Jamshid

This scene takes place toward the end of The City of Brass, picking up from the night Ali is attacked by an assassin and following through the next few days until the climactic battle on the lake. Spoilers for the first book.

It had been nearly a decade since Jamshid e-Pramukh joined Muntadhir al Qahtani’s service; in that time, there had been a great many incidents that led him to question the decision to leave his safe, boring life at the Temple. But as he followed the emir through a cursed garden in the middle of the night, with an unconscious prince in his arms, Jamshid’s regrets had never loomed larger.

Baba warned you not to get involved with them. He tried. You have no one to blame but yourself. Jamshid ducked to avoid a vine dangling across the muddy path. Scythe-like thorns jutted from the vine’s pebbly bark, gleaming wetly in the moonlight. Just what was gleaming wetly Jamshid didn’t want to know. The only sound beside the dripping leaves was Muntadhir’s labored breathing. The emir was clearly struggling with his share of his brother’s body, huffing and gasping as he held Alizayd’s long legs tucked under his arms.

Good, a petty part of Jamshid thought. I hope you struggle. Since strolling onto the palace roof expecting his royal lover and instead interrupting an assassination attempt, he’d been struggling to keep a lid on his emotions. Jamshid liked to think he’d behaved in accordance with his training: he’d obeyed Alizayd’s orders and gotten the prince to the Banu Nahida in time to save his life. He’d cleaned up the scene and then discreetly sought out Muntadhir, knowing he’d know what to do next. All in all, not bad for the captain of the emir’s guard: the man who was expected to be Muntadhir’s capable shadow, the man who protected Daevabad’s next king and sorted out his messes. Jamshid had even had the presence of mind to interrupt Muntadhir back in Banu Nahri’s bedroom when it seemed the emir was about to speak too freely about whatever the hell his brother had gotten himself involved in.

But there was no Banu Nahida here now. Jamshid was alone with Muntadhir in the eerie midnight garden, so the professional mask he clung to so desperately finally slipped.

“Why were you at Khanzada’s?” he demanded.

Muntadhir swore as he accidentally knocked off one of Ali’s sandals. “What?”

“Khanzada’s,” Jamshid pressed, hating the jealous edge in his voice. “Why were you there? We were supposed to meet after you were done stargazing with your siblings, remember? Why do you think I was on the roof?”

Muntadhir sighed. “You’re really doing this? Now?” he asked, nodding to Alizayd’s unconscious body hanging between them.

“Yes. It will give you less time to concoct a lie.”

Muntadhir stopped walking, and the look he shot Jamshid over his shoulder was his royal one. This was the Muntadhir who could seduce a business rival as Jamshid quietly watched and order the imprisonment of a Daeva writer who’d spoken against Ghassan. “Lower your voice,” he hissed. “You’ll get us caught.”

Jamshid had to bite his tongue, but he did as his emir commanded and stayed silent as they made their way to Alizayd’s apartment. The canal was wilder in this part of the garden—crashing against the tall stone walls before rising in a reversed waterfall. It was an extraordinary sight, and had Jamshid the time, he might have stopped to admire it. Though Daevabad’s palace frightened most people with its bloody past and unpredictable, vengeful magic, Jamshid found the place entrancing. It was like stepping into the pages of a storybook and seeing fables brought to life before his eyes.

But right now he did only as he was told. After a quick peek to make sure the apartment was empty and devoid of further assassins, he and Muntadhir carried Alizayd inside. The younger prince had yet to stir, and judging from the opium on his breath—Banu Nahri clearly took pain management seriously—he wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon.

They laid him carefully on the bed. Muntadhir called a flame into one hand and then lifted his brother’s shirt to check his bandages. Jamshid watched, saying nothing as his emir removed Alizayd’s sandals and pulled a light sheet over his body. Alizayd muttered in his sleep, and Muntadhir pressed a kiss to his forehead. “You’re going to be the death of me, idiot.”

“Yes,” Jamshid said evenly. “A number of your followers fear exactly that.”

Muntadhir threw him another aggravated glare and then rose to his feet. “Come.” They left Alizayd’s bedroom, and Muntadhir pulled the door closed behind him before pointing to a cushion. “Sit.”

Jamshid grated at the commands but sat. Muntadhir poured two cups of water from a pitcher, and Jamshid didn’t miss that his hands were shaking. The emir might be acting like he had everything under control, but Jamshid was as experienced at reading the emotions of the man he’d been cursed to fall for as Muntadhir was at concealing them.

And Muntadhir was worried.

Jamshid was too. “Shouldn’t we tell your father what happened? This is madness. An assassin guts your brother and you’re not summoning the guard? What if there are other killers out there? They could come for you next!”

Muntadhir set one of the cups before him. “The assassin was shafit, right? You’re sure?” he asked, ignoring Jamshid’s question.

“Yes.” Jamshid opened the coat he’d stolen to reveal the crimson blood staining his tunic underneath. “Trust me.”

“And Ali told you to get rid of him? And make sure no one but Nahri knew he was hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck.” Muntadhir sat back, looking more exhausted.

“Do you have any idea who it might have been? It looked . . . Muntadhir, it looked personal. A better assassin would have been quicker and gotten away. Whoever this was, he wanted to cause a lot of pain. Your brother is lucky to be alive.”

Muntadhir paled. “But he’s dead now? You’re certain?”

Suleiman’s eye, I hope so. Jamshid suppressed a shudder as he forced himself to recall the details. Alizayd’s growled order and the sickening splash as the assassin’s body hit the distant lake. Had the man been dead?

Or had Jamshid sent him to an even more brutal end?

The question made him ill. But he was a soldier, and this was what he had signed up for, wasn’t it? Protecting the royal family and killing those who would threaten them?

And is that what you want to be? A killer?

“Jamshid?” Muntadhir prompted, sounding concerned. Whether that was concern for Jamshid or a loose end, Jamshid wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

He cleared his throat. “Your brother bashed the assassin’s head in, cut his throat with a telescope lens, and then ordered me to dump the body in the lake.” Jamshid held his emir’s gaze. “The assassin’s dead. I’m certain. Now will you tell me what’s going on?”

Muntadhir’s face instantly closed off. “A family matter. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Except you didn’t handle it,” Jamshid pointed out, growing angrier. “My Banu Nahida did. And if she gets in trouble—”

“She won’t. I give you my word. Neither you nor Nahri will come to any harm over this. If my father gets wind of anything, I’ll cover for you both.”

That made Jamshid feel slightly better, but Nahri wasn’t the only person he was worried about. “And you? I’m the captain of your guard. You’re keeping something from me, I know it. You’re tense and distracted and—”

“There’s a Geziri-murdering, Qahtani-despising, millennia-old Afshin in my city. Of course I’m tense!”

“This started before Darayavahoush arrived,” Jamshid persisted. “You’ve been acting strange ever since your brother moved back to the palace.” Muntadhir exhaled, looking away, and Jamshid had to resist the urge to go shake him. “You can trust me. If there’s something going on with Alizayd . . .”

“There’s not.”

“Muntadhir, you know what people say—”

“Then they’re wrong,” Muntadhir snapped. “I trust Ali with my life, and we are done with this conversation.”

A few years ago, the heat in Muntadhir’s command would have sent Jamshid to his knees in apology. Emir Muntadhir rarely spoke in genuine anger; he was a forgiving, good-humored man. If you betrayed him, you were likely to wake up without your spouse, your fortune, and your house—but you would wake up, which was more than one could expect if they displeased the king.

Jamshid wasn’t going to his knees now though. Muntadhir didn’t want to talk about the assassination attempt? Fine. Jamshid had other topics they could discuss. “Then if you are truly recovered from your worries about Alizayd, perhaps we can return to the conversation we started in the garden about you standing me up to visit Khanzada.”

Muntadhir raised his eyes to the ceiling. “You really are spoiling for a fight.”

Spoiling for a fight . . . oh, but this man made him see red. Jamshid set down his cup, fighting the desire to fling it at Muntadhir’s head. “You lied to me. I haven’t seen you in three months and then you abandon me on the roof to go get drunk with—”

“You were my first stop when I returned! God, I know I’m somewhat out of practice after trekking across the desert with Dara-I-would-like-to-shoot-you-full-of-arrows-yavahoush, but surely you remember me surprising you this afternoon?”

The knowing look Muntadhir gave Jamshid made part of him melt while also stoking his rage—an effect his royal lover excelled at. Jamshid very much remembered this afternoon. Feigning an errand, Muntadhir had quietly diverted from his royal procession to surprise Jamshid at the Pramukhs’ home. Kaveh had been out, the servants easily dismissed, and the sudden shock of having his emir, looking incongruous and yet terribly fetching in dusty traveling clothes and overgrown beard . . . well, perhaps neither of them had been as discreet as they should have been.

And yet the memory, the precious slice of intimacy and domesticity they would never have—Muntadhir stretched out in Jamshid’s plain bed, washing from the same basin, sneaking into the kitchen to scrounge for snacks—Muntadhir himself had just torn it to shreds.

“So is that it, then?” Jamshid asked. “I get you in the afternoon, Khanzada in the evening, some starry-eyed diplomat tomorrow morning . . . no wonder you stood me up. It must be hard to keep us all in track. You should hire an additional secretary.”

“There would be no salary high enough.” When Jamshid glared at him, Muntadhir raised his hands in a gesture of peace. “Listen, I’m sorry, okay? You’re right and I apologize. I shouldn’t have left you on the roof like that. I was distracted by a fight I had with my father, but that’s no excuse.”

The half-pleading jest in Muntadhir’s gray eyes tore at Jamshid’s heart, but Jamshid wasn’t letting him slip away so easily. “And Khanzada? You told me it was over when you left with the Afshin. I wouldn’t . . . I mean, this afternoon—” Jamshid stumbled for words. “I can’t have that with you and then watch you go to her.”

Muntadhir looked pained. “I can’t end things with her yet. Jamshid, she’s got half the court at her salon every night, spilling secrets to her students. I can’t look away from that kind of intelligence.”

“Of course not,” Jamshid said, his voice hollow. “Daevabad comes first.”

Muntadhir flinched but said nothing. Neither of them did for a long moment, and the tense silence that sprawled between them ripped Jamshid apart. If this was love—choking back your own hurt out of fear of hurting another—it was as awful as it was precious. He wanted to rage at Muntadhir just as much as he wanted to make sure no one raged at Muntadhir.

Muntadhir rose to his feet. There was a stiffness in his posture that meant he was about to say something emir-like that would no doubt be frustrating.

“Daevabad will always come first,” he said softly. “It must. I cannot offer you any more of my heart and my loyalty than I already have, Jamshid. I’ve always tried to be honest about that.”

He had. If there was one thing Jamshid could not fault Muntadhir, it was that Muntadhir had always been honest, brutally honest, about where his Daeva lover ranked in comparison to his kingdom and family. For all that Muntadhir could be profligate and careless—with money, with wine, with hearts—he’d been cautious with Jamshid. It had been Jamshid who’d pursued Muntadhir. Jamshid who’d broken down the emir’s well-constructed walls and initiated their first kisses, brazenly ignoring Muntadhir’s warnings. For everything that Jamshid had learned about the cruelty of Daevabad’s court, about what it was like to belong to a beaten, persecuted people in a city they should have ruled . . . part of him was still the country boy from Zariaspa raised on legends and romance.

“We could run away,” he said, only half joking. “Explore the world and live off the humans like our ancestors.”

Muntadhir gave him a broken smile. “I have a team of servants to dress me. How do you think I would take to the wild?”

I would teach you. I would do anything to be with you and see you free of your duties and safe from this city’s awful, murderous politics. But Jamshid didn’t say that. He already knew the answer.

Daevabad came first.

Muntadhir was still staring at him with a despair in his eyes that Jamshid didn’t like. “Jamshid, about my duties. There’s something I should tell you before you hear it from Kaveh. The fight with my father . . .” Muntadhir cleared his throat. “It was about your Banu Nahida.”

“What about her?”

“He wants me to marry her.”

Jamshid rocked back on his heels. “Marry her? But that’s ridiculous,” he sputtered, objecting before the words had even properly settled in his brain. “She’s a Nahid. You’re a—”

“A what?” Muntadhir had jerked up, surprised hurt in his expression. “A djinn? A sand fly?”

Jamshid backpedaled, ashamed how quickly he’d recoiled at the prospect of one of his sacred Nahids marrying a non-Daeva. Of course it should have been a possibility. It was the ideal alliance, and it made perfect sense that Ghassan—one of the few kings who made a concerted effort at improving things with the Daevas—would want to marry his heir to the Banu Nahida.

But she’s not theirs. Banu Nahri was a miracle, a Daeva miracle. Her arrival in Daevabad at the Afshin’s side had electrified their tribe. She was a blessing, the promise of a brighter future. And Jamshid liked her. She was witty and funny and, well, a little scary, but he liked her.

He didn’t want to see her made into Ghassan’s pawn.

“You can’t marry her,” Jamshid said again, more insistently. “It’s not right. She just got to Daevabad. She doesn’t deserve to be immediately ground up by your father.”

Muntadhir’s eyes flashed. “Thanks for assuming I’d be the sort of husband to allow my wife to be ‘ground up.’” He was twisting one of his rings, the plain gold one he wore in memory of his mother. Muntadhir had elegant hands, his fingers untouched by calluses. Jamshid loved his hands; quietly lacing their fingers together had been their earliest form of intimacy: a sign from Muntadhir that he needed Jamshid to help extract him from whatever circumstance in which he’d gotten embroiled.

Then a far more personal cost of this marriage became clear. Nahri was Jamshid’s Banu Nahida. If she married Muntadhir . . .

“We would be over,” Jamshid said, realizing it aloud. “This . . . whatever this is between us. It would need to end. She’s my Banu Nahida; I couldn’t betray her like that.”

There was no surprise in Muntadhir’s face, only resignation. Of course his emir would have already worked this all out.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I imagined as much.”

Jamshid felt like he was going to be sick. “Do you want to marry her?”

The uncertainty in Muntadhir’s expression said it all. “No. But . . . it could be a new beginning for our tribes. I feel like I’m being selfish if I don’t consider it.”

So be selfish, Jamshid wanted to say. To shout. But he couldn’t. Muntadhir didn’t give up his mask easily, and right now he looked devastated. Jamshid had no doubt that if it hadn’t been for him, Muntadhir would have already agreed and consigned himself to a political marriage for the good of his kingdom.

He was always going to have a political marriage. Muntadhir might have broken his heart more times than Jamshid could count, but Jamshid was the only one of them who had a choice. Muntadhir would never escape his fate. Jamshid could. If he wanted to give up his position or run back to Zariaspa, tongues would wag, his father would be furious, but there would be no real consequences.

Muntadhir spoke again. “I hope you know that if this ever got to be too much, I would still look out for you. It’s not contingent on us being . . . well.” He stumbled over his words, sounding uncharacteristically nervous. “I can find you another position. Anything you want, anywhere you want. You wouldn’t have to worry about money or—”

Oh, my love. Jamshid’s anger melted. “No.” He closed the space between them and took Muntadhir’s hand. “Someone just broke into the palace to try to assassinate one Qahtani prince, and the Afshin has the Daevas all riled up. I’m not leaving your side.”

“My protector.” Muntadhir gave him a small, haunted smile and brought Jamshid’s hand to his mouth. He kissed his knuckles. “Maybe you could be my Afshin.”

Jamshid pulled Muntadhir closer. He wrapped his arms around him, and Muntadhir finally let out a shaky breath, relaxing into his embrace. Jamshid gently removed his turban and ran his fingers through Muntadhir’s hair. “You know when I was younger, I would have found that a terribly romantic comparison.”

“Of course you would have.” But Jamshid heard hesitation in the other man’s voice. “May I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

Muntadhir broke away to look Jamshid in the face. “What do you mean the Afshin has the Daevas all riled up?”

 

Jamshid watched as Dara leaned back against the cushions that had been set up next to their feast and grinned at the rapt faces of the spellbound Daeva nobles surrounding him.

“It knocked me clean off my horse,” the Afshin said, laughing as he continued the story he’d been sharing. “I barely even saw the damned thing. One moment I am examining my bow before the archery competition; the next, there is a blur of flying stone, and—” He smashed his hands together, then shook his head ruefully. “I awoke in the Nahid’s hospital three days later. Years of looking forward to my first Navasatem and I spent the majority of it in a sickbed having my skull pieced back together.”

Saman Pashanur, one of Kaveh’s oldest acquaintances and a severe man Jamshid had never seen smile, leaned forward, looking as excited as a schoolboy. “Was it truly a shedu that struck you?”

Dara chuckled and picked up his date wine. A couple months ago no one Jamshid knew drank date wine. Now half his friends swore by it.

“Not quite,” Dara answered. “Even in my day, it had been centuries since any of us had seen a real shedu. That which struck me was a statue, one of the ones that lined the palace walls. A Baga Nahid was experimenting in the hopes he could bewitch them to shoot flames over the arena.” He smiled sadly. “I wish you could have seen the Daevabad of my youth, my friends. It was a jewel, a paradise of gardens and libraries with streets safe enough that a woman could walk upon them at night alone.”

“We’ll make it that way again,” Saman said fervently. “One day. Now that the Creator has returned a Banu Nahida to us, anything is possible.”

It could be a new beginning. But Jamshid was also realistic about such dreams, and he shifted uncomfortably as Muntadhir’s words returned to him. He knew the kind of glory age the Daevas around him were dreaming of had no place for Geziri kings.

Even so he could not help but watch the Afshin. Jamshid wasn’t immune to the way he entranced the rest of them. The very ease, the confidence with which Dara sat and grinned and laughed. His open nostalgia as he waxed poetic about the days of the Nahid Council and Daevabad before the invasion.

He’s not afraid of them. It was a stance plenty of foolish young Daevas might boast of in the safety of their homes as they mocked the Geziris. But not like Dara did. The Afshin wasn’t boasting. He wasn’t trying to show off. He simply wasn’t afraid of Ghassan’s regime. He hadn’t been beaten by the Royal Guard for the “crime” of looking a djinn soldier in the eye or had a politically outspoken parent disappear. Dara hadn’t been crushed like the rest of them, raised to watch their words and bow their heads.

It was captivating. Jamshid couldn’t fault the Daevas who’d been flocking to the Pramukhs’ home since the Afshin had taken up residence there. It was easy to be lulled by Dara’s words. By the dream of a world in which their people were legends.

“Not stuck in the palace with the Qahtanis circling her, Banu Nahri isn’t—” The words pulled Jamshid back to attention. It was another of his father’s acquaintances, a scholar in the Royal Library. “She spends every afternoon in the company of that crocodile prince. The djinn are already trying to convert her, to steal her away from our religion and culture.”

“I wish them luck,” Dara said drily. “Banu Nahri has a will that could break a zulfiqar. There is no convincing her of anything.” But he looked briefly troubled. “Relations between the princes . . . surely this alliance people speak of between them is exaggerated. Muntadhir and Alizayd would seem obvious rivals.”

“They are.” It was the scholar again, his expression impassioned . . . or perhaps drunken. “People say Emir Muntadhir begged the king not to let his brother be raised as a warrior, but Queen Hatset interfered. They are setting us all up for catastrophe.”

Jamshid wasn’t sure what prospect was more ridiculous: Ghassan being cowed by anyone or the notoriously secretive Qahtani royals exposing family turmoil to outsiders. He did know, however, that he should probably quell such talk. If Kaveh had been here, he would have hushed them several treasonous comments ago. There were nearly a score of men dining with them tonight, and one did not speak freely of the regime when that many ears were listening.

But his father was at the palace and Jamshid was tired of feeling torn between his people and his emir. So when Saman started up again, railing about the djinn, Jamshid left. His spot was immediately claimed, the press of men all trying to get closer to the famed Afshin. No one seemed to notice him leave, but Jamshid was used to being overlooked.

He breathed more freely once he was outside in the courtyard that fronted the stables. With his father’s elevation to grand wazir had come a large, well-appointed mansion close to the palace and set against the city’s outer wall in a garden distract. It wasn’t Zariaspa and never would be, but the fresh air blowing from the island’s forest and the smell of flowers let Jamshid briefly imagine he’d escaped the city. He’d have done anything for a ride beneath the stars along the hill trails right now, but of course Daevas weren’t permitted outside the city walls after sunset.

“May I join you?”

Jamshid jumped. It was the Afshin. The ground here was pebbled stone, but somehow Dara walked without a single sound, his steps undetectable.

“I’m not as good company as your audience back there,” Jamshid warned.

Dara snorted. “I am glad to know I am not the only one for whom it feels like a performance.”

Jamshid flushed. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

But the Afshin only smiled. “You need not apologize, Pramukh. Believe it or not, I find your honesty refreshing.” He drew nearer to the stables and clicked his tongue, pulling a handful of sugar pieces from his pocket. Judging by the speed with which their horses—even his father’s elderly half-lame mare—appeared, Jamshid was guessing Dara had made a habit of spoiling them. “You modern Daevas are all so fancy and glamorous that it makes me nervous. I talk too much when I am nervous. A whole group of you, and I cannot hold my tongue.”

Jamshid couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “We’re glamorous? You have your own personal shrine in the Temple!”

Dara laughed. “A shrine built in a simpler time, trust me. All these feasts with foods from around the world, your silks and jewels and whatnot . . . let alone all the gossip and politics. I have never felt more like a dull, blundering traveler from another century than when I am at these parties.”

Jamshid joined him at the fence. “I suppose a lot changes in fourteen hundred years.”

“It is beyond change,” Dara said softly. “It is an entirely new world.”

The sadness in the other man’s voice took him aback, but by the time Jamshid met his gaze, the Afshin was already shaking his head, blushing with embarrassment. “Forgive me. I tend toward brooding when I have had too much drink, and your date wine is far stronger than what I am used to.”

“Was Daevabad really as you say?” Jamshid asked. “I can’t imagine being able to walk alone in the shafit district nowadays, let alone celebrate our holidays so openly.”

“It was all that and more. I do not quite know what I was expecting to find in Daevabad, but having to stop a mob of shafit from breaking into the Daeva Quarter on my first day back was not inspiring.”

“It doesn’t seem to have affected you much,” Jamshid replied. “You seem so . . . unafraid.”

“If I seem unafraid, it is because I am much practiced at hiding it. I spent the entire journey here worrying whether your djinn king would send me to rot in the dungeon or simply execute me. And I am afraid for my Banu Nahida,” Dara confessed. “Very afraid. I fear for her every moment she is trapped in that palace, surrounded by sly-talking, glamorous djinn.”

“She seems very capable. Smart and strong-willed like you said earlier.”

Dara didn’t look very reassured. Jamshid watched as he gave one of the horses a last pat. “You do not like when people speak poorly of the Qahtanis, I have noticed.”

The change in subject threw him for a moment. “No, I don’t,” Jamshid admitted. “Beyond the fact that it’s dangerous to speak poorly of them, I count Emir Muntadhir as a close personal friend.”

“It seems a strange thing to be afraid of a close personal friend.”

Jamshid cleared his throat. “It’s complicated.”

“No doubt.” Dara turned to look at him. “Is he a good man?”

Yes. But Jamshid held his tongue, not missing how intently Dara was looking at him. He was a politician’s son; he knew a shift in conversation when he heard it. “You just returned from traveling with him. Was that not enough time to form an opinion?”

“Yes. Of a clever diplomat trying to keep peace with an enemy returned from the dead. I want the opinion of someone who knows him better.”

Why is he asking me this now? Could Dara have heard the rumors about Ghassan wanting to marry Nahri and Muntadhir? The prospect made Jamshid shudder; it was clear to anyone who spent time in his company that the Afshin’s feelings for the Banu Nahida went beyond duty.

“Yes,” he said finally. “Muntadhir is a good man and a very capable emir, which are not always complementary things. But he has a kind heart and tries to do right by his people and his kingdom.”

“He has a weakness for drink.”

Jamshid found himself bristling on Muntadhir’s behalf. “Says the man who just admitted being overcome by date wine.”

Dara’s bright eyes danced. “Ah, you must be friend to him truly to be so defensive! Then let me ask you something else, Jamshid e-Pramukh, and I pray you answer just as truly. Do you think he will be a good king for our people?” When Jamshid opened his mouth, Dara held up a hand. “No, do not answer as a friend. Think on it. Tell me as a Daeva man.”

Tell me as a Daeva man. There was weight behind those words coming from the Afshin who’d fought and died to free their people. Did Jamshid think Muntadhir would be a good king? Strangely he’d never forced himself to objectively consider the question before. It didn’t matter what Jamshid thought; Muntadhir was going to be king, and Jamshid had been sworn to him even before he fell in love. It was more a matter of Jamshid wanting to help him be the best king he could. And Muntadhir was a good person. He tried to do the right thing.

Unless the right thing isn’t what Ghassan wants. Jamshid thought about Nahri. Would she have a say in this royal marriage? Would Muntadhir even care? How many times had he pleaded with Muntadhir to save some of the Daeva artists and poets he patronized when they slipped and said the wrong thing in public? How many times had he watched Muntadhir lower his head and hold his tongue when Kaveh was insulted at court? When his fellow djinn companions got drunk and asked Jamshid if he truly worshipped flames? Jamshid did know Muntadhir. Probably better than anyone. And each additional year he served him and loved him, he watched more of Muntadhir’s spark—his goodness—dim beneath his father’s fierce, unrelenting pressure.

“If he becomes king . . . sooner rather than later,” Jamshid said hesitantly. “He means well, but his family . . . it’s a lot of pressure. I think his father is determined to shape him in his own image. And with Alizayd, the sooner succession is confirmed, the better.”

Dara tilted his head, seeming to regard all that. “It sounds like someone should kill Ghassan.”

The blood left Jamshid’s face. “What? No. That’s not what—”

Dara burst into laughter. “Oh, but your face! It was a joke, my friend!” He clapped Jamshid on the back so hard that he nearly knocked him off his feet. “Be glad you are not a Nahid, else I would have flown to carry out your command.”

“It wasn’t a command,” Jamshid said weakly, beginning to wonder just how much Dara had drunk and whether this extremely dangerous idea would stay with him. “I was just—”

“Afshin?” One of the Pramukh’s servants stepped out from the entrance leading back to the compound. He bowed when he spotted Jamshid. “Didn’t mean to interrupt, my lords. There was an invitation for the Afshin, delivered personally by, ah . . . a woman.”

Jamshid stared at the man as he handed Dara the letter, baffled by his tone. “A woman?”

The servant met his gaze, knowing in his eyes. “A messenger from Khanzada’s salon.”

Oh, for the love of the Creator . . . “Khanzada sent the Afshin an invitation?”

With a look that all but said “leave me out of this,” the other man nodded. “I figured it was best to pass along.” He bowed again and was gone.

Dara toyed with the scroll. “Who is this Khanzada?”

If Dara was dazzled by a simple dinner with friends at the Pramukhs’, Jamshid had no idea how he was supposed to describe Khanzada’s glittering salon of obscenely wealthy patrons, world-renowned entertainers, magic, criminals, and sex.

“She’s a famous singer and dancer from Agnivansha,” Jamshid finally replied. “Recently arrived in Daevabad. She runs a salon that’s quite popular with the city’s noblemen.”

Dara frowned, looking uncertain. It was a strange expression to see on the face of a man who’d just been joking about murdering Daevabad’s king and could probably kill everyone in the house in under five minutes.

He handed the invitation to Jamshid. “Will you read it for me?”

Jamshid reluctantly opened the scroll and had to fight not to scowl as he scanned the overly flowery words. “She says she would be honored if you would grace her home with your presence tonight. They are putting on a special performance.”

“A performance? Tonight?”

“Tonight.” Jamshid handed it back. “You are famous, Afshin,” he added when Dara blinked in surprise. “She’s probably hoping some of your admirers will follow.”

Dara looked thoughtful. “I have never been to the Agnivanshi Quarter.”

“Really? But you grew up here.”

“We were not permitted many things,” Dara said, sounding embarrassed. He slipped the scroll into his coat. “Would you go with me?”

Jamshid didn’t understand what he meant at first, and then the hopeful look in the Afshin’s green eyes took a horrifying turn. “Wait, you want to go to Khanzada’s?”

“I confess myself intrigued. I have not . . .” Dara seemed to be struggling for words. “There is so much I have not seen, have not experienced. I feel like an outsider in my own city, crashing about with blinders on.”

“I’m not sure Khanzada’s salon is the sort of experience you’re after. All the gossip and deadly politics you’re worried about? Those are things she excels at. She has an entire team of courtesans dedicated to extracting the kind of secrets that topple dynasties and ruin fortunes.”

Dara didn’t look intimidated in the slightest. “I assure you, I have very little interest in her courtesans. But I would like to see the Agnivanshi Quarter and hear some music. To learn how you Daevabadi men of today spend your nights. Please,” he said again, looking at Jamshid with open beseeching. “I am sure to make a fool of myself without you.”

Jamshid could think of few worse ways to spend his evening than playing babysitter to a very large—already tipsy—deadly warrior, with a list of grievances the length of his arm, and in the salon of a woman who hated him. And none of that even factored in Muntadhir’s presence.

But Muntadhir probably won’t be there. Since the attack on his brother, Muntadhir had been withdrawn and depressed. He’d been retiring to his apartments and the harem garden after court, places Jamshid couldn’t follow without invitation.

And Dara just looked so eager. Jamshid was putting together a very different picture of the famed Afshin than the one people celebrated. Dara had lived a short, stifled life in a different world, returning to one in which he was lonely and bewildered. Jamshid could take him to hear some music, marvel at some novelty, and make absolutely sure no one lured him into one of the rooms below the dance floor.

“All right,” Jamshid grumbled. “But only for a little while.”

 

Everything had gone so terribly wrong.

Jamshid raced down the corridor toward the infirmary, his mind spinning. He felt as though he’d been dashing back and forth across the city all night. To Khanzada’s salon with Dara for their ill-fated evening out. Back home to warn his father of the Afshin’s very nasty—and very public—spat with Muntadhir. And then to the palace, as swiftly as his horse would take him, when came the wild rumor that Darayavahoush had broken into the infirmary and kidnapped Nahri and Alizayd.

It’s not possible. Yes, the fight with Muntadhir had been bad, and frankly reflected poorly on two men Jamshid typically held in high esteem. But surely that wouldn’t be enough to convince Darayavahoush to do something so rash. Surely he knew how delicate the balance of power was in this city and that to abduct the Banu Nahida—to say nothing of Ghassan’s youngest son—would invite the king’s wrath upon every Daeva in a lethal show of retribution.

It had to be a rumor. Which Jamshid kept telling himself until he arrived at the infirmary.

The place was packed with soldiers. More soldiers than Jamshid would have thought could fit, so many soldiers that he could barely see beyond the wall of their bodies. And though serving Muntadhir had given Jamshid plenty of experience in being the only Daeva in the room, the hateful glares aimed at him as he pushed his way through made his blood run cold. There were no familiar faces here. These soldiers were proper Citadel men.

Alizayd’s men. And the infirmary in which their prince had made a last stand was a wreck. Virtually all the furniture had been smashed, and the curtain ripped to shreds. Bits of wreckage were still smoldering, and blood—a lot of it—was splashed across one glistening stone column.

Jamshid froze; Ghassan himself stood before the bloodstained column. Muntadhir was at his side, his head lowered in shame, but it was Ghassan who held Jamshid’s attention. The djinn king was dressed more plainly than Jamshid had ever seen him, his ebony robe swapped for a homespun shawl, which on another might have made him look like a harmless, worried old man.

It didn’t age Ghassan. The rough garment made him somehow look even more terrifying, reminding Jamshid that Ghassan was not some softly bred city king. He’d been raised in a hard land and spent his first century on the battlefield as his infamous father’s righthand. He might think more fondly of Daevas than his predecessor, but he kept the city’s peace by brute force. There was nothing Ghassan hated more than chaos. He burned to the ground any inkling of civil strife.

And what Dara had done tonight was so much worse than an inkling.

As if he could feel Jamshid’s stare, Ghassan turned to regard him. The king’s gray eyes—a mirror image of Muntadhir’s—traced Jamshid from his head to his toes, and the rage in those eyes nearly sent Jamshid to the floor.

But then the visible anger was gone, replaced by the king’s cool mask.

“Captain Pramukh.” It sounded like Ghassan might have attempted to drawl Jamshid’s name, but there was no playful court ruse here; there was deadly intent in every syllable of Ghassan’s voice. “Your houseguest has made some very poor decisions tonight.”

At those words, all Jamshid’s years at Muntadhir’s side, all Kaveh’s careful tutelage, everything he had ever learned about surviving at court fled his mind. He probably should have dropped to his knees. Apologized profusely and begged for mercy.

But despite what had happened tonight, the memory of Dara’s confidence and the defiance Jamshid had envied burned in him still. Jamshid would not grovel before Ghassan.

Instead he barely bowed his head. “How can I help, my king?”

At Ghassan’s side, Muntadhir shot Jamshid a glance in warning.

But the king didn’t react to Jamshid’s bravado save a slight thinning of his lips. “You’ve been training with the Afshin since his arrival, yes?”

“I have.”

“Then stay by the emir’s side tonight. We go to meet them on the lake.” Ghassan shoved what looked like a blood-soaked rag into Muntadhir’s hands. “If your brother dies tonight because of you, I will see you punished in this life and the next.”

The king swept past them both, and Muntadhir rocked back on his heels. He stared down at the bloody piece of fabric, and Jamshid’s stomach flipped as he recognized it as the cap Alizayd had been wearing earlier.

Jamshid cleared his throat, his mouth dry. “Is he . . .”

“We don’t know.” Muntadhir looked like he was going to throw up. “Nahri’s patients were hysterical. It sounds like the Afshin took them hostage, but . . . there’s so much blood, Jamshid. If something happens to him—”

Jamshid gripped Muntadhir’s wrist. “Nahri is a Nahid. She could have healed him with a single touch.”

“This is all my fault,” Muntadhir whispered. “I shouldn’t have said those things at Khanzada’s. I made him angry and now he has my little brother.” He glanced up, his eyes bloodshot with drink and glimmering with tears. “Do you know how Darayavahoush’s sister died, Jamshid?”

Jamshid did, and he had nothing to counter Muntadhir’s fear. Because God forgive him, but Ghassan was right. Muntadhir had been a fool to speak so crudely of Nahri in front of Darayavahoush. He’d been cruel. His words had angered even Jamshid, but he at least would have settled for unbraiding Muntadhir later when they were alone.

Darayavahoush . . . the Afshin was not like them. He was from a different time, a different place. He was charming and funny and Jamshid genuinely liked him, but even as he smiled, Dara wore death like a cloak. Muntadhir in his royal arrogance had made an awful mistake.

Now they were all going to pay for it.

But Jamshid didn’t say that. “Darayavahoush isn’t a fool, Muntadhir. And he knows me.” For the Afshin’s faults, he still struck Jamshid as an honorable man. He’d be reluctant to harm another Daeva, particularly the son of the man who had hosted him. “I’ll be at your side tonight, every moment of it, and I’ll try to talk him down.”

Muntadhir was trembling but nodded. “All right.”

Jamshid resisted the urge to hug him. Muntadhir had to look strong tonight—especially in front of the Citadel men who would blame him if something happened to their favored prince.

So instead Jamshid bowed, deeper than he had with Ghassan. “Come, my emir. Let us be sure to get on the first boat that goes out.”

 

And Jamshid had kept his promise. He hadn’t left Muntadhir’s side.

But he’d been very wrong about Dara’s unwillingness to hurt him.