not weak like the right leg. That’s what’s causing me the most trouble.”
Nahri eased him onto his belly. She flinched at the sight of his bare back; she always did. Six scars, the ridged lines marking the spots where Dara’s arrows had plunged into him. One had lodged in his spine, another had punctured his right lung.
You should be dead. It was the uneasy conclusion Nahri came to every time she looked at the evidence of his wounds. At a cruel order from Ghassan meant to goad Kaveh into finding Dara’s so-called accomplices, Jamshid had been left untreated for a week, the arrows still in his body. He should have died. That he hadn’t was a mystery on a par with the fact that he reacted so poorly to her magic.
Her gaze drifted past the small black tattoo on the inside of his shoulder. She had seen it many times, three swirling glyphs. It was a faded ghost of the striking, elaborate tattoos that had decorated Dara’s skin—family sigils and clan marks, records of heroic deeds and protective charms. Jamshid had rolled his eyes when she asked about it. Apparently, the custom of the tattoos had mostly died out in the generations of Daevas born after the war, particularly in Daevabad. It was an old-fashioned superstition, he’d jokingly complained, one that gave away his rural roots.
Nahri touched his back, and Jamshid tensed. “Would you like some wine?” she asked. “It might dull the pain.”
“I downed three cups just to work up the courage to come here.”
Lovely. She took up a length of cloth. “I’d like to bind your hands this time.” She gestured for him to grip the posts of the pallet. “Hold on to this. It will give you something to squeeze.”
He was trembling now. “You have something I can bite?”
She silently handed him a skinny block of opium-infused cedarwood and then laid her hands on his bare back, glancing over to make sure the curtain was fully closed. “Ready?”
He nodded jerkily.
Nahri closed her eyes.
In seconds, she was there, his body open to her. The beat of his racing heart, pumping simmering ebony blood through a delicate map of veins. The gurgling of stomach acid and other humors. His lungs steadily expanding and contracting like bellows.
Her fingers pressed his skin. She could almost see the nerves of his spine in the blackness of her mind, brilliantly colored, dancing filaments protected by the bony ridges of vertebrae. She moved her fingers lower, tracing the bumpy scar tissue. And not just on the skin, but deeper as well: ruined muscles and frayed nerves.
She took a steadying breath. This much she could do without hurting him. It was only when she acted upon him that his body fought back. Were he anyone else, Nahri could urge those nerves to knit back together, could dissipate the scar tissue that had grown over the muscle, leaving him stiff and in pain. It was powerful magic that exhausted her—she might have needed a few sessions to heal him entirely—but he’d have been back on a horse, bow in hand, years ago.
Nahri concentrated on a small section of the flailing nerves. She steeled herself and then commanded them to reconnect.
Magic slammed into her, raw, protective, and powerful, like a blow to her very mind. Prepared, Nahri fought back, pinning a torn nerve back into place. Jamshid seized beneath her, a grunt escaping his clenched teeth. She ignored it, focusing on the next nerve.
She’d fixed three when he started groaning.
He bucked beneath her, pulling at his bindings. His skin burned under her fingertips, scorching to the touch, every pain receptor firing. Nahri held on, sweat pouring down her face. There were only five nerves left in this particular spot. She reached for another one, her hands shaking. It took strength to fight his body’s reaction and perform the magic, strength she was rapidly losing.
One more nerve melded back into place, glowing faintly in her mind’s eye. She seized the next.
The block fell from Jamshid’s mouth, his shriek cutting the air. Ash was powdering on his skin, and then with a burst of magic, the binds holding his hands erupted into flames.
“Jamshid?” A very unwelcome voice spoke from behind her. “Jamshid!”
Muntadhir rushed inside. The shock of the interruption threw her, and then whatever power was within Jamshid’s body took the opportunity to actually throw her, a surge of energy so fierce that Nahri stumbled back, her connection severed.
Jamshid fell still. Despite the pounding in her head, Nahri flew