The daeva was before him. Part of his mind registered shock in the other man’s green eyes as he raised a blade to defend himself. But his movements were clumsy. Ali knocked his weapon away, and it flew into the dark lake. The djinn soldier in Ali saw his chance, the other man’s neck exposed . . .
The ring! The ring! Ali changed the direction of his blow, bringing it down toward the glowing green gem.
Ali swooned. The ring clattered away, and the sword fell from his hand, now more a rusty artifact than a weapon. Nahri’s screams filled the air.
“Kill the daeva,” he mumbled and collapsed, the blackness finally welcoming him.
Ali was dreaming.
He was back in the harem—in the pleasure gardens of his mother’s people—a small boy with his small sister, hiding in their usual spot under the willow tree. Its bowed branches and thick fronds made a cozy nook next to the canal, hidden from the sight of any interfering grown-ups.
“Do it again!” he begged. “Please, Zaynab!”
His sister sat up with a wicked smile. The water-filled bowl rested in the dust between her skinny crossed legs. She raised her palms over the water. “What will you give me?”
Ali thought fast, considering which of his few treasures he’d be willing to part with. Unlike Zaynab, he had no toys; no trinkets and amusements were given to boys groomed to be warriors. “I can get you a kitten,” he offered. “There’s lots near the Citadel.”
Zaynab’s eyes lit up. “Done.” She wiggled her fingers, a look of intense concentration brewing in her small face. The water shuddered, following the motion of her hands and then slowly rose as she spun her right hand, whirling like a liquid ribbon.
Ali’s mouth fell open in wonder, and Zaynab giggled before smashing the watery funnel down. “Show me how,” he said, reaching for the bowl.
“You can’t do it,” Zaynab said self-importantly. “You’re a boy. And a baby. You can’t do anything.”
“I’m not a baby!” Wajed uncle had even given him a spear shaft to carry around and scare off snakes. Babies couldn’t do that.
The screen of leaves was suddenly swept away and replaced with his mother’s angry face. She took one look at the bowl, and her eyes flashed with fear. “Zaynab!” She yanked his sister away by her ear. “How many times have I told you? You are never to—”
Ali scurried back, but his mother wasn’t interested in him. She never was. He waited until they had crossed the garden, Zaynab’s sobs growing distant, before he crept back toward the bowl. He stared at the still water, at the dark profile of his face surrounded by the pale sunlit leaves.
Ali raised his fingers and beckoned the water closer. He smiled when it began to dance.
He knew he wasn’t a baby.
The dream receded, swept back in the realm of childhood memories to be forgotten as a sharp bite of pain tugged at his elbow. Something growled in the very recesses of his mind, clawing and snapping to stay put. The tug came again, followed by a burst of heat, and the thing released.
“That’s the last of it, my king,” a female voice said. A light sheet fluttered over his body.
“Cover him well,” a man commanded. “I would spare him the sight as long as possible.”
Abba, he recognized as his memory came back to him in a shambles. The sound of his father’s voice was enough to drag him free of the fog of pain and confusion miring his body.
And then another voice. “Abba, I’m begging you.” Muntadhir. His brother was sobbing, pleading. “I’ll do anything you want, marry anyone you want. Just let the Nahid treat him, let Nisreen help him . . . by God, I’ll bind his wounds myself! Jamshid saved my life. He shouldn’t have to suffer because—”
“Kaveh’s son will be seen when mine opens his eyes.” Rough fingers tightened on Ali’s wrist. “He will be healed when I have the name of the Daeva who left those supplies on the beach.” Ghassan’s voice turned colder. “Tell him that. And pull yourself together, Muntadhir. Stop weeping over another man. You shame yourself.”
Ali heard the sound of a chair kicked away and a door slammed shut. Their words were meaningless to Ali, but their voices . . . oh, God, their voices.
Abba. He tried again. “Abba . . . ,” he finally choked out, trying to open his eyes.
A woman’s face swam into view before his father could respond. Nisreen, Ali remembered, recognizing Nahri’s assistant. “Open your eyes, Prince Alizayd. As wide as you can.”
He obeyed. She leaned in to examine his gaze. “I see no trace of the blackness remaining, my king.” She stepped back.
“I-I don’t understand . . . ,” Ali started. He was flat on his back, exhausted. His body burned; his skin stung, and his mind felt . . . raw. He looked up, recognizing the tempered glass ceiling of the infirmary. The sky was gray, and rain swirled on the transparent plates. “The palace was destroyed. You were all dead . . .”
“I’m not dead, Alizayd,” Ghassan assured him. “Try to relax; you’ve been injured.”
But Ali couldn’t relax. “What about Zaynab?” he asked, his ears ringing with his sister’s screams. “Is she . . . did those monsters . . .” He tried to sit up, suddenly realizing his wrists were bound to the bed. He panicked. “What is this? Why am I restrained?”
“You were fighting us; do you not remember?” Ali shook his head, and his father nodded to Nisreen. “Cut him loose.”
“My king, I’m not certain . . .”
“I was not asking.”
Nisreen obeyed, and his father helped him sit up, swatting his hands away when Ali tried to pull off the white sheet that had been tucked around him like swaddling cloth. “Leave that be. And your sister is fine. We are all fine.”
Ali glanced again at the rain beating against the glass ceiling; the sight of the water was oddly alluring. He blinked, forcing himself to look away. “But I don’t understand. I saw you—all of you—dead. I saw Daevabad destroyed,” Ali insisted, and yet even as he said the words, the details were already starting to escape him, the memories pulled away like the tide while newer, firmer ones replaced them.
His fight with the Afshin.
He shot me. He shot me, and I fell in the lake. Ali touched his throat but felt no injury. He started to shake. I shouldn’t be alive. No one survived the lake, not since the marids cursed it thousands of years ago.
“The Afshin . . . ,” Ali stammered. “He-he was trying to flee with Nahri. Did you catch him?”
He saw his father hesitate. “In a manner of speaking.” He glanced at Nisreen. “Take that away to be burned, and tell the emir to come back in here.”
Nisreen rose, her black eyes unreadable. In her arms was a wooden bowl filled with what looked like bloody lake debris: shells and rocks, mangled hooks, a tiny decayed fish, and a few teeth. The sight stirred him, and he watched as she left, passing by two larger reed baskets on the floor. A dead gray tentacle the size of a viper shared one with roughly torn waterweeds. The toothy jaw of a crocodile skull peeked out from the second.
Ali drew up straight. Teeth sinking into my shoulder, weeds and tentacles seizing my limbs. He glanced down, suddenly realizing just how carefully the sheet had been tucked around his body. He grabbed for one end.
His father tried to stop him. “Don’t, Alizayd.”
He tore it away and gasped.