“Where are you?” he bellowed, striding forward with his bow raised. He was getting dangerously close to Nahri’s headstone. “I will tear you into fours!” He spoke her language with a cultured accent, his poetic tone at odds with the terrifying threat.
Nahri had no desire to learn what being “torn into fours” meant. She slipped off her sandals. Once he was past her headstone, she quickly rose and silently fled down the opposite lane.
Unfortunately, she had forgotten about her basket. As she moved, the coins rang out in the silent night.
The man roared, “Stop!”
She sped up, her bare feet pounding the ground. She turned down one twisting lane and then another, hoping to confuse him.
Spotting a darkened doorway, she ducked inside. The cemetery was silent, free of the sounds of pursuing feet or angry threats. Could she have lost him?
She leaned against the cool stone, trying to catch her breath and wishing desperately for her dagger—not that her puny blade would offer much protection against the excessively armed man hunting her.
I can’t stay here. But Nahri could see nothing but tombs in front of her and had no idea how to get back to the streets. She gritted her teeth, trying to muster up some courage.
Please, God . . . or whoever is listening, she prayed. Just get me out of this, and I swear I’ll ask Yaqub for a bridegroom tomorrow. And I’ll never do another zar. She took a hesitant step.
An arrow whistled through the air.
Nahri shrieked as it sliced across her temple. She staggered forward and reached for her head, her fingers immediately sticky with blood.
The cold voice spoke. “Stop where you are or the next one goes through your throat.”
She froze, her hand still pressed against her wound. The blood was already clotting, but she didn’t want to give the creature an excuse to put another hole in her.
“Turn around.”
She swallowed back her fear and turned, keeping her hands still and her eyes on the ground. “Pl-please don’t kill me,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to—”
The man—or whatever he was—sucked in his breath, a noise like an extinguished coal. “You . . . you’re human,” he whispered. “How do you know Divasti? How can you even hear me?”
“I . . .” Nahri paused, startled to finally learn the name of the language she’d known since childhood. Divasti.
“Look at me.” He moved closer, the air between them growing warm with the smell of burnt citrus.
Her heart was beating so hard she could hear it in her ears. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to meet his gaze.
His face was covered like a desert traveler, but even if it had been visible, she doubted she would have seen anything but his eyes. Greener than emeralds, they were almost too bright to look into directly.
His eyes narrowed. He pushed back her headscarf, and Nahri flinched as he touched her right ear. His fingertips were so hot that even his brief press was enough to scald her skin.
“Shafit,” he said softly, but unlike his other words, the term remained incomprehensible in her mind. “Move your hand, girl. Let me see your face.”
He pushed her hand away before she could comply. By now, the blood had clotted. Exposed to the air, her wound itched; she knew the skin was stitching back together before his eyes.
He leaped back, nearly crashing into the opposite wall. “Suleiman’s eye!” He looked her up and down again, sniffing the air like a dog. “How . . . how did you do that?” he demanded. His bright eyes flashed. “Is this some sort of trick? A trap?”
“No!” She held her hands up, praying she looked innocent. “No trick, no trap, I swear!”
“Your voice . . . you are the one who called me.” He raised his sword and laid the curved blade against her neck, soft as a lover’s hand. “How? Who are you working for?”
Nahri’s stomach tied itself into a tight knot. She swallowed, resisting the urge to jerk back from the blade at her throat—no doubt such a motion would end poorly.
She thought fast. “You know . . . there was this other girl here. I bet she called you.” She pointed down the opposite lane with one finger, trying to force some confidence into her voice. “She went that way.”
“Liar!” he hissed, and the cold blade pressed closer. “Do you think I don’t recognize your voice?”
Nahri panicked. She was normally good under pressure, but she had little practice outwitting enraged fire spirits. “I’m sorry! I-I just sang a song . . . I didn’t mean to . . . ow!” she cried as he pressed the blade harder, nicking her neck.
He pulled it away and then brought it to his face, studying the smear of red blood on the blade’s metal surface. He sniffed it, pressing it close against his face covering.
“Oh, God . . .” Nahri’s stomach turned. Yaqub was right; she’d tangled with magic she didn’t understand and now was going to pay for it. “Please . . . just make it quick.” She tried to steady herself. “If you’re going to eat me—”
“Eat you?” He made a disgusted sound. “The smell of your blood alone is enough to put me off eating for a month.” He dropped the sword. “You smell dirt born. You’re no illusion.”
She blinked, but before she could question that bizarre proclamation, the ground gave a sudden and violent rumble.
He touched the tomb beside them and then gave the trembling headstones a distinctly nervous look. “Is this a burial ground?”
Nahri thought that fairly obvious. “The largest in Cairo.”
“Then we don’t have much time.” He looked up and down the alley before turning back to her. “Answer me, and be quick and honest about it. Did you mean to call me here?”
“No.”
“Do you have any other family here?”
How could that possibly be important? “No, it’s just me.”
“And have you done anything like this before?” he demanded, his voice urgent. “Anything out of the ordinary?”
Only my whole life. Nahri hesitated. But terrified as she was, the sound of her native language was intoxicating, and she didn’t want the mysterious stranger to stop speaking.
And so the answer rushed out of her before she could think better of it. “I’ve never ‘called anyone’ before, but I heal. Like you saw.” She touched the skin on her temple.
He stared at her face, his eyes growing so bright she had to look away. “Can you heal others?” He asked the question in a strangely soft and desperate tone, as if he both knew and feared the answer.
The ground buckled, and the headstone between them crumbled into dust. Nahri gasped and looked over the buildings surrounding them, suddenly aware of just how ancient and unsteady they appeared. “An earthquake . . .”
“We should be so fortunate.” He deftly swept past the crumbled headstone and snatched her arm.
“Ya!” she protested; his hot touch burned through her thin sleeve. “Let me go!”
He gripped her tighter. “How do we get out of here?”
“I’m not going anywhere with you!” She tried to twist free and then froze.