The Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy #2) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,229

we compromise?” she suggested. “You want the Nahids in charge again? Fine. I’m a Nahid. I’ll take Suleiman’s seal. Surely, I can negotiate a peace more effectively than a woman who abandoned her tribe and returned only to plot the slaughter of another.”

Manizheh stiffened. “No,” she said. “You can’t.”

“Why not?” Nahri asked archly. “This is about what’s best for the Daevas, isn’t it?”

“You misunderstand me, daughter,” Manizheh replied, and Nahri inwardly swore because try as she could to read it, there was nothing in this woman’s face that gave her thoughts away. “You cannot take the seal yourself because you are not—entirely—daeva. You’re shafit, Nahri. You have human blood.”

Nahri stared at her in silence. Because with those words—those utterly confident words—Nahri knew the woman before her was not lying about being her mother. It was a secret only Ghassan had known, the truth he said Suleiman’s seal made clear.

“What do you mean, she’s shafit?” Ali gasped from the ground.

Nahri didn’t respond; she didn’t know what to say.

“It’s all right,” Manizheh assured her gently as she approached them. “It’s not a thing anyone else need ever know. But you cannot take that seal. Possessing it will kill you. You simply aren’t strong enough.”

Nahri jerked back. “I’m strong enough to use Nahid magic.”

“But enough to wield Suleiman’s seal?” Manizheh pressed. “To be the bearer of the object that reshaped our world?” She shook her head. “It will tear you apart, my daughter.”

Nahri fell silent. She’s lying. She has to be. But by the Most High, if Manizheh hadn’t struck doubt into her soul.

“Nahri.” It was Ali. “Nahri, look at me.” She did, feeling dazed. This was all too much. “She’s lying. Suleiman himself had human blood.”

“Suleiman was a prophet,” Manizheh cut in, echoing with brutal effectiveness the insecurity that Nahri herself had expressed. “And no one asked you to involve yourself in a Nahid matter, djinn. I have spent longer than you’ve been alive reading every text that ever mentioned that seal ring. And all of them are clear on this point.”

“And that’s rather convenient, I’d say,” he shot back. He stared up at Nahri, beseeching. “Don’t listen to her. Take the—ah!” He yelped in pain, his hands wrenching from his shattered knee.

Manizheh snapped her fingers again, and Ali’s hands jerked to the khanjar at his waist.

“What-what are you doing to me?” he cried as his fingers cracked around the dagger’s hilt. Beneath his tattered sleeves, the muscles in his wrists were seizing, the khanjar coming free in shuddering, spasming movements.

My God … Manizheh was doing that? Without even touching him? Instinctively Nahri sought to pull on the magic of the palace.

She didn’t so much as make a stone shiver before her connection was abruptly severed. The loss was like a blow, a coldness seeping over her.

“Don’t, child,” Manizheh warned. “I have far more experience than you.” She brought her hands together. “I do not wish this. But if you don’t hand the ring over right now, I will kill him.”

The khanjar was nearing Ali’s throat. He wriggled against it, a line of blood appearing below his jaw. His eyes were bright with pain, sweat running down his face.

Nahri was frozen in horror. She could feel Manizheh’s magic wrapping around her, teasing at the muscles in her own hand. Nahri was not capable of anything like that—she didn’t know how to fight someone capable of anything like that.

But she knew damned well she couldn’t give her Suleiman’s seal.

Manizheh spoke again. “They have already lost. We have won—you have won. Nahri, hand over the ring. No one else will ever learn you’re shafit. Take your place as my daughter, with your brother at your side. Greet the new generation as one of the rightful rulers of this city. With a man who loves you.”

Nahri wracked her mind. She didn’t know who to believe. But if Manizheh was right, if Nahri took the seal and it killed her, Ali would swiftly follow. And then there’d be no one to stop the woman who’d just slaughtered thousands from gaining control of the most powerful object in their world.

Nahri couldn’t risk that. She also knew that, shafit or not, she had her own skills when it came to dealing with people. In going after Nahri the way she had, Manizheh had made clear what she believed her daughter’s weaknesses to be.

Nahri could work with that. She took a shaky breath. “You promise you’ll let the prince live?” she whispered, her fingers trembling on the ring. “And