The Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy #2) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,16

walls.

She landed lightly on her feet in a long, covered corridor, a succession of sandstone arches separating a row of doors from an overgrown courtyard garden. The walkway was in far better shape than the foyer: the floor appeared freshly swept, the wall plastered and covered in swirls of colorful paint.

With a curse, Zaynab followed. “If I’ve not said it lately, I think I hate you.”

“You know, for a magical being, you have a terrible sense of adventure,” Nahri replied, touching one of the eddies of paint, a blue swell that looked like a wave. An ebony boat was outlined against it. At her touch, the wave rose as if alive, sending the boat careening down the wall.

Nahri grinned. Thoroughly intrigued, she kept walking, peeking inside the rooms she passed. Save for the occasional broken shelf and rotting bits of carpet, they were all empty.

Until they weren’t. Nahri abruptly stopped outside the last room. Cedar shelves bursting with scrolls and books covered the walls, stretching to the distant ceiling. More texts were stacked in precarious, towering piles on the floor.

She was inside before she noticed the floor desk wedged between two of the piles. A figure was hunched over its paper-strewn surface: an elderly looking Ayaanle man in a striped robe that nearly swallowed his wizened body.

“No, no, no …,” he muttered in Ntaran, scratching out whatever he’d just written with a charcoal pencil. “That makes no sense.”

Nahri hesitated. She couldn’t imagine what an Ayaanle scholar was doing in a book-stuffed room in a ruined building, but he looked harmless enough. “Peace be upon you,” she greeted him.

The man’s head snapped up.

His eyes were the color of emeralds.

He blinked rapidly and then yelped, pushing back from his cushion. “Razu!” he cried. “Razu!” He snatched up a scroll, raising it like a sword.

Nahri instantly backed away, brandishing her book. “Stay back!” she shouted as Zaynab ran to join her. The princess held a dagger in one hand.

“Oh, Issa, whatever is the problem now?”

Nahri and Zaynab both jumped and whirled around. Two women had emerged from the courtyard so swiftly they might have been conjured. One looked Sahrayn, with reddish black locks that fell to the waist of her paint-streaked galabiyya. The taller woman—the one who’d spoken—was Tukharistani, dressed in a dazzling cape of visibly magic design that fell like a mantle of molten copper across her shoulders. Her gaze locked on Nahri. Green eyes again. The same bright hue Dara’s had been.

The Ayaanle scholar—Issa—peeked past his door, still wielding his scroll. “It looks human, Razu! I swore they would never take me again!”

“That is no human, Issa.” The Tukharistani woman stepped forward. Her brilliant gaze hadn’t left Nahri’s. “It is you,” she whispered. Reverence swept over her face and she dropped to her knees, bringing her fingers together in respect. “Banu Nahida.”

“Banu Nahida?” Issa repeated. Nahri could see him still trembling. “Are you certain?”

“I am.” The Tukharistani woman gestured to an emerald-studded iron cuff on her wrist. “I can feel the tug in my vessel.” She touched her chest. “And in my heart,” she added softly. “Like I did with Baga Rustam.”

“Oh.” Issa dropped the scroll. “Oh, dear …” He attempted to bow. “Apologies, my lady. One can never be too careful these days.”

Zaynab was breathing heavily beside her, her dagger still raised. Nahri reached out and pushed her arm down. Thoroughly mystified, she stared at the strange trio, her gaze darting to each of them in turn. “I’m sorry …,” she started, lost for words. “But who are you all?”

The Tukharistani woman rose to her feet. Her silver-and-gold-streaked black hair was held back in an intricate lace net, and her face well-lined; had she been human, Nahri would have guessed she was in her sixties. “I am Razu Qaraqashi,” she said. “You have already stumbled into Issa, and this is Elashia,” she added, affectionately touching the shoulder of the Sahrayn woman next to her. “We are the last ifrit slaves in Daevabad.”

Elashia instantly scowled, and Razu bowed her head. “Forgive me, my love.” She glanced back at Nahri. “Elashia does not like to be called a slave.”

Nahri fought to keep the shock from her face. Quietly, she let her abilities expand. Small wonder she thought she’d been alone: hers and Zaynab’s were the only hearts pounding in the entire complex. The bodies of the djinn before her were entirely silent. Just as Dara’s had been.

Because they’re not true bodies, Nahri realized, recalling what she knew of the slave curse. The