“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.
“Didn’t recognize me, crocodile?” the shapeshifter spat.
Ali’s left arm was bent behind his back. He tried to shove Hanno off with his free hand, and in response, the shafit man twisted the blade. Ali screamed into the rag, and his arm fell back. Hot blood spread across his tunic, turning the fabric black.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Hanno mocked. “Iron blade. Very expensive. Ironically enough, bought with the last of your money.” He shoved the knife deeper, stopping only when it hit the stone behind Ali.
Black spots blossomed in front of Ali’s eyes. It felt like his stomach was filled with ice, ice that was steadily extinguishing the fire that dwelled inside him. Desperate to get the blade out, he tried to knee the other man in the stomach, but Hanno easily evaded him.
“‘Give him time,’ Rashid tells me. Like we’re all purebloods with centuries to muse on what’s right and wrong.” Hanno pressed his weight on the knife, and Ali let out another muffled scream. “Anas died for you.”
Ali scrambled for purchase on Hanno’s shirt. The Tanzeem man yanked the knife out and plunged it higher, dangerously close to his lungs.
Hanno seemed to read his thoughts. “I know how to kill purebloods, Alizayd. I wouldn’t leave you half dead and take the chance of you being rushed to that fire-worshipping Nahid people say you’re fucking in the library.” He leaned in close, his eyes filled with hate. “I know how . . . but we’re going to do this slowly.”
Hanno made good on the threat, pushing the knife higher with such an exaggerated, agonizing unhurriedness that Ali would swear he felt each individual nerve tear. “I had a daughter, you know,” Hanno started, grief stealing into his eyes. “About your age. Well, no . . . she never got to be your age. Would you like to know why, Alizayd?” He wiggled the blade, and Ali gasped. “Would you like to know what purebloods like you did to her when she was just a child?”