“Noor is weak,” she snapped. “I’m surprised at you for surrounding yourself with people like her. Like Mazin. People who stand next to you just to absorb your strength. You are a warrior, like yourmother. You don’t need to surround yourself with weaklings as your mother did with your father.”
My breath collapsed at her words, at their meaning. My skin felt white hot as something rose up inside me. Something bigger than djinn power, something that changed my entire worldview.
I knew that my grandmother and my father hadn’t really gotten along, but I didn’t realize the extent of her dislike. I stepped back, bumping into the door behind me. Nanu had never spoken this way about my mother and father, ever.
A fleeting memory tickled at the back of my mind, from before my mother was killed. A memory of my nanu as an entirely different woman. Not this silent, tightly coiled person. And then, the night my mother was killed, I remembered that. The way she howled and tore at her hair. The way she screamed and pushed me away.
How my father tried to calm her, even though he too had just lost his wife. But she didn’t want to speak to anyone, instead moving out of the house and living alone in the village. Since my mother’s death, Nanu became distant like some part of her died as well.
But the way her eyes glittered, it was as if something in her was now alive.
Like there was a viper under her skin.
Cold tendrils of fear ran down my spine as she advanced on me, her pale eyes huge and round.
“Baba wasn’t weak,” I said slowly, trying to understand what was happening. “He was the strongest person I know.”
“You didn’t know your mother well enough, then. She could have ruled over the northern tribes. Instead, she chose your father and came here.” She spat on the floor. “And got herself killed.”
“Mama was killed by a northern tribesman, Nanu. It wasn’t Baba’s fault.”
“He let her go there, unprotected. He angered the warlord that killed her, refusing to fashion him a sword. Her death was on his hands as much as the man that slit her throat.”
My mind whirled, the realization hitting me that Nanu had felt this way my whole life. And I’d never seen it until today. And now I saw everything.
It was as if the sky were caving in and I had no room to breathe anymore. My chest was tight, about to combust from the pressure, my eyes burning, though no tears came.
“The warlord,” I said, the words barely leaving my mouth. “The northern warlord I was charged with killing. That was you, wasn’t it?”
The confirmation was written all over her face. Her mouth flattened, nose flared. She looked guilty, but also… proud?
The northern chief had been murdered, and all this time I had thought it was Vahid trying to quell a rebellion.
But it was my grandmother, getting her revenge, and condemning me to this forsaken path.
I stumbled back, my mouth like dust, my djinn-tattooed hands shaking. My own grandmother had been the reason I was imprisoned.
“He was the chief who killed your mother,” she confirmed, her hands reaching out for me. “I knew he was coming to Basral, the first time in years since he killed my girl. I’d never felt such need for retribution. He stole my life from me. And when I thought I would explode with the injustice of it all, a djinn came to me. I bargained for a small amount of power—just enough to do what needed to be done—and I destroyed the man who killed my daughter.” Her eyes shone brightly, sweat coating her upper lip as if she were ill, her skin gray and waxy.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. I stared at my grandmother, realizing I never really knew her. She had made a bargain with a djinn, she had traded for the power to seek vengeance.
We were more alike than I thought.
“I watched him writhe as his insides burned up,” she whispered, her voice as soft as a caress. “As his skin bubbled and his blood boiled inside him. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough pain for what he stole. But still, I knew satisfaction. I knew strength. More than I had in years.”
She looked at me, those pale green eyes—my mother’s eyes—boring into me, eating at me with her revenge.
The warlord deserved to die. I did not blame her for her vengeance. I would have done the same, I thought bitterly.
Ihaddone the same.
“I knew you were headed to that room,” she continued, and my lungs froze. “I had heard your plans.” She closed her eyes. “There was one more person who deserved punishment for your mother. And I knew if you were arrested, he would try to help you.”
A sharp pain splintered inside me, but she kept speaking, oblivious to the agony she was causing.
“I encouraged your father to try to save you. It wasn’t difficult. He charged to the palace, scimitar in the air, and did for you what he never did for my daughter.” Her voice was low and rough, the hatred pouring out like bitter tea.
“He loved you more than he ever loved her. That’s why he didn’t go with her to the north. That’s why she’s dead. She deserved better than him. She deserved better than both of you.” Our eyes met, and I was taken aback by the darkness in hers.
