Chapter 36: Ali

Ali awakens submerged in Daevabad’s lake amid wreckage and corpses, realizing the Citadel has been annihilated and the lake’s curse is gone. Rescued by Ayaanle soldiers and reunited with Lubayd on a fragment of the toppled tower, he learns ghouls and mounted archers are slaughtering survivors and that several riders have flown toward the palace.

Seeing the attackers positioned along a wall between shore and Citadel, Ali resolves to draw their fire so the remaining Guard can reach the beach. He dives, surfaces unseen at the wall, and kills an archer, then clashes with three trained Daeva fighters. When a Daeva sacrifices himself “for the Banu Nahida,” Ali is dragged to the sand as ghouls converge.

Desperate and abandoned by the marid, Ali embraces his own water power. He summons rain and fog to heal and blind, retrieves his blades, and carves through ghouls while drowning mounted archers. Pursuing the retreating Daevas, he kills several and, sensing reinforcements and ghouls, calls a devastating surge from the lake to smash archers and undead, then barely reins it back before it floods the city.

Exhausted and bleeding, Ali collapses as Lubayd reaches him—only for an ifrit to appear, murder Lubayd, and seize Ali. The demon remarks on Ali’s marid-touched magic and “another after you,” then immolates the air and transports Ali across the city.

They crash into the ransacked, burning royal office. Surrounded by black-clad Daeva warriors, a commander with a silver bow turns—Darayavahoush e-Afshin. The ifrit offers Ali as the prince their Banu Nahida wanted locked away; Dara replies Ali is not that target, but “will do,” asserting control of the invasion and Ali’s fate.