Chapter Text
It took her an embarrassingly long time to notice. Between her duties as a healer, a religious figure and the emir’s wife, the light but steady and fast beat in her abdomen was engulfed by the noise of the outer world. In the end, despite her endless grumbling to Nisreen about it, it was the fire altar that brought her enough stillness to notice the change.
She didn’t know what drove her to it. Usually, she tended to her mother’s old fire altar half-heartedly. Her movements had become smooth and confident, but it was for show more often than not. Her people worshipped the very ground she stepped on and it felt wrong not to at least try to follow their customs. But there was something missing, a connection that just wasn’t being reached as she filled oil lamps, burned cedar wood, marked her forehead with ash and spread her hands in prayer, her servants shuffling around the room to prepare for a new day.
That fateful day, the light paddling of feet, the shuffling of fabric, inhalation, expiration, the sound of too many people proved impossible for Nahri.
“Could you give me a moment! Please!” It came out far harsher than she had intended. The two girls looked at her with wide, fearful eyes and she could hear their hearts beating wildly. “I just need a moment to pray and everything is so loud. I’ll call you back in a minute. Please.” The girls stopped what they were doing and left with a quiet “Of course, my lady.”
With a sigh, Nahri turned back to the altar. Maybe you’ll work today. So she closed her eyes and ran the prayers Kartir taught her through her mind. Soon, however, they faded away and she was engulfed in the blackness of her empty mind. All that she could hear were the steady sounds of her heart and deep breathing. And another heart. Nahri scrunched her nose and shook her head. Probably just footsteps from outside. Quiet! Back to normal. In, ba-dum. Out, ba-dum. In, ba-dum. Ou- pit-pat.
“What the hell?” She closed her eyes tighter and willed herself to focus on the hindering sound. It came again, the unmistakable pit-pat of a small and fast heartbeat, one she had heard plenty of times in the bellies of expectant mothers. Behind it, she heard her own shafit heart speeding up and the blood rushing past her ears.
“NISREEN!”
“Why are you always doing something stupid? Why can we not go through one day of no surprises, no accidents, no “oops, I think I did something bad!” I feel like I’m your nanny, not your mentor!” Nahri was sat on her bed, looking very much the part of a scolded child as Nisreen paced in front of her. It was only the third time she’d seen her lose control like this. The first time was when Nahri first began training and kept horrifying her fellow Daevas with her unbelieving ways. The second was when she stole an enslaved djinn (in her defense, she planned to free said djinn. And Nisreen was not the only one angry at her for it so did it really count? Nahri decided it didn’t).
Nahri finally built up the courage to speak. “How could this even happen? Did I develop a tolerance to the tea?”
“Impossible. You had to have been... forgetful in your use of it.”
“Forgetful? We never... oh.” At her mentor’s curious look, Nahri looked down at her feet with a blush. “The garden.” She could feel the exasperated look Nisreen threw at her.
“The garden?” Her voice was barely above a whisper. Nahri nodded, still looking down. “YOUR UNCLE’S GARDEN?” This part was yelled. “Have you no shame?”
“Yes, I do! Of course I do! My husband, on the other hand, is a different story,” she replied, taking a quick peak to see the horrified look on her mentor’s face.
It took Nisreen a moment to recover from this new knowledge. She sat on the first chair she could find and put her head on her knees. Nahri was fairly sure she could hear her holding back sobs.
“Can we... could I... is it possible to...” Nisreen looked up at her, still bent down, waiting for her to finish the sentence. “End it?”
“End it?” Her mentor looked at her in confusion, before realization dawned upon her face. On a normal day, Nahri would have been inclined to laugh at the way her mouth shaped into an “O”, Nisreen’s normal facade of calmness broken. But today, she couldn’t feel much more than the panic in her lungs. “The only way to end a Nahid pregnancy would be to kill you. The fetus develops self-healing and protective powers from conception. We’d need to cut off its source of life.”
“Even if the mother is shafit?” Nahri couldn’t help but asking. Nisreen closed her eyes in annoyance.
“The king has already confirmed your blood-purity. The marid curse hasn’t affected your powers, so it shouldn’t affect your child’s.” Her reply was court, Nahri’s lack of confidence in her blood a constant headache.
“But what if-“
“No, Nahri. Are you claiming your mother, a descendant from a family dedicated to enforcing Suleiman’s law, especially when it comes to human copulation,” she spit out the word, “laid with a human, to produce the one thing she hated the most?” Nahri had no response to that. She couldn’t admit how much the words stung. “Besides, we are healers. We heal, not kill. I know the words rhyme, my lady, but I would imagine that you’re old enough to know the difference.” With that, Nisreen stood up from her chair across the room, and faced the balcony, her back turned to Nahri.
In the meantime, Nahri sat on her bed, slouched, once again trying to hold back tears caused by Nisreen’s words. She knew that her mentor did not mean to hurt her like this. But until now, Nahri had blissfully ignored the part of her that was suspicious of the official story. The part of her that told her that maybe, she hadn’t been born right before her mother had been brutally slaughtered, that maybe her mother wasn’t returning from a regular trip to Zariaspa. Maybe Manizheh had left her on the banks of the Nile, too ashamed to bring her shafit child back to her city her ancestors built, weeks before she’d died. In a way, it had been much easier to believe her parents had been neglectful bastards who abandoned her, and only slightly easier to imagine her mother dying a heroic death trying to protect her brother and child. And in the midst of all that, nestled in her lungs right next to the loneliness she carried around constantly, was the fear that if the truth came out, Nisreen would leave her, too.
“So what do we do now?” She couldn’t help her voice sounding small. She heard Nisreen sigh and walk towards her. Her mentor sat next to her on the bed and put her arms around Nahri, a rare comfort in this city. One she usually would have rejoiced in. At the moment, however, she was too scared and hurt to feel any warmth.
“Oh, child. I know it’s frightening and unplanned, but we’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. Wait a little longer to tell your husband, and then enjoy the beauty of becoming a new mother.” At Nahri’s lack of reaction, she continued, “I know it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have scared you off of having children entirely. I just didn’t want you to fall to the Qahtanis.” At that, Nahri’s hands shook and she began to take in trembling breaths.
“Of course that’s what everyone is worried about. Not about what matters. How am I supposed to raise a child when I had no childhood? How am I supposed to be a mother when I didn’t have one? How am I supposed to give my child a loving home in a palace filled with people who hate me?” Her voice shook and broke, the tears flowing freely. Nisreen’s embrace tightened and she could feel herself leaning into it, taking some solace anywhere she could.
They stayed like that for a few minutes, Nahri sniffling into Nisreen’s dress as her mentor lightly rocked her.
“We need to get to the infirmary,” Nahri suddenly said, standing up and prying Nisreen’s arms from around her. She walked across the room to her closet.
“Are you sure? You can take the day, if you need to. I won’t call you unless it’s crucial.” Nahri shook her head at that.
“No. I need to work. I won’t feel better until I do,” she said as she wiped her nose on a handkerchief before picking out a tunic and pants. “Besides, I came here to be healer above all else. No point in wasting my time crying.”
A week later, a letter made its way to the snow covered ground at a certain Banu Nahida’s feet. She picked it up, not missing the curious emerald eyes fixed on her. The handwriting was familiar, one that, for the past century, had not failed her. Except this time.