Hatset

This scene takes place a couple decades before The City of Brass and contains no spoilers.

Seif Shefali seemed determined to end her marriage before it began.

“He looks old,” her father commented, loud enough to be overheard. “Older than they said.”

“Baba, he is barely a blur,” Hatset retorted. Their ship had yet to dock upon the ghostly promenade outside Daevabad’s walls, and her future husband was a little more than a small figure in a black robe. “You cannot judge his appearance from here.”

“I have excellent eyes. A blessing wasted in this miserable den of fog.” Seif sniffed. “They might have at least spruced up the docks for your arrival.”

Hatset wished she could have disagreed, but the city to which she had tied her fate had not put on a very welcoming face this morning. She had been to Daevabad once as a girl and still remembered the awe of sailing through the veil that hid the island. Its brass walls had gleamed in the bright sunshine, the verdant mountains a backdrop to the stunning cityscape of a thousand towers and temples. Back then, Daevabad had seemed the very definition of magic.

Now Daevabad was so shrouded with fog that Hatset could see nothing of the city and only a bare hint of its walls. The empty docks protruded from the mists, broken pilings jutting from the water or lying crumpled on the shore like abandoned corpses. Not exactly a hospitable sight. Their sandship silently coursed through the motionless water of the lake, and Hatset could only imagine how alien their colorful vessel must have looked against the featureless gray. Her people had decked it out for a celebration, for a proud declaration of Ayaanle wealth and power. Its surfaces had been painted in a gilt that would have shimmered in the sun, but now looked more like the pale yellow of fallen leaves. The absurdly expensive silk sails had dropped flat in the still air, concealing her people’s emblem.

Everything felt wrong. Hatset tightened her grip on the ship’s railing. “You’re not doing much to put me at ease.”

“I’m not trying to put you at ease. I’m trying to make you turn back from the ridiculous scheme.” Her father turned to face her, the mischief in his golden eyes replaced by worry. “You do not belong in this place, daughter, and it is going to kill me to leave you here. It is Shefala you should rule, not this Daeva rock.”

I want more than Shefala. But Hatset did not say that. “Turning back isn’t possible, and you know it. If I changed my mind now, we would insult the Geziris so terribly that it would be three centuries before our people had any influence here again.” Hatset squeezed his hand, trying to bring a confident expression to her face. “And you might remember this was my choice.”

“Children should not be permitted to make choices.”

“Baba, I am a hundred years old.”

They both fell silent as the Sahrayn crew drew nearer and began preparations for docking. Hatset’s stomach fluttered as the ship landed with a jolt, and she had to force herself not to jump. A new city and a new husband. A new future upon an entirely different political chessboard. The moment Hatset stepped off this ship, she was no longer representing herself alone. She was Ta Ntry itself, the first non-Geziri woman to wed a Qahtani king in a thousand years, and her people’s fate would rise and fall alongside hers.

And now that king was close enough to be observed. Hatset did so carefully. She’d taken measures to learn all she could of Ghassan al Qahtani in the months leading up to her departure and discovered his background was a study in contrasts. He’d spent his youth as a warrior nomad in Am Gezira’s harsh mountains and then as a general in his father Khader’s bloody war to put down revolts in Qart Sahar—before being launched into a life of untold opulence as Daevabad’s king, in a luxurious palace he was said to rarely leave. From brutal war to brutal politics: Khader had been notoriously sectarian, elevating only Geziri officials and banning Daeva religious festivals.

As far as Hatset could uncover, Ghassan had quietly complied with his father’s policies, only to reverse many as king. He spoke of bringing the tribes together, putting those words into action when he decided to take a foreign wife. He, indeed, was said to be going a bit further toward the Daevas than most djinn were comfortable with. He sat upon the shedu throne as several generations of Qahtani kings had now, but also forbade shafit from guilds and trade work, and cloistered his women and family in the custom of Nahid royalty. There were even rumors Ghassan planned to choose his next grand wazir, a position that had been held by the Ayaanle since the war, from the Daeva tribe when the current man retired.

We shall see about that. But Hatset put future scheming aside to properly consider the king before her. Though an edge of silver streaked his black beard, Ghassan did not look old—or at least not much more aged than she was. He was a broadly built man, one who appeared eminently capable of still jumping on a horse and chasing down rebels despite his elegant black robe and rich clothes. He looked . . . confident, in a way Hatset suspected could easily edge into intimidating. Indeed, she did not miss that most of the courtiers surrounding him—save for his Qaid, grinning in a crimson turban—were a careful few paces away, their gazes lowered.

And yet when Ghassan met her eyes, catching Hatset studying him despite her care to avoid detection, the smile that lit his face surprised her. It was a kind, albeit slightly mischievous grin, as though they were co-conspirators and not strangers, and it made her heart skip in a way that was embarrassingly unbecoming for a woman of her experience and station. Hatset was very nearly tempted to draw her shayla over her face.

“Peace and blessings upon you,” Ghassan al Qahtani greeted as he strode toward them, reaching for her father’s hands and kissing his cheeks as though they were old friends rather than king and extremely disgruntled subject. “Welcome to Daevabad. May your light shine upon my home and your ease be found in its walls.”

“This haunted Daeva rock could use some light,” Seif said gruffly in Ntaran.

Hatset kicked her father’s foot beneath her gown. “Upon you peace, my king,” she said warmly in Djinnistani. “It is wonderful to finally arrive.”

“I trust your journey was not too arduous?” Ghassan gave an admiring glance at their sandship. “Aye, that looks like a castle itself.”

“We nearly ran into a convoy of human pilgrims crossing the Sea of Reeds, but it made for an interesting adventure for us and presumably a terrifying tale for them.”

“I am certain,” Ghassan chuckled. He beckoned toward the knot of waiting officials. “Muntadhir, come. Join us.”

The group of men parted, and Hatset got her first look at the boy she knew so many of her kinsmen were hoping her own children would one day replace. Muntadhir was a handsome youth, his appearance a mirror image of his father’s from his brilliantly colored turban to his gold-edged robe. Gone were the protective talismans Hatset knew Geziri children often wore around their neck, replaced by a prince’s collar of pearl and ruby ornaments. He couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve: young enough that he might have played up his youth and come to her as a prospective stepson, a child in need of a mother.

That he hadn’t seemed a deliberate choice and perhaps not his own—he seemed too young for such machinations.

“Lady Hatset, Lord Seif.” Muntadhir’s eyes darted to his father. Closer now, Hatset could see that the emir was on the thin side and quite pale, as though he didn’t get outdoors enough. “Peace be upon you both.”

“And upon you peace, Emir Muntadhir,” Hatset returned. “It is lovely to meet you.”

Seif’s gaze had settled on Muntadhir with a mixture of parental worry, sadness, and the sort of brash judgment that Hatset knew all too well meant he was about to say something regrettable. “Your son looks as though he’d be better off playing in the sunshine than getting dragged out in the cold to meet visiting dignitaries.”

There were breaches of protocol and then there was directly criticizing the parenting decisions of the king of Daevabad. Hatset closed her eyes, momentarily wishing a hole might open beneath her father’s feet and whisk him back to Shefala.

Instead the sky opened up, the rain that had been a bare drizzle becoming a deluge.

“Alas, but there is no sunshine,” Ghassan replied, his voice flat. Hatset opened her eyes to find him gripping Muntadhir’s shoulder. “Please, come. My emir and I would not leave our guests in the rain a moment longer than necessary.”

 

By the time they arrived at the palace, the rain was pouring down with a strength to rival Ta Ntry’s monsoons and Hatset found herself grateful for the excuse to go directly to the hammam—even if the time apart would give her father only that many more minutes to craft additional insults in the hopes of getting them both tossed out of Daevabad. The bath servants were kind, if much quieter than the women back home, who would have been teasing her about her upcoming nuptials. Hatset made sure to treat them with warmth and tip them in gold. She didn’t intend to be the kind of queen who equated fear with power.

She had just finished dressing when there was a knock on the door and a page entered. “My lady, the king requests your presence.”

Hatset was surprised. “Already? I thought we were to meet again at dinner?”

The woman bowed her head. “He is waiting just outside.”

He was? Outside here? Her nerves fluttered. Was this somehow related to her father’s rudeness? Hatset was suddenly aware of the servants watching her, the gazes only some of the many that would trail her every move until the day she died. Perhaps the summons meant something to them.

I will need to make allies here and soon. Hatset would need to figure out which of these servants she could trust. Which courtiers and which secretaries. Which guards and which ministers. Any political success she hoped to find in Daevabad would depend on how wide her network of information could spread.

She smiled graciously at the page as she draped her shayla over her head. “Of course.”

The king was waiting upon a small covered pavilion. His royal robe was gone, but the richly embroidered gold sash at his waist and the cut of his midnight-colored dishdasha were equally sumptuous, with opals ringing the collar.

“Lady Hatset . . .” Ghassan touched his heart. “I trust you are feeling a bit more rested? I can return later if you’re still tired from the journey.”

“I am feeling much recovered, God be praised,” she replied. “Yours is a very welcoming home, my king. And I must say whatever coffee it is your kitchens brew is quite powerful.”

“I am glad to hear my ‘haunted Daeva rock’ has some pleasures.”

He repeated her father’s words in flawless Ntaran with only the trace of an accent, and it was all Hatset could do not to wince. “I apologize for my father’s rudeness. He is not eager to see his only child leave, but what he said about your son was cruel and unfair.”

An emotion she couldn’t read flickered in his gray gaze. “It was calculated, I will grant him that. I can give Muntadhir many things, but a carefree childhood in the sun is not one of them.” Ghassan met her eyes. “I would not be able to give any child of mine such a blessing.”

It was a warning, and Hatset took it in stride. “I would imagine not. Though I would also hope that a warm home could be created anywhere, as long as the people in it are willing.”

“Perhaps, Lady Hatset.” He was still speaking in Ntaran, and Hatset found comfort in that. She was fluent in Djinnistani, but it was the language of business. Of commerce and government and speaking with strangers. Ntaran was for home—as surely the king knew. But Hatset had been in politics long enough that she could enjoy such a gesture without forgetting there was a reason behind it.

Ghassan motioned toward a wide set of stairs that curved out of sight, shadowed by a trellis of hanging yellow blossoms. “I was actually hoping to speak to you on that very subject—without your father, if you would permit me. Are you up for a walk?”

She was cautious—and intrigued. In truth, there was very little reason for them to speak before the wedding—entire teams of diplomats, political advisors, treasury secretaries, lawyers, and clerics from both their tribes had already hashed out every detail of their marriage, from the ceremony to the contract that would bind their peoples together. What could the king wish to know that he would prefer kept between the two of them alone?

“Of course,” Hatset said politely, keeping her tone pleasantly unconcerned.

They set off toward the stairs. The king nodded at a guard, but the man didn’t follow, and in moments, they were alone. Hatset admired the palace as they walked. Her family’s castle had been built upon human ruins centuries ago, but Daevabad was already ancient when Shefala was settled, and everything in the palace seemed to sing of its magical past. She felt as though she could close her eyes and hear the whispers of the legendary Nahids as they passed remnants of wall paintings and trace the steps of the earliest Qahtanis—not to mention her own ancestors—who’d strode these corridors and remade the world.

The view beyond the stairs didn’t disappoint, either. From the palace walls, Hatset could see Daevabad stretched below, the city dazzling in miniature. The tribal boundaries sprawled across it all like a web, ensnaring the lives of tens of thousands.

“It’s breathtaking,” she said.

“It is,” Ghassan agreed. “I try to take in this view at least once a day. Though when you realize you’re responsible for it all, the way it takes your breath is far less pleasant.”

She sneaked a glance at him. Ghassan was not what she would consider a handsome man, though Hatset suspected decades ago one of his winks would have sent noblewomen blushing. Instead he had a sturdiness, a sort of classical grace. His profile was strong, and his hands, heavy with jeweled rings, were still calloused, reminders of his decades as a soldier.

He spoke again. “I have heard a great many tales of your Shefala. An architect brought me drawings, and I have likely irritated countless Ayaanle travelers in the past few months harassing them for anything they could tell me of your home or person.”

Hatset wouldn’t judge his prying—she’d been doing the same. “Have you learned anything interesting?”

“Plenty. But I struggle to make sense of it. For everything I hear paints a picture of an intelligent, measured noblewoman with a promising future in a stable, idyllic land.” Ghassan waved a hand toward the city below them. “We may be pretty, but despite my efforts, idyllic and stable are not words I would use to describe my Daevabad. So I suppose, Lady Hatset . . .” He turned to look her full in the face. “I am wondering why you’re here?”

Hatset leaned against the low wall. “Perhaps I was won over by the stories I’d hunted down about you.”

Ghassan laughed, a rich sound. “An old widower with a child, a fractious city, and a political life that will never give you a second of peace . . . is that what young women dream of these days?”

“I am hardly a young woman, and surely you know I’ve had husbands before you.” Husbands wasn’t perhaps the best word. Consorts probably worked better, men with whom she’d exchanged simple vows on the understanding they were temporary and discreet. Many women of her station did the same. A proper husband, one with the correct political connections and with whom she might spend a century of her life, was a choice no djinn rushed into. Companionship and desire could be fleeting, and though she had enjoyed the men she’d been connected to, their partings had all been amicable.

“I do know,” he mused. “Though that still doesn’t explain why you would accept my proposal. I thought perhaps you were being pressured by your tribe or your father, but I can see that’s not the case—he seems halfway to stealing you back home, and you don’t strike me as a woman pressured to do anything. So what is it then?”

Hatset stared at him. Of the hundred scenarios she had prepared for—a hostile stepson, an interfering politician, her father actually stealing her home—being asked so bluntly by the king himself why she had chosen this path wasn’t one of them. Why would he? He was a powerful, confident man, and in Hatset’s experience, most such men assumed any woman would be lucky to have them. Why would the king of the djinn question her desire to be queen?

It was what every woman wanted, wasn’t it?

Yet he had, and for that . . . Hatset found herself wanting to respond with something less trite. She was enjoying his clever ways with words more than she should have—for she could tell even back at the docks that this was a man who could spin the truth so beautifully the sky itself might doubt its hue.

And that was exactly it, was it not? Because Hatset liked that she had to stay on her toes in this exchange. Ghassan was not like her consorts, placid and so eager to please that she could never have a genuine conversation with them, never confide in them. Her days in Shefala would have passed like all the rest, handling family squabbles and dealing with the same merchants and nobles her father and grandmother and great-grandparents before them had dealt with. It was hard work—worthy work—making sure that the marketplace ran smoothly and her people were fed if the monsoon arrived late, but Shefala was a town.

Daevabad was Daevabad. There was no other city like it in the world. Hatset could make decisions here that changed the lives of tens of thousands, not just in the city itself, but throughout the land. Decisions that cemented her people’s power and security, like seeing that an Ayaanle djinn stayed on as grand wazir. Decisions that were righteous, such as pushing to restore the protections for the shafit that had been the very reason their ancestors had taken this city in the first place.

“Ambition,” she finally said.

The surprise on his face thoroughly pleased her. “Ambition?” he repeated.

“Indeed. Your stories are accurate, my king. Ta Ntry is an idyllic land, and I suspect I would have been happy ruling there. I never contemplated another path. But then the merchant council brought your proposal to me, and it was all I thought of for a week. I love Shefala, but it is not . . . this,” she said, nodding at the vast city spread before them. “It is not the heart of our world, with all the excitement and terror that suggests. I will have opportunities here to make a difference, to meet people and experience things I could not even imagine back home. It sounded like an adventure—a challenge—that I couldn’t pass up.”

Ghassan seemed to regard that. “And perhaps a chance to strengthen Ayaanle power as well?”

Hatset smiled sweetly. “The offer was your idea. You must have known how we would receive it.”

He returned her grin. “I like you. I told my Qaid you were rumored to have a clever tongue, and he told me I’d be blessed to have a wife who would be unafraid to call me out on my nonsense. I am pleased you chose to come here despite your father’s determination to be a thorn in my side.”

“He will be a sharp one. But yes . . . ,” she added cautiously. “I am also pleased to be here.”

Ghassan paused and when he spoke again, the flirtation had gone out of his voice. “There is one more thing I would have you understand before you agree to our marriage. One far more personal.”

“And that would be?”

“For me, Daevabad’s well-being will always come first. I am a king before I am anything else. And after that? I am a father before I am a husband. Muntadhir is my emir, and that will not change. Not even if we have a son.” There was that flicker of emotion again in his eyes, and when he spoke, his voice was softer. “I owe him that for the life that he lives here.”

Hatset schooled her reaction, not missing the firm set of Ghassan’s mouth. This was a battle she’d prepared for and one she knew would be a long, complicated war—if it even amounted to that. After all, their people did not conceive easily. She had hopes, of course, but right now they were just that.

She put the sad eyes of the boy emir on the docks out of her mind. “I understand. Just as long as any children we have together were given equal protection, wealth, and a secure future.”

“But of course. They would be Qahtanis.”

They would be Qahtanis.

That seemed a fate that could carry as many curses as it did privileges. But she looked around, and the curses—such as they were—seemed lessened by the blessings and opportunities. She drew herself up.

“Then I am agreed, my king.” Her heart skipped as she said it, but she was. Hatset wouldn’t have left Ta Ntry if she wasn’t certain. That Ghassan had held this conversation and offered her a way out had only solidified her conviction.

“I am delighted, truly. And if I may . . .” Ghassan reached for her arm, and Hatset allowed him to take it. “I would like to show you a better view.”

Hatset arched a brow at his words.

He choked out a laugh, his cheeks briefly darkening. “I swear those words sounded more innocent in my head.”

“Perhaps my father is right to distrust you,” she teased. But she let herself lean into his warmth as they walked.

“The royal apartments are on the top levels of the ziggurat,” Ghassan explained as they climbed even higher. “It is either an excellent way to stay in shape or an act of penitence depending on your day.”

Hatset glanced down at the green spread of jungle that made up the heart of the palace. “Does no one like the gardens? They look so beautiful, and it would seem a more central location.”

“I have never known a Qahtani to feel comfortable there.” Ghassan shrugged. “You will come to learn that the palace magic can have a mind of its own . . . one that does not always approve of djinn. The garden is captivating and lovely during the day, but I would not enter its depths at night, even with Wajed at my side. And that is to say nothing of the silly tales the servants spin about its canal being haunted by marid.”

Hatset tensed. Back home, the tales her people told of marid were not silly: they were accounts of weeping families who woke to find loved ones lured into rivers and drowned, their blank-eyed bodies left riddled with bloody marks. They were rare tragedies, thank God, but had happened enough that the Ayaanle had a very, very different understanding of the marid—to them, the marid were more than a vanished myth.

An understanding they kept to themselves—no one needed foreigners finding reason to go sniffing about Ta Ntry. “The upper level of the ziggurat it is,” she said simply.

The sun had finally started to peek past the clouds when they came upon a large expanse of terraced land. It looked as though there might have been royal apartments there once—centuries ago. Ruined walls and crumbling arches dotted the weed-strewn plaza like jutting fingers of stone. Or rather . . . not stone, Hatset realized. It was coral, like the human castles back home.

“Wait for it,” Ghassan whispered, his breath warm against her ear.

There was a swirl of smoke in the air, as though glittering black sand had been tossed to dance in the misty shafts of sunlight. A smell like seared wood, the aroma of magic.

The plaza rearranged itself. Coral walls shot up to rise over an elegant complex of buildings surrounding a pavilion that overlooked the city. The buildings were instantly familiar, the architecture of stout towers topped by stepped battlements aside a dizzying wonder of archways and small domes a perfect imitation of the human ruins back in Shefala that her ancestors had enchanted and transformed into djinn homes. The weeds and rotting leaves clogging the moldy stone planters were gone, replaced by green grasses and delicate Nile lilies floating upon mirrored basins. A whole baobab tree held court over a suspended garden that looked plucked from Paradise . . . if Paradise held plants and flowers exclusive to Ta Ntry.

Hatset was wandering through before she realized she’d taken a step. Shimmering linen cloth in purple and gold draped the entranceways, behind smoldering braziers of myrrh. It was a homage to her homeland as designed by an artist, and whether it was the long journey or her own uncertainties about her path, she felt tears spring to her eyes as she glanced back at Ghassan.

“You did not have to do this,” she said in a rush.

Her response likely sounded rude in comparison to her earlier crafted words, but Ghassan appeared more bemused than anything.

“I wanted you to have a place to call your own here, a place that reminded you of home.” He hesitated and then added more quietly, “I wish I had thought to do the same for my first wife. Saffiyeh always seemed so lost, and it wasn’t until after she died that I realized it was the shores of Am Gezira she longed for, not the jewels and perfumes of Daevabad.”

Hatset knew Ghassan was a talented politician, but the regret that peppered his voice seemed genuine, a mirror of his emotional insistence that Muntadhir would remain his successor. And though such devotion to his first wife and son were not necessarily promising signs for the political machinations her people hoped to put in place, they spoke well of the man she was shortly to be wedded to, the one whose life she would share.

He didn’t have to do this. Hatset came from a family of merchant nobles, raised with the belief that while both gold and a family name were essential to power, only one could buy it. She could judge with a glance the exorbitant wealth needed to create such an enchanting place and knew equally well that Daevabad and financial stability were not synonymous—she was actually wealthier than her husband. Ghassan could easily have outfitted a wing of the palace with the accumulated royal treasures he already had, yet instead he had paid to make something new. A home uniquely designed for her.

And he hadn’t shown it to her until after she’d agreed. Hatset gave him a tilted smile. “What would you have done if our discussion had led to me getting back on my father’s ship?”

“Gotten on my knees before the Treasury and begged for forgiveness?”

“Then I will spare you such humiliation. It’s beautiful,” she said, taking his arm again. “Truly. This means more to me than I can express.”

He covered her fingers with his own. “Then it was worth it. I hope to see you happy here, Lady Hatset. I do not doubt you will face pressure from the court and the noble families who have been here since ‘the time of Anahid,’” he said, affecting a lofty Divasti accent. “But you have my blessing to incorporate whatever traditions bring you comfort. I hope in time we may hear the laughter of a child here, and that they shall be a source of comfort for us both.”

They would be Qahtanis. His words—his warning?—played through Hatset’s mind again. She tried to push it away. “May I show my father this place?” she asked instead. “I think it would give him some comfort.”

“Please do. But first . . . I have one more of Daevabad’s attractions.” Ghassan gave her a conspiratorial wink. “Ever met a Nahid?”

 

Faint laughter greeted them as they rounded the winding garden paths toward the infirmary. It echoed the growing warmth in Hatset’s chest; Ghassan had spent their meandering walk making her laugh, so aggressively charming in his compliments and self-effacing childhood anecdotes that she’d teased him for it. The sky was now completely cloudless, the sunshine illuminating the leafy path and making the harem garden seem harmless in its beauty. Sure, the monkeys that had been swinging in the branches bore fangs and jewel-sharp claws, and yes . . . a root had made a swipe for Ghassan’s ankles that he neatly sidestepped, but Hatset was a djinn. It took more than that to frighten her.

As they passed a gargantuan orange grove, the laughter grew louder, accompanied by chatter in what sounded like a variant of Arabic to Hatset’s limited ear; she’d never mastered the human holy tongue beyond what she needed for prayers. Perhaps a pair of shafit gardeners were nearby . . . though the overly flirtatious tone to their voices—one that needed no translation—did not suggest much work was getting accomplished. Hatset was about to delicately suggest to Ghassan that they take another path, but then they came upon a sunlit glen, bursting with flowers in what seemed every color in creation. Silver and pale pink rosebushes rose in columns taller than her head and saffron coneflowers grew in manicured clumps aside purple irises, yellow narcissus, and bright red poppies.

The glen was not empty. But the man Hatset spotted first, sitting comfortably with a sketchpad on his lap, wasn’t the Arabic-speaking shafit gardener she might have expected. The cut of his trousers and the black eyes that widened in a pale face were Daeva. He shot to his feet when he saw them, dropping the sketchpad to cover his face with a white silk veil that had been hanging from one ear.

Hatset blinked in surprise. The white veil—surely this couldn’t be . . . She glanced at his giggling conversation partner. This woman clearly was shafit, her rounded ears and earth dull skin obvious signs of human heritage. She sat poised on the ground, a basket of gathered herbs and leafy greens in her arms. The young woman had been grinning when they entered the glen, but the expression died on her lips at the sight of the royal couple.

“Baga Rustam . . .” Ghassan sounded amused. “Taking a break?”

“My king.” The Baga Nahid quickly stepped between Ghassan and the shafit woman. “Forgive me, I did not hear you.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Ghassan replied magnanimously. He bent to retrieve the sketchpad Rustam had dropped. “A very pretty subject,” he remarked, barely glancing at the woman half hidden behind the Baga Nahid. “It pleases me to see you enjoying yourself on such a beautiful day instead of hiding in your rooms.”

He gave Rustam what appeared to be a friendly pat on the shoulder, and Hatset did not miss the flinch of the Daeva man.

“Y-yes,” Rustam replied in a shaking voice.

“Come, meet our next queen.” Ghassan led him forward and Hatset smiled, trying to put the trembling Nahid at ease. She’d heard the healers were peculiar. “Lady Hatset, this is Baga Rustam e-Nahid.”

Rustam’s gaze didn’t leave his feet. “May the fires burn brightly for you.”

Hatset glanced questioningly at Ghassan, who merely shrugged. “It’s the way he is,” he said in Ntaran.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Baga Rustam,” she returned kindly. “I hope we didn’t interrupt you and your . . .” Hatset glanced up, but the shafit woman had vanished. “Companion.”

Rustam’s eyes shot to hers, so dark and flat Hatset nearly stepped back. “She is not my companion.”

“Right,” Ghassan replied flippantly, clearly accustomed to the Baga Nahid’s eccentricities. He nudged the other man’s shoulder. “Do you have a scalpel on you?”

Rustam’s expression shuttered. “No,” he said, his voice going hoarse.

Ghassan pulled free the khanjar at his waist. “Then use this. Show her what you can do.” Ghassan grinned at Hatset. “Just wait. You’ve never seen anything like this.”

Hatset stared at the pair, bewildered and uneasy. Rustam’s fingers had closed around the dagger’s hilt. He stared at the weapon for a long moment, and then with a single jerk, he ripped open his wrist.

Hatset cried out, moving instantly to help him. Black blood poured from the gash, dripping through Rustam’s fingers and onto the flowers. But as Hatset looked for something to stanch the wound, she realized it was already healing. As she watched, his skin surged back together, stitching itself shut without a scar in seconds.

“Isn’t it incredible?” Ghassan gushed.

“What’s going on here?” a woman’s voice demanded from behind them.

Rendered speechless by what she had just seen, Hatset started as another woman stormed into the glen. She was Daeva, likely about Hatset’s age but far more petite, with premature silver in her frizzy hair and tired lines around her raptor-like eyes. Her rumpled clothes were streaked with ash and blood.

There should have been nothing intimidating about the disheveled Daeva woman. But when she glanced at Baga Rustam, still holding Ghassan’s khanjar wet with his blood, the very air in the garden went still, like the eerie calm before a tropical storm.

“Banu Manizheh,” Ghassan greeted, his voice taking on a chill. “How astonishing your timing can be when you wish it so.”

Manizheh ignored the king’s sarcastic response, looking only to her brother. “Rustam, Sayyida Kuslovi’s fever isn’t responding to treatment. I need you to brew her a stronger tonic.”

Rustam’s gaze darted to Ghassan, and the king waved a hand. “Go.”

The Baga Nahid was gone so fast that he might have blinked out of view. His sister’s assessing stare turned to Hatset, and Hatset forced herself to hold it.

So this is the legendary Banu Manizheh. The Banu Nahida who Hatset had heard so many stories about, so many warnings. Warnings that had been easy to dismiss as gossip or fearmongering when Hatset wasn’t standing before a woman who radiated power like no one she had ever met. She’d seen dead sharks with more emotion in their eyes than Manizheh’s currently held.

But Hatset was a diplomat. “Peace be upon you, Banu Nahida,” she greeted politely. “It is an hon—”

The other woman cut her off. “Do you have any illnesses?”

Hatset was taken aback by the abrupt question. “No?”

“Good. If you are ill or beset with childbirth, please come to me immediately. I’d rather not risk you dying and me getting blamed. Again.” Manizheh cut a contemptuous glance at Ghassan as anger blossomed in the king’s face. “I received your invitation to tonight’s . . . event.”

“My betrothal dinner,” he corrected. “A feast to welcome your future queen.”

“Right,” Manizheh dismissed. “I will not be there. My brother and I have patients.” Without another word, Manizheh turned on her heel and left.

Hatset’s mouth was dry. Well. There went any rumors she’d heard regarding an affair between these two. Or jealousy. Or the Banu Nahida having any romantic interest in Ghassan. She’d seen love turn sour. This wasn’t that. Wine could become vinegar, sure.

This was acid. This was hate, pure and unadulterated. And given whatever the hell that business had been with Ghassan goading Rustam into injuring himself, Hatset wasn’t sure she could blame Manizheh.

“My esteemed Nahids,” Ghassan said caustically to no one in particular. “Do not fret. Should you need their services, I assure you their actual bedside manner is far improved. Muntadhir’s birth was quite difficult, and neither of the Nahids were anything but professional. They stayed by Saffiyeh’s side the entire time.”

Hatset tried to imagine having that viperous woman at her side during childbirth and quickly decided against it. Should she get pregnant, she would write to Shefala and request a midwife from back home.

Except, of course, the danger wouldn’t end for her children at their birth. It would only be beginning. Hatset suddenly remembered something her father had said back in Ta Ntry when he was begging her to reconsider Ghassan’s proposal:

Do not put yourself in a war that is not yours, daughter. You do not understand the kind of violence Daevabad has witnessed. You do not understand the enmity that runs between the Qahtanis and the Nahids.

And as Ghassan had promised, as he had warned?

Their children would be Qahtanis. And Hatset had already said yes.