The Kingdom of Copper (The Daevabad Trilogy #2) - S. A. Chakraborty Page 0,90

my very memories …”

“Because I didn’t want them to consume you!” Nisreen put down the mortar, turning her full attention on Nahri. “My lady, you were singing to shadows and cutting open your wrists to try and bring Dara back. You didn’t need to know more.”

Nahri flinched at the blunt depiction of her grief, but Nisreen’s last words still set her blood boiling. “Whether or not I needed to know more was not your decision to make. Not with this, not with the hospital, not with anything.” She threw up her hands. “Nisreen, I can’t have this. I need at least one person in this cursed city I can trust, one person who will tell me the truth no matter what.”

Nisreen’s dark eyes flicked away. When she spoke again, her voice was soft with both pity and disgust. “I didn’t know what to tell you, Nahri. He was barely recognizable as a djinn when they brought him in. He was hissing and spitting like a snake, shrieking in some language no one could recognize. The things clinging to his skin attacked us as we removed them. We had to tie him down after he tried to strangle his own father!”

Nahri’s eyes widened, but Nisreen clearly wasn’t done. “What do you think brought down the ceiling of your infirmary?” She jerked her head up. “It was Alizayd, whatever was in Alizayd.” Nisreen lowered her voice further. “I assisted your mother and uncle for a century and a half, and I witnessed things I could never have imagined, but, Banu Nahri … nothing comes close to what I saw happen to Alizayd al Qahtani.” She reached for the simmering glass flask with a gloved hand and poured the potion into a jade cup that she then thrust at Nahri. “His friendship was a weakness you should have never permitted yourself and now he’s a threat you barely understand.”

Nahri made no move to take the cup. “Taste it.”

Nisreen stared at her. “What?”

“Taste it.” Nahri jerked her head toward the door. “Or get out of my infirmary.”

Without dropping her gaze, Nisreen lifted the cup to her mouth and took a sip. She put it back down with a thud. “I would never risk you like that, Banu Nahida. Never.”

“Do you know who might have been capable of making that poison?”

Nisreen’s black gaze didn’t so much as waver. “No.”

Nahri took the cup. Her hands were shaking. “Would you tell me if you did? Or would that be another truth I’m not capable of handling?”

Nisreen sighed. “Nahri …”

But she was already walking away.

LUBAYD WAS ON THE PAVILION STEPS, SOME DISTANCE from the entrance to her bedroom.

“I wouldn’t interrupt them if I were you,” he warned.

Nahri brushed past. “They’re the ones interrupting me.” She continued toward her room but paused at the curtained door, stepping into the shadow of a rose lattice. She could hear the voices of the royal couple inside.

“—should burn in hell for sentencing your child to such a fate. He was eighteen, Ghassan. Eighteen and you sent him to die in Am Gezira after some lake demon tortured him!”

“Do you think I wanted to?” Ghassan hissed. “I have three children, Hatset. I have thirty thousand times as many subjects. Daevabad comes first. I have always told you that. You should have concerned yourself with his safety before your relatives and their dirt-blooded friends attempted to lure him into treason!”

Nahri stood utterly still, well aware that the two most powerful people in Daevabad were having an argument it seemed to be courting death to overhear. But she couldn’t make herself turn away.

And Hatset wasn’t done. “Daevabad comes first,” she repeated. “Fine words for a king doing his best to destroy everything our ancestors fought for. You’re letting the shafit be sold off to the highest bidder while your emir drinks himself into an early grave.”

“Muntadhiris not drinking himself into a grave,” Ghassan said, defending his son. “He has always been more capable than you grant him. He’s making peace with the Daevas, a peace long overdue.”

“This isn’t peace!” Rage and exasperation warred in Hatset’s voice. “When will you realize that? The Daevas don’t want your peace; they want us gone. Manizheh despised you, your grand wazir would cut your throat in your sleep if he could, and that girl you bullied into marrying Muntadhir is not going to forget what you’ve done to her. The moment she gets pregnant, you’ll be the one poisoned. She and the Pramukhs will shuffle Muntadhir off into an