The Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy #2) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,186

past, and the smell of smoke and blood thickened on the air. Nahri caught herself from swooning, the sudden presence of torn bodies, broken bones, and slowing hearts threatening to overwhelm her Nahid senses. The streets her ancestors had carefully laid down were burning, engulfing fleeing parade-goers. Ahead, Jamshid was rolling in a vain attempt to put out the fire spreading across his coat.

Fury and desperation rose inside her. Nahri shoved free of the Daevas trying to wrestle her away.

“Jamshid!” Sheer determination brought her to his side as he writhed on the ground. Not caring if she risked herself, Nahri grabbed the unburnt edge of his collar and wrenched the burning jacket off him.

He screamed, the smoldering fabric taking a good part of the skin on his upper back with it, leaving his flesh bloody and exposed. But it was better than being consumed by Rumi fire—not that it mattered; the two of them were surrounded now, the flames hungrily licking up the surrounding buildings.

A heavy object crashed to the ground before her: the remains of the burning shedu she’d ridden to emulate her ancestors. But as Nahri watched the chaos around her, helplessness threatened to suffocate her. Nahri was no Anahid. She had no Afshin.

She had no idea how to save her people.

Afshin … like a burst of light, one of her last memories of Cairo came to her: the warrior with striking green eyes, whose name she had not yet known, standing amid the tombs of her human home, raising his arms to conjure a storm.

A sandstorm. Nahri caught her breath. Creator, please, she prayed. Help me save my city.

She inhaled, bowing her head. Acting on instinct, she tried to see the city as she might have seen a patient, tried to visualize the dirt between its cobblestones and the dust gathering in every corner.

She pulled. The wind immediately picked up, lashing her braids against her face, but she could still sense resistance, her hold on the magic just a touch too weak. She cried out in frustration.

“Nahri,” Jamshid breathed, his voice hoarse as he clutched her hand. “Nahri, I don’t feel right …” He choked, his fingers tightening on her own.

A raw punch of magic hit her so hard she nearly fell back. She gasped, reeling as she tried to maintain her control. It was both familiar and not, a jolt as if she’d plunged her hands into a vat of ice. It raced through her veins with a wild madness, like a creature too long caged.

And it was the exact push that she needed. Nahri didn’t hesitate, her eyes locking on the burning streets. Heal, she commanded, pulling hard.

Every speck of sand in her family’s city rushed to her.

It whirled into a racing funnel of smothering dust. She exhaled and it collapsed, raining down to cover the street and the ruined chariots, blowing into dunes against the buildings and coating the bodies of fleeing and burning djinn and Daevas alike. Extinguishing the fire as thoroughly as if she’d dunked a candle into a pool of water.

It did the same to Nahri. Her hold on the magic collapsed, and she reeled, exhaustion sweeping her as black spots burst across her vision.

“Banu Nahida!”

Nahri blinked, catching sight of Nisreen racing toward her, still holding her bright chador. At her side, Jamshid struggled to sit up, his shirt hanging in scorched tatters across his chest.

And across his perfectly healed back.

Nahri was gaping at his unmarred skin when there was another crack of the musket. Jamshid shoved her down.

But the shot hadn’t been aimed at them.

The time between seeing Nisreen racing toward them and seeing her mentor fall seemed to take hours, as if to effectively sear itself on her mind’s eye. Nahri tore away from Jamshid, lunging to Nisreen’s side without recalling moving.

“Nisreen!” Black blood was already soaking through her tunic. Nahri ripped it open.

She went completely still at the sight of the stomach wound. It was ghastly, the human weapon damaging the other woman’s flesh in a way Nahri hadn’t thought possible in the magical world.

Oh God … Not wasting a moment, Nahri laid her hand against the blood—and then immediately jerked it back as a searing pain slashed across her palm. The smell, the burn …

The attackers had used iron bullets.

There was a cry and then the remaining men on the balcony fell to the ground, their bodies riddled with arrows. Nahri barely noticed. Her heart in her throat, she ignored the pain to lay hands on her