Chapter 7: Dara

Dara strategizes with his chosen lieutenants on how to breach Daevabad if they can cross the lake’s threshold. He rejects scaling walls, storming the Grand Bazaar, or sacrificing fighters, and forbids involving ifrit ghouls. A passing thought about collapsing the Citadel tower sparks an idea he saves for later.

He and Manizheh fly east to meet Aeshma. During the journey, Manizheh reveals lessons about concealing attachments, her trauma over Rustam’s dungeon imprisonment during a past Navasatem, and her distrust of the ifrit. Dara’s thoughts return to Nahri and his shame over past choices.

At Lake Ossounes, Aeshma declares the marid owe Dara a blood debt for his death and claims Nahids once learned water-travel from the marid. To summon one, Aeshma presents a bound human devotee; despite Dara’s protests about Suleiman’s code, he kills the man to spare Manizheh the sin. The lake violently retaliates, but Dara commands a wrecked ship to ash with marid-words Aeshma taught him.

A marid inhabits the corpse, confirms involvement in Alizayd’s survival, and rails against Nahids. Manizheh pushes for negotiation; the marid refuses to help reclaim Suleiman’s seal. Dara unleashes devastating fire, boiling the sacred lake and burning its relics, and threatens to destroy every marid sanctuary and follower, forcing the marid to concede passage as payment of the blood debt.

Demanding more, Dara asks if the marid can briefly transform the lake into a serpent like at the Gozan. The marid admits it can, given the lake’s tie to Tiamat, and Dara reveals his aim: to bring down the Citadel tower in Daevabad.