The Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy #2) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,79

mark. He had disagreed—violently—with his father’s handling of the shafit. He still very much did. “I was just trying to help the shafit,” he insisted. “There was nothing political in it.”

His mother gave him an almost pitying look. “There is nothing nonpolitical about someone named ‘Zaydi al Qahtani’ trying to help the shafit.”

At that, Ali dropped his gaze. His name didn’t feel like an inspiration these days—it felt like a burden. “He was certainly better at it than I.”

Hatset sighed and then moved to sit beside him. “You are still so much the boy I remember,” she said, her voice softer. “From the time you could walk, you’d follow me through the harem, babbling about everything you could see. The smallest things would fill you with delight, with wonder … The other women declared you the most curious child they’d ever encountered. The sweetest.” Her eyes flashed with old betrayal. “Then Ghassan took you from me. They locked you away in the Citadel, put a zulfiqar in your hand, and taught you to be your brother’s weapon.” Her voice hitched on the last word. “But still I see that innocence in you. That goodness.”

Ali didn’t know what to say to that. He ran his fingers over the striped blue silk of the couch. It felt soft as a rosebud, far finer than anything he’d sat on in Am Gezira, and yet that was where he ached to be, assassins be damned. A place where helping others was a simple matter of digging a well. “That goodness has gotten me nowhere in Daevabad. Everyone I try to help ends up worse off.”

“You don’t stop fighting a war just because you’re losing battles, Alizayd. You change tactics. Surely, that’s a lesson you learned in the Citadel.”

Ali shook his head. They were veering too close to a conversation he didn’t want to have. “There’s no war to be won here. Not by me. Abba wanted to teach me a lesson, and I’ve learned it. I’ll stay in the Citadel with a zulfiqar in my hand and my mouth firmly shut until Navasatem.”

“While down the street, shafit are auctioned off like cattle?” Hatset challenged. “While your brothers in the Royal Guard are reduced to training with blunt knives and eating spoiled food so nobles can feast and dance during the holiday?”

“I can’t help them. And you’re hardly innocent in this,” Ali accused. “Do you think I don’t know the games the Ayaanle are playing with Daevabad’s economy?”

Hatset returned his glare. “You are far too clever to believe the Ayaanle are the only reason for Daevabad’s financial problems. We are a scapegoat; a slight diminishment in taxes does not do the damage I know you’ve seen. Keeping a third of the population in slavery and squalor does. Oppressing another third to the point where they self-segregate does.” Her tone grew intent. “People do not thrive under tyrants, Alizayd; they do not come up with innovations when they’re busy trying to stay alive, or offer creative ideas when error is punished by the hooves of a karkadann.”

Ali rose to his feet, wishing he could refute her words. “Go tell these things to Muntadhir. He is the emir.”

“Muntadhir doesn’t have it in him to act.” Hatset’s voice was surprisingly kind. “I like your brother. He is the most charming man I know, and he too has a good heart. But your father has carved his beliefs into Muntadhir deeper than you realize. He will reign as Ghassan does: so afraid of his people that he crushes them.”

Ali paced, fighting the water that wanted to burst from his hands. “And what would you have me do, Amma?”

“Help him,” Hatset insisted. “You don’t need to be a weapon to be an asset.”

He was already shaking his head. “Muntadhir hates me,” he said bitterly, the blunt statement salting the wound his brother had inflicted when Ali first returned. “He’s not going to listen to anything I say.”

“He doesn’t hate you. He’s hurt, he’s lost, and he’s lashing out. But those are dangerous impulses when a man has as much power as your brother, and he’s going down a path from which he might not be able to return.” Her voice darkened. “And that path, Alu? It might present you with choices far worse than talking to him.”

Ali was suddenly conscious of the water in the pitcher on the table next to him, in the fountains lining the pavilion, and in the pipes under the floor. It pulled on him, feeding