LITMIR.BIZ

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melting in the air around him before the flakes came close to brushing his skin. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he steeled himself. He hated this part.

      Fire burst from his skin, flushed light sweeping down his limbs, washing away the normal brown. His entire body shook violently, and he fell to his knees, his limbs seizing. It had taken him two years to learn how to shift between his original form—that of a typical man of his tribe, albeit an emerald-eyed one—and that of a true daeva, as Manizheh insisted on calling him, the form their people had taken before Suleiman changed them. The form the ifrit still held.

      Dara’s vision sharpened, the taste of blood filling his mouth as his teeth lengthened into fangs. He always forgot to prepare for that part.

      His clawed hands clenched at the icy ground as his raw jittery power settled completely. It only ever happened in this form, a peace he obtained by becoming something he hated. He exhaled, burning embers leaving his mouth, and then he straightened back up.

      He raised his hands, smoke swirling up from around them. With a quick snap of his claws across his wrist, a shimmer of golden blood dripped down to merge with the smoke, growing and twisting in the air as he shaped it. Wings and talons, a beak and glittering eyes. He fought for breath, the magic draining him.

      “Ajanadivak,” he whispered, the command still foreign on his tongue. The original language of the daevas, a language only a handful of ifrit still remembered. They were Manizheh’s “allies,” pressed into teaching a reluctant Afshin the ancient daeva magic that Suleiman had stripped away.

      Fire burst from the rukh, and it let out a screech. It rose in the air, still under Dara’s command, destroying the camp in a matter of minutes. He took care to let it crash through the canopy and rake its talons over the tree trunks. To anyone with the misfortune of coming across this place—any members of the Royal Guard looking for their two lost fellows, though Dara doubted they’d ever make it out here—it would appear as though the scouts had been eaten, the fortune in taxes left untouched.

      He released the rukh, and it disintegrated, cinders raining over the ground as its hazy form dissipated. With a final burst of magic, Dara shifted back, stifling a gasp of pain. It always hurt, like shoving his body into a tight, barbed cage.

      Mardoniye was at his side in moments, reliably loyal. “Your coat, Afshin,” he said, offering it out.

      Dara took it gratefully. “Thank you,” he said, his teeth chattering.

      The younger man hesitated. “Are you all right? If you need a hand—”

      “I am fine,” Dara insisted. It was a lie; he could already feel the black pitch churning in his stomach, a side effect of returning to his mortal body while his new magic still swirled in his veins. But he refused to show such weakness before his men; he would not risk it getting back to Manizheh. If the Banu Nahida had her way, Dara would stay forever in the form he hated. “Go. I’ll be along shortly.”

      He watched, waiting until they were out of view. Then he dropped to his knees again, his stomach heaving, his limbs shaking, as the snow fell silently around him.

      THE SIGHT OF THEIR CAMP NEVER FAILED TO EASE Dara’s mind, the familiar plumes of smoke promising a hot meal, the gray felt tents that blended into the horizon a warm bed. These were appreciated luxuries for any warrior who’d just spent three days trying hard not to rip the tongue out of a particularly irritating djinn’s mouth. Daevas bustled about, hard at work cooking, training, cleaning, and forging weapons. There were about eighty of them, lost souls Manizheh had come upon in her years of wandering: the sole survivors of zahhak attacks and unwanted children, exiles she’d rescued from death and the remnants of the Daeva Brigade. They swore allegiance to her, offering loyalty in an oath that would rot their tongues and hands should they attempt to break it.

      He’d shaped about forty of them into warriors, including a handful of young women. Dara had at first balked at that, finding it unorthodox and improper. Then Banu Manizheh had bluntly pointed out that if he could fight for a woman, he could fight beside one, and he had to admit she’d been right. One of the women, Irtemiz, was by far his most talented archer.

      But his good mood vanished the second he caught sight of their corral. A new horse was there: a golden mare whose finely tooled saddle hung over the fence.

      Dara’s heart dropped. He recognized that mare.

      Kaveh e-Pramukh had arrived early.

      A gasp from behind stole his attention. “This is your camp?” It was Abu Sayf, the zulfiqari who’d nearly killed Mardoniye and yet had oddly proven far less maddening on their return trek than his younger tribesman. He asked the question in fluent Divasti; he’d told Dara that he’d been married to a Daeva woman for decades. His gray eyes scanned the neat row of tents and wagons. “You move,” he noted. “Yes, I suppose you would. Easier to stay hidden that way.”

      Dara met his gaze. “You would do well to keep such observations to yourself.”

      Abu Sayf’s expression dimmed. “What do you plan to do with us?”

      I do not know. It was also not a thing Dara could think about—not when the sight of Kaveh’s horse was making him so anxious he felt sick.

      He glanced at Mardoniye. “See that the djinn are secured, but get them water for washing and something hot to eat.” He paused, glancing at his tired band of soldiers. “And do the same for yourselves. Your rest is well earned.”

      Dara turned toward the main tent. Emotions swirled inside him. What did one say to the father of a man they had nearly killed? Not that Dara had meant to do so; he remembered nothing about his assault on the warship. The time between Nahri’s strange wish and Alizayd tumbling into the lake that ill-fated night was shrouded in fog. But he remembered what he’d seen afterward far too well: the body of the kind young man he’d taken under his wing slumped on the boat deck, his back riddled with Dara’s arrows.

      His stomach fluttering with nerves, Dara coughed outside the tent flap, alerting those inside to his presence before he called out. “Banu Nahida?”

      “Come in, Dara.”

      He ducked inside and immediately starting coughing more as he inhaled the cloud of acrid purple smoke that greeted him—one of Manizheh’s many experiments. They lined the enormous slate table she insisted on lugging around with them, her equipment taking up an entire wagon.

      She was at the table now, seated on a cushion behind a floating glass flask and holding a long pair of forceps. A lilac-hued liquid boiled inside the flask, giving off the purple smoke.

      “Afshin,” she greeted him warmly, dropping a small, wriggling silver object into the boiling liquid. There was a metallic squeal, and then she stepped back, pulling aside her facecloth. “Your mission was a success?”

      “The Geziri scouts are being secured as we speak,” he said, relieved that Kaveh was nowhere to be seen.

      Manizheh’s brow arched. “Alive?”

      Dara scowled. “As requested.”

      A small smile lit her face. “It is much appreciated. Please tell your men to bring me one of their relics as soon as possible.”

      “Their relics?” Djinn and Daeva alike all wore relics—a bit of blood, sometimes a baby tooth or lock of hair, often paired with a holy verse or two, all bound in metal and worn on the person. They were safeguards, to be used to bring a soul back into a conjured body should one be enslaved by an ifrit. “What do you want with their …”

      The question died on his lips. Kaveh e-Pramukh had emerged from the inner room to join them.

      Dara just managed to keep his mouth from falling open. He wasn’t sure what surprised him more: that Kaveh had stepped out of the small, private chamber in which Manizheh slept, or that the grand wazir looked terrible. He might have aged fifteen years, not five, his face scored by lines and his hair and mustache mostly silver. He was thin, the shadowed swells under his eyes indicating a man who had seen too much and not slept

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