“And where was all this common sense when you decided to spar alone with the Scourge of Qui-zi? You think Jamshid didn’t tell me about that bit of idiocy?”
Ali had little defense for that. “It was stupid,” he admitted. He bit his lip, remembering his violent interaction with the Afshin. “Dhiru . . . while you were gone . . . did Darayavahoush seem strange to you in any way?”
“Did you not hear anything I just said?”
“That’s not what I mean. It’s just that when we sparred . . . well, I’ve never seen anyone wield magic like that.”
Muntadhir shrugged. “He’s a freed slave. Don’t they retain some of the power they had when they were working for the ifrit?”
Ali frowned. “But how is he free? We still have his relic. And I’ve been reading up on slaves . . . I can’t find anything about peris being able to break an ifrit curse. They don’t get involved with our people.”
Muntadhir cracked a walnut in his hand, pulling the meat free. “I’m sure Abba has people looking into it.”
“I suppose.” Ali pulled the platter over and grabbed a handful of pistachios, prying one open and flicking the pale shell into the black water below. “Did Abba tell you the other happy news?”
Muntadhir took another sip of wine, and Ali could see an angry tremor in his hands. “I’m not marrying that human-faced girl.”
“You act like you have a choice.”
“It’s not happening.”
Ali pried open another pistachio. “You should give her a chance, Dhiru. She’s astonishingly smart. You should see how fast she learned to read and write; it’s incredible. She’s worlds brighter than you for sure,” he added, ducking when Muntadhir threw a walnut at his head. “She can help you with your economic policies when you’re king.”
“Yes, that’s just what every man dreams of in a wife,” Muntadhir said drily.
Ali gave him an even gaze. “There are more important qualities for a queen to have than pureblood looks. She’s charming. She has a good sense of humor . . .”
“Maybe you should marry her.”
That was a low blow. “You know I can’t marry,” Ali said quietly. Second Qahtani sons—especially ones with Ayaanle blood—weren’t allowed legal heirs. No king wanted that many eager young men in line for the throne. “Besides, who else could you want? You can’t possibly think Abba would let you marry that Agnivanshi dancer?”
Muntadhir scoffed, “Don’t be absurd.”
“Then who?”
Muntadhir drew up his knees and set down his empty goblet. “Quite literally anyone else, Zaydi. Manizheh’s the most terrifying person I’ve ever met—and I say that having just spent two months with the Scourge of Qui-zi.” He shuddered. “Forgive my reluctance to jump in bed with the girl Abba says is her daughter.”
Ali rolled his eyes. “That’s ridiculous. Nahri’s nothing like Manizheh.”
Muntadhir didn’t look convinced. “Not yet. But even if she’s not, there’s still the more pressing issue.”
“Which is?”
“Darayavahoush turning me into a pincushion for arrows on my wedding night.”
Ali had no response to that. There was no denying the raw emotion in Nahri’s face when she first saw the Afshin in the infirmary, nor the fiercely protective way he spoke of her.
Muntadhir raised his eyebrows. “Ah, no answer now, I see?” Ali opened his mouth to protest, and Muntadhir hushed him. “It’s fine, Zaydi. You just got back into Abba’s good graces. Follow his orders, enjoy your extremely bizarre friendship. I’ll clash with him alone.” He hopped off the parapet. “But now, if you don’t mind me turning my attention to more pleasurable matters . . . I am due a reunion at Khanzada’s.” He adjusted the collar on his robe and gave Ali a wicked smile. “Want to come?”
“To Khanzada’s?” Ali made a disgusted face. “No.”
Muntadhir laughed. “Something will tempt you one day,” he called over his shoulder as he headed for the stairs. “Someone.”
His brother left, and Ali’s gaze fell again on the telescope.
They will be a poor match, he thought for the first time, remembering the curiosity with which Nahri had studied the stars. Muntadhir was right: Ali did like the clever Banu Nahida, finding her constant questions and sharp responses an oddly delightful challenge. But he suspected Muntadhir would not. True, his brother liked women; he liked them smiling and bejeweled, soft and sweet and accommodating. Muntadhir would never spend hours in the library with Nahri, arguing the ethics of haggling and crawling through shelves crowded with cursed scrolls. Nor could Ali imagine Nahri content to loll on a couch for hours, listening to poets pine for their lost loves and discussing the quality of wine.
And he won’t be loyal to her. That went without saying. Truthfully, few kings were; most had multiple wives and concubines, though his own father was something of an exception, only marrying Hatset after his first wife—Muntadhir’s mother—had died. Either way, it was a thing Ali never really questioned, a way to secure alliances and the reality of his world.
But he didn’t like to imagine Nahri subjected to it.
It isn’t your place to question any of this, he chided as he raised the telescope to his eyes. Not now and certainly not once they were married. Ali didn’t buy Muntadhir’s defiance; no one stood against their father’s wishes for long.
Ali wasn’t sure how long he stayed on the roof, lost in his thoughts as he watched the stars. Such solitude was a rare commodity in the palace, and the black velvet of the sky, the distant twinkling of faraway suns seemed to invite him to linger. Eventually he dropped the telescope to his lap, leaning against the stone parapet and idly contemplating the dark lake.
Half asleep and lost in thought, it took Ali a few minutes to realize a shafit servant had arrived and was gathering up the abandoned goblets and half-eaten platters of food.
“You are done with those, my prince?”
Ali glanced up. The shafit man motioned to the platter of nuts and Muntadhir’s goblet. “Yes, thank you.” Ali bent to remove the lens from the telescope, cursing under his breath as he pricked himself on the sharp glass edge. He had promised the scholars that he would pack up the valuable instrument himself.
Something smashed into the back of his head.
Ali reeled. The platter of nuts crashed to the ground. His head felt fuzzy as he tried to turn; he saw the shafit servant, the gleam of a dark blade . . .
And then the terrible, tearing wrongness of a sharp thrust in his stomach.
There was a moment of coldness, of foreignness, something hard and new where there had been nothing at all. A hiss, as if the blade were cauterizing a wound.
Ali opened his mouth to scream as the pain hit him in a blinding wave. The servant shoved a rag between his teeth, muffling the sound, and then pushed him hard against the stone wall.
But it wasn’t a servant. The man’s eyes turned copper, red stealing into his black hair. Hanno.