The Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy #2) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,216

head toward the ifrit, almost afraid to hear the answer.

“No!” Dara closed the distance between them and took her hands, his fingers hot against hers. Nahri did not have it in her to pull away; it looked like it was costing Dara everything not to grab her and run away. “Creator, no! I … I am a daeva,” he said faintly, as though the words made him ill. “But as our people once were. I am free of Suleiman’s curse.”

The answer made no sense. None of this made any sense. Nahri felt as though she’d stumbled upon a mirage, a mad hallucination.

Dara drew her closer, reaching for her cheek. “I am sorry. I wanted to tell you, to come straight away—” His voice turned desperate. “I could not cross the threshold. I could not come back for you.” He rushed on, his words growing more incomprehensible. “But it is going to be okay, I promise you. She is going to set it all right. Our people will be free and—”

“Fuck,” Muntadhir swore. “It is you. Only you would come back from the dead a second time and immediately start another damn war.”

Dara’s eyes flashed, and ice stole into Nahri’s heart. “You’re working with Kaveh,” she whispered. “Does that mean …” Her stomach twisted. “The poison killing the Geziris …” No, please no. “Did you know?”

He dropped his gaze, looking sick with regret. “You were not supposed to see it. You were supposed to be with Nisreen. Safe. Protected.” He said the words frantically, as though trying to convince himself as much as her.

Nahri jerked free of his grip. “Nisreen is dead.” She stared at Dara, aching to see a glimmer of the laughing warrior who’d teased her on a flying carpet and sighed as she kissed him in the quiet dark of a secluded cave. “The things they say about you are true, aren’t they?” she asked, her voice thick with rising dread. “About Qui-zi? About the war?”

She wasn’t sure what she expected: denial, shame, perhaps overly righteous anger. But the flicker of resentment that flared in his eyes—that took her by surprise.

“Of course they are true,” he said tonelessly. He touched the mark on his brow, a grim salute. “I am the weapon the Nahids made me. Nothing more, nothing less, and apparently for all of eternity.”

With his usual poor timing, Ali chose that moment to speak. “Oh, yes,” he croaked from where he sat on the floor, leaning heavily against his brother. His gray eyes were wild with grief, standing out starkly against his blood-covered face. “You poor, pitiful murdering—”

Muntadhir clapped a hand over Ali’s mouth, but it was too late.

Dara whirled on the Qahtani princes. “What did you say to me, you filthy little hypocrite?”

“Nothing,” Muntadhir said quickly, clearly struggling to keep his brother’s mouth shut.

But Ali had drawn their attention … though it wasn’t his words that held it.

The water from the broken fountains was rushing for him. It streamed across the floor, surging into his bloody clothes, tiny rivulets dancing over his hands. Ali seemed to suck for breath, dipping his head as the air abruptly cooled.

Then he jerked his head back up, the movement unnaturally sharp. An oily black mingled with the gray in his eyes.

There was a moment of shocked silence. “I did try to tell you,” the ifrit spoke up, “that there was something a little different about him.”

Dara was staring at Ali with naked hate. “It is nothing I cannot handle.” He stepped away from Nahri. “Vizaresh, take the emir and the Banu Nahida away. I will join you in a moment.” His voice softened. “They do not need to see this.”

Nahri sprang up to stop him. “No!”

She didn’t even get close. Dara snapped his fingers, and a burst of smoke wrapped her body, tight as rope.

“Dara!” Nahri tripped, falling hard to her knees, stunned that he’d used magic against her. “Dara, stop, I beg you! I order you!” she tried, pulling desperately for her own power. There was a rumble from the ancient bricks. “Afshin!”

Fire licked down Dara’s arms. “I am truly sorry, Nahri,” Dara said, and she could hear it, the heartbreak in his voice. “But yours are not the orders I follow anymore.” He started after Ali.

Ali staggered to his feet, shoving Muntadhir behind him. The oily color flashed across his eyes again, and then his zulfiqar flew to his hand, a burst of water behind it like he’d cut through a wave. Flames licked down the copper