The Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy #2) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,211

fiery eyes gleamed. “I’d love to take you apart, little one. See how that works, layer by layer …”

Ali tried to wrench himself free and caught sight of Lubayd’s body, his glassy, unseeing eyes fixed on the sky above. With a choked cry of denial, Ali reached for his zulfiqar.

The ifrit’s fingers abruptly tightened on his throat. It clucked its tongue disapprovingly. “None of that now.”

“Prince Alizayd!”

As Ali grappled with the iron grip the demon had on his throat, he glimpsed a band of men running in the distance: the rest of the survivors from the Royal Guard.

“Prince?” the ifrit repeated. He shook his head, disappointed. “A shame. There’s another after you, and he’s got a temper even I won’t cross.” He sighed. “Hold on. This is most certainly going to hurt.”

There was no time to react. A searing bolt of heat raced over Ali, consuming them both in a swirl of fire and sickly green clouds. Thunder crashed in his ear, shaking his very bones. The beach vanished and the cries of his men fell away, replaced by the blur of rooftops and the roar of the wind.

And then it was gone. They crashed, and the ifrit released him. Ali landed hard, sprawled on a stone floor. Disoriented, he tried to stand, but nausea rose, swift and fierce inside his roiling stomach, and it was everything Ali could do not to vomit. Instead, he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to catch his breath.

When he opened them again, the first thing he saw was the familiar doors of his father’s office. They’d been torn off their hinges, the room ransacked and set ablaze.

Ali was too late.

The ifrit who’d murdered Lubayd was striding away. Still dizzy, Ali tried to track his movement, the scene coming to him in pieces. A knot of young warriors dressed in the same mottled black uniforms of the Daevas on the beach surrounded another man, their commander perhaps. He stood with his back to Ali, barking out what sounded like orders in Divasti.

An enormous silver bow, horribly familiar, was strung across his broad shoulders.

Ali jerked his head in denial, sure he was dreaming.

“Have I got a prize for you,” the ifrit crowed to the Daeva commander, jerking a thumb back at Ali. “This is the prince your Banu Nahida is after, yes? The one we’re supposed to lock away?”

The Daeva commander whirled around, and Ali’s heart stopped. The cold green eyes from his nightmares, the black tattoo that declared his position to the world …

“It is not,” Darayavahoush e-Afshin said in a low, lethal voice. His eyes blazed, a flicker of fire-yellow beneath the green. “But he will do just fine.”

Dara had taken two steps toward Alizayd before he stopped himself, hardly believing the blood-covered Ayaanle man before him could be the self-righteous royal brat he’d sparred with in Daevabad years ago. He’d grown up, losing the childish hint to his features that had stayed Dara’s hand from ending that match in a more lethal manner. He also looked terrible, like something Vizaresh might have fished from the lake, half dead. His dishdasha hung in soaked rags, his limbs covered in bleeding gashes and bite marks.

His eyes, though—they were the Geziri gray Dara remembered. His father’s eyes, Zaydi al Qahtani’s eyes, and if Dara doubted it, the zulfiqar hanging at Alizayd’s waist was confirmation enough.

The prince had pushed himself to a sitting position. He seemed thoroughly disoriented, his dazed eyes sweeping over Dara in shock.

“But you’re dead,” he whispered, sounding stunned. “I killed you.”

Anger surged into Dara’s blood, and he clenched his hands into smoldering fists. “Remember that, do you?” He was struggling to hold on to his mortal form, aching to submit to the flames that wanted to consume him.

Nahri’s hands on his face. We’ll leave. We’ll travel the world. Dara had been close, so close to escaping all this.

And then Alizayd al Qahtani gave himself to the marid.

“Afshin?” the tentative voice of Laleh, his youngest recruit, broke through his haze. “Did you want me to lead my group to the harem?”

Dara exhaled. His soldiers. His duty. “Hold him,” he said flatly to Vizaresh. He would deal with Alizayd al Qahtani himself, but only after giving his warriors their orders. “And take that damned zulfiqar off him immediately.”

He turned around, briefly squeezing his eyes shut. Instead of the blackness of his closed lids, Dara saw through five sets of eyes, those of the smoky beasts he’d conjured from his blood and let loose with each