Chapter 41: Dara

Dara speeds a dying, taunting Muntadhir through flooded corridors toward Manizheh, reaching a devastated, waterlogged library shaken by tremors. As conjured lights fail and doors fly open, Dara’s warriors struggle to summon magic. Before Dara’s eyes, the zulfiqar poisoning visibly retreats from Muntadhir and vanishes, forcing Dara to have the emir bound.

Searching for Manizheh, Dara finds her amid the bodies of his own men, slain by zulfiqar blows he recognizes as Alizayd’s work. Manizheh reveals Nahri deceived her, gave Suleiman’s seal to Alizayd, and that both Nahri and Alizayd leapt into the lake. Dara reels, feeling both betrayal and desperate hope that Nahri survives.

Dara tries to leave to find Nahri, but Manizheh stops him, insisting something larger is unfolding. She points him upward as the night sky over Daevabad cracks like glass, revealing dawn and causing conjured structures and fires across the city to collapse. The palace continues to empty of enchantment.

Manizheh pricks her thumb and watches in shock as her Nahid magic fails. Dara recognizes the pattern: the extinguished flames, broken wards, and Muntadhir’s sudden cure all signal a citywide collapse of magic. He concludes Daevabad’s magic has disappeared.