The Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy #2) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,53

Smoke curled from under his collar. “I can smell that foul mace he carries, thick with the blood of our people.”

“Perhaps you should shift back into your natural form.”

Dara scowled. “This is my natural form.”

Manizheh sighed. “It isn’t, and you know it. Not anymore. The ifrit have warned you that your magic is too much for this body.” She tapped his tattooed arm, the skin pale brown and very much not aflame. “You leave yourself weak.”

Their carpet fluttered to the ground. Dara didn’t respond, but he didn’t shift either. He would do so if and when the marid appeared.

“Ah, there are my erstwhile allies.”

At the sound of Aeshma’s voice, Dara’s hand dropped to the long knife at his side. The bonfire split, and the ifrit strolled through the break with a black-fanged grin.

It was a grin that made Dara sick. That was what he looked like now when he shifted, his fire-bright skin, gold eyes, and clawed hands a mirror of the demons who’d enslaved him. That his ancestors had looked the same before Suleiman’s curse was of little comfort. It hadn’t been his ancestor’s grin he’d seen just before the fetid water of the well closed over his face.

Aeshma sauntered closer, his smile widening as if he could sense Dara’s displeasure. He probably could; it was not a thing Dara tried to conceal. Balanced on one shoulder was his mace, a crude metal hammer studded with barbs. Aeshma seemed to enjoy the effect it had on Dara’s temper, and took special delight in mentioning the times it had been bathed with Nahid and Afshin blood.

Our allies. Dara’s hand curled around the hilt of his knife.

“A knife?” Aeshma clucked his tongue in disappointment. “You could summon a sandstorm that would throw me across the lake if you would leave that useless body behind you.” His eyes brightened with viciousness. “And surely if you’re going to use a weapon, we might as well get a look at your famous scourge.”

Manizheh’s hand shot out as the air sparked with heat. “Afshin,” she warned him before fixing her attention on Aeshma. “I received your signal, Aeshma. What have you heard?”

“The same whispers and premonitions that started up when you brought your Scourge back to life,” the ifrit replied. “My companions have gone burning through all the marid haunts they know without response. But now there’s something else …” He paused, seeming to savor the moment. “The peris have left the clouds to sing their warnings on the wind. They say the marid have overstepped. That they broke the rules and are to be called to account—punished by the lesser being to whom they owe blood.”

Dara stared at him. “Are you drunk?”

Aeshma grinned, his fangs gleaming. “Forgive me, I forget at times one must speak simply to you.” His voice slowed to a mocking crawl. “The marid killed you, Afshin. And now they owe you a blood debt.”

Dara shook his head. “They might have been involved, but it was a djinn who wielded the blade.”

“And?” Manizheh cut in. “Think back on what you’ve told me of that night. Do you truly believe some al Qahtani brat was capable of cutting you down on his own?”

Dara hesitated. He’d put arrows in the prince’s throat and lungs and knocked him into the lake’s cursed depths. Alizayd should have been dead twice over and instead he’d climbed back onto the boat looking like some sort of watery wraith. “What do you mean by a blood debt?” he asked.

Aeshma shrugged. “The marid owe you a favor. Which is convenient, because you want to break into their lake.”

“It’s not their lake. It’s ours.”

Manizheh laid a hand on Dara’s wrist as Aeshma rolled his eyes. “It was once theirs,” she said. “The marid helped Anahid build the city. Surely you were taught some of this? It’s said that the jeweled stones that pave the Temple grounds were brought by the marid as tribute.”

Afshin children were not exactly schooled in the finer points of their people’s history, but Dara had heard the story of the Temple’s stones. “So how does that get me across the threshold?”

“Forget your threshold,” Aeshma said. “Do you imagine water beings crossing deserts and mountains? They use the waters of the world to travel … and they once taught your Nahid masters to do the same.” Resentment flashed in his eyes. “It made hunting my people that much easier. We dared not even go near a pond lest some blood-poisoning Nahid spring from its depths.”

“This is madness,”