she read it again, convinced she’d misunderstood. The well-thought-out plans to spearhead an investigation into today’s attacks and ensure security for the city until passions had died down.
The calm assurances that he would return his father’s army when he was convinced there would be no retribution against the shafit.
Nahri stared at the words, willing them to rearrange. You fool. You could have gone to Am Gezira. You could have found some doting wife and lived a peaceful life.
“What?” Kaveh prompted, sounding worried. “What is it?”
Nahri dropped the scroll. “Ali took the Citadel.”
Kaveh gasped. “He did what?”
Ghassan cut in. “The question remains, Banu Nahida. Are you and my son working together?”
“No,” she said acidly. “Believe it or not, I did not have much time today between shrouding the dead and treating burned children to participate in a coup.”
“Is that why you dragged us here?” Kaveh demanded, glaring at the king. “You’ve lost control of your fanatical son—a danger you should have dealt with years ago—and you’re trying to pin the blame on us?”
Ghassan’s eyes lit with challenge. “Oh, has my simpering grand wazir finally grown a spine? A rather rich accusation, Kaveh, considering the part you played in inflaming people’s passions.” His face grew stormy. “Did you think I wouldn’t follow up on Ali’s suspicions about the attack on the shafit camp? Did you think you could light a spark like that in this city—my city—and not have it explode in your face?”
Nahri’s stomach dropped. It was one thing to hear the accusation from Ali—he could be a little overwrought—but the certainty in Ghassan’s voice and the flush in Kaveh’s cheeks confirmed what her heart had wanted to deny. She might not have trusted the grand wazir, but he was a fellow Daeva, a friend of Nisreen’s, and Jamshid’s father.
“You faked the attack on the Daeva couple,” she whispered. “Didn’t you?”
Kaveh’s face was bright red. “You and Jamshid needed to see the truth about the shafit, and it would have happened sooner or later on its own—it has today! How can you possibly defend the dirt-bloods after what they did to the procession? They have no business being anywhere near your ancestors’ hospital; they have no place in our world at all!”
Nahri jerked back like she’d been slapped.
But Kaveh wasn’t done. He glared at Ghassan. “Nor do you. Daevabad has not seen a day of peace since Zaydi al Qahtani bathed it in Daeva blood, and you are as treacherous as your barbarian forefather.” Emotion ripped through his voice. “I almost believed it, you know. Your act. The king who wished to unite our tribes.” Nahri watched as angry tears filled his eyes. “It was a lie. Twenty years I served you; my son took half a dozen arrows to save yours, and you used his life to threaten me.” He spat at Ghassan’s feet. “Do not pretend you care for anyone but your own, you filthy sand fly.”
Nahri instinctively took a step back. No one spoke to Ghassan like that. He did not brook the slightest dissent, let alone open insults from an upstart Daeva wazir.
That Ghassan smiled instead of opening Kaveh’s throat was petrifying.
“You’ve wanted to say that for a long time, haven’t you?” the king drawled. “Look at you, all full of spite and indignation … as if I have not accommodated your tribe’s frivolous grievances again and again. As if I wasn’t the one to lift you and your son out of your sad lives as petty provincial nobles.” He crossed his arms. “Let me return the favor, Kaveh, for there is something I have also long wanted to tell you.”
“Enough of this,” Nahri interrupted. Jamshid was missing and Ali was in open revolt; she wasn’t wasting time over whatever history Ghassan and Kaveh shared. “What do you want, Ghassan? And where is Jamshid?”
“Jamshid …” Ghassan’s eyes glittered. “Now, oddly enough, there is a Daeva I like. Certainly more loyal than either of you, though I can’t imagine from whom he inherited such wisdom. It clearly doesn’t run in his family.”
At her side, Kaveh tensed and Nahri frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ghassan paced closer, reminding her uncomfortably of a hawk stalking something small and fragile. “Did it never strike you as strange how confident I was of your identity, Banu Nahri? So immediately confident?”
“You told me I resemble Manizheh,” Nahri said slowly.
The king clucked his tongue. “But enough that I’d make a scene in court having only spotted you from a distance?” He glanced at Kaveh.