Chapter 24: Dara

At the recovering lake he ravaged months earlier, Dara meets the marid in the corpse-shell of its acolyte. They confirm they will return the Daevas to Daevabad through the water in three days and topple the stone tower enchantment, but refuse further responsibility. Dara, burdened by the blood he expects to spill, steels himself with the belief he is securing a future for his people.

Back at camp, Manizheh prepares a sunset rite. She privately soothes Dara and promises eventual happiness for his loyalty. Addressing anxious soldiers, she frames urgency and justifies harsh tactics, exaggerating Alizayd’s threat to inflame resolve. To lift spirits, Dara unleashes vast magic: transforming the altar, clothing, tents, a feast from his family’s recipes, and summoning winged horses—impressing the host while draining himself.

Overwhelmed, Dara retreats and, failing to shift to fire, slips into a formless, windlike state, exhilarated by vast freedom and beckoning presences. Fear for Manizheh’s plan—and for Nahri—yanks him back; he crashes to earth. Vizaresh appears, recognizing Dara’s new skill and extolling a wandering, wonder-filled daeva existence outside mortal politics.

Prodded, Vizaresh recounts a hidden history: daevas and marid waged retaliatory wars over human devotions and bargains, drawing Suleiman’s punishment—not merely for dallying with humans but for catastrophic rivalries. Dara rejects the ifrit’s seduction and enslavement ethos, though the vision of freedom lingers.

Skirting a lovers’ tryst among his young soldiers, Dara feels the ache of dislocation from a world long gone. He resolves to finish the war to secure his people and, only afterward, consider exploring the wider possibilities his newfound shapeshifting suggests.