Dara shrugged. “We were in charge.”
He studied the map. The smoky figures silently shouted and gesticulated at each other. “It was said to be a violent, terrifying time. Most people embraced their new tribes, clinging together for survival and forming within the tribes caste groups determined by their new abilities. Some were shapeshifters, others could manipulate metals, some could conjure up rare goods, and so forth. None could do it all, and the tribes were too busy fighting each other to even consider revenge against Suleiman.”
Nahri smiled, impressed. “Surely even you must admit that was rather a brilliant move on Suleiman’s part.”
“Perhaps,” Dara replied. “But brilliant as he might have been, Suleiman failed to consider the consequences of giving my people solid, mortal bodies.”
The tiny figures continued to multiply, building small villages and crisscrossing the vast world in spindly caravans. Occasionally a miniature flying carpet dashed across the smoky clouds.
“What consequences?” Nahri asked, confused.
He gave her a playful smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “That we could mate with humans.”
“And make shafit,” she realized. “People like me.”
Dara nodded. “Completely forbidden, mind you.” He sighed. “You may have realized by now that we’re not particularly good at following rules.”
“I’m guessing those shafit multiplied pretty quickly?”
“Very.” He gestured to the smoky map. “Like I say, magic is unpredictable.” A tiny city in the Maghreb burst into flames. “Made even more so in the hands of mix-blooded, untrained practitioners.” Enormous ships, in a variety of bizarre shapes crossed the Red Sea, and winged cats with human faces soared over the Hind. “Although most shafit don’t have any abilities, the few that do have the capacity to inflict terrible damage on their human societies.”
Damage like leading a pack of ghouls through Cairo and tricking bashas out of their wealth? Nahri had little argument there. “But why did the daevas—or djinn, or whatever you were calling yourselves at the time—even care?” she asked. “I thought your race didn’t think much of humans anyway.”
“They wouldn’t have,” Dara admitted. “But Suleiman made it quite clear that another would follow in his place to punish us again should we ignore his law. The Nahid Council struggled for years to contain the shafit problem, ordering that any humans suspected of having magical blood be brought to Daevabad to live out their lives.”
Nahri went still. “The Nahid Council? But I thought the Qahtanis were the ones—”
“I’ll get to that part,” Dara cut in, his voice a little colder—and slightly more slurred—than usual. He took another long sip of wine. The goblet never seemed to empty, so Nahri could only imagine how much he’d consumed by now. Far more than her, and her head was starting to swim.
A city rose from the smoky map in Daevastana, in the center of a dark lake. Its walls gleamed like brass, beautiful against the dark sky. “Is that Daevabad?” she asked.
“Daevabad,” Dara confirmed. His eyes dimmed as he stared at the tiny city, longing in his face. “Our grandest city. Where Anahid built her palace and from where her descendants ruled the realm until they were overthrown.”
“Let me guess . . . by all the kidnapped shafit they kept locked up?”
Dara shook his head. “No. No shafit could have ever done such a thing; they’re too weak.”
“Then who did?”
Dara’s face darkened. “Who didn’t?” When she frowned in confusion, he continued. “The other tribes never paid much heed to Suleiman’s decree. Oh, they claimed to agree that humans and daevas should be segregated, but they were the source of the shafit.”
He nodded at the map. “The Geziri were the worst. They were fascinated by the humans in their land, praising their prophets and adopting their culture—with some inevitably getting too close. They’re the poorest tribe, a pack of religious fanatics who believe what Suleiman did to us was a blessing not a curse. They often refused to surrender shafit kin, and when the Nahid Council grew more severe in their enforcement of the law, the Geziri didn’t react well.”
A black swarm rose in the Rub al Khali, the forbidding desert north of the Yemen. “They started calling themselves ‘djinn,’” Dara said. “The word the humans in their land used for our race. And when their leader, a man named Zaydi al Qahtani, called for an invasion, the other tribes joined him.” The black cloud grew enormous as it descended upon Daevabad and stained the lake. “He overthrew the Nahid Council and stole Suleiman’s seal.” Dara’s next words came out in a hiss. “His descendants rule Daevabad to this day.”
Nahri watched as the city slowly turned black. “How long ago was all this?”
“About fourteen hundred years ago.” Dara’s mouth was a thin line. Within the smoky map, the tiny version of Daevabad, now black as coal, collapsed.
“Fourteen hundred years ago?” She studied the daeva, noticing the tense way he held his body and the scowl on his handsome face. Something stirred in her memory. “This . . . this is the war you were discussing with Khayzur, isn’t it?” Her mouth fell open. “Didn’t you say you witnessed it?”
He drank back the rest of his wine. “You don’t miss much, do you?”
Nahri’s head spun from the admission. “But how? You said the djinn only lived for a few centuries!”
“It doesn’t matter.” He dismissed her with a wave of his hand, but the movement wasn’t as graceful as usual. “My history is just that: mine.”
She was incredulous. “And you don’t think this king is going to want an explanation when we show up in Daevabad?”
“I’m not going to Daevabad.”
“What? But I thought . . . where are we going then?”
Dara looked away. “I’ll take you as far as the city gates. You can make your way to the palace from there. You’ll be received better alone, trust me.”
Nahri drew back, shocked and far more hurt than she should have been. “You’re just going to abandon me?”
“I’m not abandoning you.” Dara exhaled and threw up his hands, gesturing rudely to the pile of weapons behind him. “Nahri, what kind of history do you think I have with these people? I can’t go back.”
Her temper flashed, and she rose to her feet. “You coward,” she accused him. “You misled me back at the river and you know it. I never would have agreed to go to Daevabad with you if I’d known you were so afraid of the djinn that you were planning to—”
“I am not afraid of the djinn.” Dara also rose to his feet, his eyes flaring. “I sold my soul for the Nahids! I’m not going to spend eternity languishing in a dungeon while I listen to the djinn mock them for being hypocrites.”
“But they were hypocrites—look at me! I’m living proof!”
His face darkened. “I am all too aware of that.”