The Kingdom of Copper

The second book in S. A. Chakraborty's Daevabad Trilogy, this epic fantasy continues the story of three characters whose fates collided in Daevabad, a hidden island metropolis built by the djinn, beings of smokeless fire cursed by the Prophet Suleiman centuries ago.

The novel opens five years after the catastrophic events on Daevabad's lake. Prince Alizayd (Ali) al Qahtani, the youngest son of King Ghassan, has survived exile from Daevabad and assassination attempts on his caravan. Near death in the Am Gezira desert, the Geziri tribal homeland, Ali is rescued by two warriors, Lubayd and Aqisa, from the remote village of Bir Nabat. They spare him because an oasis has miraculously sprung up around his dying body, a manifestation of the water abilities he acquired after being possessed by a marid, an ancient water elemental. Over five years, Ali transforms the drought-stricken village by discovering new water sources while hiding the supernatural origin of his powers.

Meanwhile, Nahri, a young healer raised as a street orphan in Cairo, endures a forced marriage to Emir Muntadhir, Ghassan's eldest son and designated heir. Nahri belongs to the nearly extinct Nahid bloodline, legendary healers of the Daevas, Daevabad's fire-affiliated djinn tribe. Ghassan controls Nahri by punishing innocent Daevas whenever she defies him. On a secret outing with Princess Zaynab, Ali's sister, Nahri discovers the ruins of an ancient Nahid hospital, now sheltering three formerly enslaved djinn who describe its former glory. The discovery ignites Nahri's dream of rebuilding it.

In the third storyline, the Daeva warrior Darayavahoush (Dara) has been resurrected by Manizheh, Nahri's mother, long believed dead. Freed from Suleiman's curse, Dara possesses extraordinary powers but inhabits a fire-bright form that mirrors the ifrit, ancient djinn who defied Suleiman. Dara trains a small army in Daevastana, the broader djinn lands, while Manizheh plots to retake the city with ifrit assistance. Tormented by guilt over his violent past, Dara grows uneasy with Manizheh's increasingly ruthless plans. At her direction, he murders a human acolyte to summon a marid, forcing the creature to grant them passage through the lake into Daevabad and to raise the lake into a beast capable of destroying the Citadel, headquarters of Daevabad's Royal Guard.

A trader named Musa, claiming to be Ali's cousin from the Ayaanle, the Nile-dwelling djinn tribe of Ali's mother Queen Hatset, sabotages Bir Nabat's water supply and abandons cursed salt that only someone with Ayaanle blood can handle, forcing Ali to return to Daevabad. Ali arrives to find the city in decline: shafit, people of mixed djinn and human blood, are being sold at auction. Ghassan orders Ali to stay through Navasatem, a once-in-a-century generational celebration. When Ali trades his zulfiqar, a forked copper sword distinctive to djinn warriors, to free a shafit father and daughter, Ghassan nullifies the contracts as punishment.

Ali brings Dara's dagger, given to him by Ghassan as a war trophy, to Nahri, who attacks him with conjured roots and unleashes years of fury over his betrayal on the boat. Later, someone poisons Ali at a feast. Nahri saves his life and discovers his body is covered in marid scars that Nisreen, Nahri's closest Daeva confidante, had concealed. During his recovery, Ali confesses the full truth about the night on the boat, and Nahri declares he owes her a debt.

Nahri enlists Ali to visit Doctor Subhashini Sen, a formidable shafit physician. Despite Subha's hostility toward the Nahid legacy, she considers working with them if they obtain official permission. Ali and Nahri convince Ghassan to approve the hospital's restoration. Nahri makes Jamshid, son of the Daeva grand wazir Kaveh e-Pramukh, her first apprentice and defies the Daeva priests at the Grand Temple, Daevabad's main sanctuary, declaring the hospital open to shafit patients and asserting her authority as Banu Nahida, the living heir of the Nahid line.

Meanwhile, Dara learns that Jamshid poisoned Ali using notes from Manizheh's experiments. Manizheh reveals her copper vapor poison, designed to target Geziri relics and kill Ghassan. She tests it on captured Geziri scouts, killing both instantly, and gives Kaveh a ring filled with the vapor to assassinate the king. When Dara discovers the poison spreads uncontrollably and will kill every Geziri in the city, he objects, but Manizheh threatens to proceed without him. She then reveals that Jamshid is her son, a Nahid whose abilities she suppressed at birth to protect him from the Qahtanis. Dara capitulates in despair.

A Daeva woman accuses shafit of murdering her husband near the hospital workcamp, provoking a mob that kills 23 shafit workers. Nahri races to the scene and publicly heals dozens of shafit, shattering deeply held Daeva taboos. She confronts Ghassan, who separates Ali and Nahri, banishes Hatset, and confines them both. In the aftermath, Ali's siblings reveal that Suleiman's seal, the ring of supreme authority that can nullify all djinn magic, is embedded in their father's heart and can only be retrieved by killing him.

As Navasatem begins, shafit attackers strike the Daeva procession with muskets and Rumi fire, a tar-like incendiary. Eighty-six people die, including Nisreen, killed by an iron bullet. When Nahri grasps Jamshid's hand to treat his burns, which heal with startling speed, she feels a burst of raw Nahid power that enables her to summon a sandstorm to extinguish the flames.

Ali seizes the Citadel in response to Ghassan's order to raze the shafit district. That same night, Kaveh lures Nahri and Jamshid from the hospital. Ghassan arrests Jamshid, revealing he has always known the young man is Manizheh's Nahid son. When Nahri refuses to help trap Ali, Kaveh shatters his ring, and the copper vapor kills Ghassan instantly. Nahri saves Muntadhir by tackling him away from the spreading poison.

The invasion begins. The lake rises into a monstrous beast that destroys the Citadel, killing most of the Royal Guard. Ali awakens in the lake, rallies fewer than two dozen survivors, and fully embraces his water abilities, destroying Dara's warriors with fog, rain, and controlled waves. The ifrit Vizaresh murders Lubayd and delivers Ali to Dara at the palace.

Inside the palace, Nahri and Muntadhir encounter Dara, whom Nahri does not recognize in his fire-bright form. When Dara binds Nahri and attacks Ali, Muntadhir throws himself between them, taking a fatal zulfiqar strike. Dying, he tells Ali and Nahri to retrieve Suleiman's seal while he buys them time with Dara's own bow.

Nahri carves open Ghassan's chest, burns his heart, and retrieves the seal ring. Ali insists it belongs to Nahri, but she resists, knowing it would trap her in Daevabad. When Manizheh confronts them, revealing herself as Nahri's mother, Nahri pretends to surrender, tossing Manizheh the ifrit's emerald slave ring, used to control enslaved djinn, instead of the seal. She shoves Suleiman's seal onto Ali's finger, grabs his hand, and jumps off the palace wall into the lake.

All magic across Daevabad collapses: conjured fires extinguish, enchantments shatter, and the sky's protective veil breaks apart. Nahri awakens beside the Nile outside Cairo, with Ali nearby bearing the seal's mark on his temple. As he screams about his captured sister and begs her to return, Nahri gazes at the Pyramids of Giza and whispers that she is home.