The Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy #2) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,69

root was making around his leg.

“I wanted to see you.” The words rushed from him as though she’d dosed him with one of her ancestor’s truth serums. And it was the truth, he realized. Ali had wanted to see her, Darayavahoush’s dagger be damned.

Nahri dropped her hand, and the root released. Ali took a shaky breath, embarrassed by how deeply it had frightened him. By the Most High, he could face assassins armed with arrows and blades and yet a root reduced him to near tears?

“I’m sorry,” he said for the third time. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

“You certainly shouldn’t have,” she snapped back. “I have one place in Daevabad that’s mine, one place not even my husband will set foot in, and here you are.” Her face twisted in anger. “But I suppose Alizayd the Afshin-slayer does whatever he likes.”

Ali’s cheeks burned. “I’m not,” he whispered. “You were there. You know what killed him.”

Nahri clucked her tongue. “Oh no, I was corrected. Firmly. Your father said he’d murder every Daeva child in the city if I dared utter the word ‘marid.’” Tears were brimming in her eyes. “Do you know what he made me say instead? What he made me say Dara tried to do? What you supposedly interrupted?”

Her words cut him to the bone. “Nahri …”

“Do you know what he made me say?”

Ali dropped his gaze. “Yes.” The rumors had followed him to Am Gezira—there was a reason, after all, that people had no trouble believing the otherwise mild-mannered prince had killed another man.

“I saved you.” She let out a high, humorless laugh. “I healed you with my own hands. More than once, even. And in return, you said nothing as we got on that boat, though you knew your father’s men would be waiting. My God, I even offered to let you come with us! To escape your father’s wrath, to escape this cage and see the rest of the world.” She hugged her arms around herself, pulling her chador close as if to put a wall between them. “You should be proud, Ali. Not many people can outwit me, but you? You had me believing you were my friend until the very end.”

Guilt crashed over him. Ali had no idea she’d felt that way. Though he’d considered her a friend, Nahri had seemed to keep him at a careful distance, and the realization that their relationship had meant more to her—and that he’d destroyed it—made him sick.

He fought for words. “I didn’t know what else to do that night, Nahri. Darayavahoush was acting like a madman. He would have started a war!”

She trembled. “He wouldn’t have started a war. I wouldn’t have let him.” Her voice was curt, but it looked like she was struggling to maintain her composure. “Is this enough for you, then? You’ve seen me. You’ve intruded upon my privacy to dredge up the worst night of my life. Is there anything else?”

“No, I mean, yes, but …” Ali inwardly cursed. It scarcely seemed the right moment to pull out Dara’s dagger and admit his father had stolen it and kept it as some sort of war trophy. He tried another tack. “I … I tried to write you …”

“Yes, your sister gave me your letters.” She tapped the ash on her forehead. “They made good fodder for my fire altar.”

Ali glanced at the mark. In the shadowy grove, he hadn’t noticed it at first, and it surprised him. In the time he’d known her, Nahri had never seemed all that keen on the religious rituals of her people.

She saw him take it in and her eyes lit with challenge. He couldn’t blame her. He’d been rather … loud when voicing his opinions about the fire cult. A bead of cold sweat dripped down his neck, soaking into the collar of his dishdasha.

Her gaze seemed to trace the movement of the water trickling down his throat. “They’re all over you,” she whispered. “If you were anyone else, I would have heard your heartbeat, sensed your presence …” She raised a hand and he flinched, but thankfully, no plants attacked. Instead, she simply studied him. “They changed you, didn’t they? The marid?”

Ali went cold. “No,” he insisted, to himself as much as to her. “They did nothing.”

“Liar,” she taunted softly, and he couldn’t keep the anger from his face at that. “Oh, do you not like being called a liar? Is that worse than being a man who strikes a bargain with a water