The Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy #2) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,35

and Ali continued, motioning for his students to copy the letter. They obediently did so, also on the sand. Slates and chalk required resources Bir Nabat didn’t have to spare, so he taught his lessons in the cool grove where the canals met and the ground was reliably wet. “Who knows a word that starts with ‘sheen’?”

“Sha’b!” a little girl in the center piped up while the boy sitting beside her shot his hand into the air.

“I start with sheen!” he declared. “Shaddad!”

Ali smiled. “That’s right. And do you know who you share your name with?”

His sister answered. “Shaddad the Blessed. My grandmother told me.”

“And who was Shaddad the Blessed?” he asked, snapping his fingers at the boys who’d been fighting. “Do either of you know?”

The smaller one shrank back while the other’s eyes went wide. “Um … a king?”

Ali nodded. “The second king after Zaydi the Great.”

“Is he the one who fought the marid queen?”

The grove went dead silent at the question. Ali’s fingers stilled on the damp sand. “What?”

“The marid queen.” It was a little boy named Faisal who’d spoken up, his face earnest. “My abba says one of your ancestors defeated a marid queen, and that’s why you can find our water.”

The simple words, said so innocently, went through Ali like a poisoned blade, leaving sick dread creeping through his limbs. He’d long suspected quiet rumors circulated in Bir Nabat about his affinities with water, but this was the first time he’d heard himself mentioned in relation to the marid. It was probably nothing; a half-remembered folktale given new life when he started discovering springs.

But it was not a connection he could let linger. “My ancestors never had anything to do with the marid,” he said firmly, ignoring the churning in his stomach. “The marid are gone. No one has seen them in centuries.”

But he could already see eager curiosity catching ahold of his students. “Is it true they’ll steal your soul if you look too long at your reflection in the water?” a little girl asked.

“No,” an older one answered before Ali could open his mouth. “But I heard humans used to sacrifice babies to them.” Her voice rose in fear-tinged excitement. “And if they didn’t give them up, the marid would drown their villages.”

“Stop,” one of the youngest boys begged. He looked near tears. “If you talk about them, they’ll come for you in the night!”

“That’s enough,” Ali said, and a few children shrank back, his words coming out sharper than he’d intended. “Until you’ve mastered your letters, I don’t want to hear anything more about—”

Lubayd ran into the grove.

“Forgive me, brother.” His friend bent over, clutching his knees as he caught his breath. “But there is something you need to see.”

THE CARAVAN WAS LARGE ENOUGH TO BE VISIBLE FROM a fair distance away. Ali watched it approach from the top of Bir Nabat’s cliffs, counting at least twenty camels moving in a steady, snaking line toward the village. As they left the shadow of a massive sand dune, the sun glinted off the pearly white tablets the animals were carrying. Salt.

His stomach plummeted.

“Ayaanle.” Lubayd took the word from Ali’s mouth, shading his eyes with one hand. “And with a fortune … that looks like enough salt to pay a year’s taxes.” He dropped his hand. “What are they doing here?”

At his side, Aqisa crossed her arms. “They cannot be lost; we are weeks’ travel from the main trade route.” She glanced at Ali. “Do you think they could be your mother’s kin?”

They better not be. Though his companions didn’t know it, his Ayaanle mother’s kin were the ones who’d truly gotten Ali banished from Daevabad. They’d been behind the Tanzeem’s decision to recruit him, apparently hoping the shafit militants would eventually convince Ali to seize the throne.

It had been a ludicrous plot, but in the chaos following the Afshin’s death, Ghassan wasn’t taking the chance of anyone preying on Ali’s conflicted sympathies—let alone the powerful lords of Ta Ntry. Except, of course, the Ayaanle were difficult to punish in their wealthy, cosmopolitan homeland across the sea. So it had been Ali who suffered, Ali who was ripped from his home and tossed to assassins.

Stop. Ali checked the vitriol swirling within him, ashamed of how easily it had come. It was not the fault of the entire Ayaanle tribe, only a handful of his mother’s scheming relatives. For all he knew, the travelers below were perfectly innocent.

Lubayd looked apprehensive. “I hope they brought their own