Dara returned his gaze, unimpressed. “You know, I grew up on stories where the marid appeared as fetching mermaids or terrifying sea dragons. This decaying corpse is quite the disappointment.”

“You could offer yourself to me,” the marid replied smoothly, its coat of shells clacking together in the biting wind. “Give me your name, daeva, and I’ll show you anything you wish. Your lost world and slain family. Your Nahid girl.”

A finger of ice brushed his spine. “What do you know of any Nahid girl?”

“She was in the mind and memories of the daeva we took.”

“The daeva you took …” Dara’s eyes narrowed. “You mean the boy you used to murder me?” His mouth twisted. “Alizayd al Qahtani is no daeva.”

The marid seemed to still, even the shells and bones falling silent. “Why would you say such a thing?”

“He is a djinn. At least, that is what his fool tribe call themselves.”

“I see,” the marid said, after another moment of considered silence. “No matter. Djinn, daeva … you are all the same, shortsighted and as destructive as the element that smolders in your hearts.” It ran its bony hands through the water, making tiny ripples dance. “You will leave my home soon, yes?”

“That is the plan. But if you try to deceive me, I assume you understand what I’ll do.” Dara pinned the marid with his gaze.

“You’ve made your intent clear.” A pair of tiny silver fish darted between its hands. “We will return you to your city, Darayavahoush e-Afshin. I pray you content yourself with spilling blood there and never return to our waters.”

Dara refused to let the words land. “And the lake? You will be able to re-create the enchantment I asked about?”

The marid cocked its head. “We will bring down your stone tower. And then understand we are done. We will bear no more responsibility for what your people do.”

Dara nodded. “Good.” He turned away, the wet sand sucking at his boots as he headed back to the camp they’d pitched on a grassy bluff set back from the water. At Dara’s suggestion, they had packed up and left their mountain encampment less than a week after Mardoniye’s death. Though the mist of copper vapor had been fading by then, its very existence had provoked questions among his men that he couldn’t answer. So they’d moved, biding the final weeks before Navasatem here.

And now the generation celebrations began in three days. In three days, they would enter this water and be transported back to Daevabad. In three days, he would be home. In three days, he would see Nahri.

In three days, you will once again have the blood of thousands on your hands.

He closed his eyes, trying to shut away the thought. Dara had never pictured feeling