In 2017’s The City of Brass, we met Nahri: thief, survivor, and healer who discovered there was more to her history than “orphan found on the bank of the Nile” when she accidentally summoned Darayavahoush al-Afshin, the Scourge of Qui-Zi and protector of her ancestors, the Nahids, before the Qahtani family took their throne. Dara opened Nahri’s eyes – and an entirely new world of possibilities – when he took her to Daevabad, the hidden city of the djinn, where she learned not only of her potential but also about the dangers of carrying Nahid blood.

Nahri’s story continued in The Kingdom of Copper where she found herself being used by both the Qahtanis and the Nahids, each to a different purpose, neither of which was her own. Never one to be cowed, Nahri seized what opportunity she could to carve out her own life amidst the posturing and politicking, using her power and her powers to make life better for human and djinn alike. With Dara gone, her marriage contract with Muntadhir signed, and, much to her surprise, finding herself growing closer to the emir’s brother (Prince Alizayd), it seems as though Nahri’s life may have reached some sort of equilibrium. Which is, of course, when it blows up entirely.

(Listen to our conversation with author S.A. Chakraborty here.)

The Empire of Gold opens with Nahri and Ali stranded in Egypt and Daevabad bereft of its magic and under the rule of Nahri’s mother, Manizeh. The new Band Nahida has no qualms about using any means necessary, including enslaving Dara yet again and forcing him to act as the Scourge, to bring the citizenry to heel. While Nahri and Ali race to save their home and meet with more obstacles than even a fairytale hero and heroine would think fair or reasonable, Muntadhir and Zaynab attempt to strike from within the city’s crumbling walls.

Will any of them survive an enemy desperate and vengeful enough to have learned blood magic from the ifreet… and who is willing to enslave the souls of her own ancestors in the hopes of regaining the throne?

Well I’m not going to tell you. Read the book.

The Empire of Gold is a truly epic conclusion to a magical series. I’ve waited extremely impatiently for each new installment, and if I could Eternal Sunshine one series from my brain with the express purpose of discovering it again for the first time, it would be the Daevabad Trilogy. It is unlike anything else I’ve ever read – with the exception, perhaps, of Saladin Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon (which is still listed as book 1 of a series but was published in 2012, so… alas).

The mythologies and histories of the Muslim, Mughal, Persian, pre-Islamic, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian worlds (and these, as Chakraborty notes on her website, are very vague terms applied for lack of anything better, which… well, that’s also part of this conversation, isn’t it?) are opaque to a huge proportion of the world’s population, even those who choose to study religion and folklore. I was lucky enough to go to a university that had an Islamic Studies department and to spend a year focusing on those very subjects, and I only barely scratched the surface.

Why haven’t people gone looking for those mythologies and histories the way they have others? I think we all know. It’s much easier to hate someone else than it is to take long, deep look at yourself. And if you learn something about that someone else, you might actually start seeing them as a human being. Which leads you to realize the “other” isn’t so other. Which, in turn, forces you to examine your assumptions about them and about yourself. And maybe you don’t like what you see in yourself.

In the macro, we all lose because ignorance, racism, and xenophobia make the world an uglier, meaner place. In  the micro, we all lose because ignorance, racism, and xenophobia rob us of incredible stories.

I’m so glad that’s changing, if slowly. The last five  years have seen a surge in fantasy and space opera based in different African, pre-Islamic, Muslim, and Indian cultures (again, vague terms, and I apologize for that and any I’ve left out), and we are all better for it.

We are all better because of Chakraborty’s Daevabad Trilogy.

Since this is a review, I suppose I can’t just barf praise all over the screen. All of the trilogy’s entries are hefty, but this third one is exceptionally long. I’m not one to be intimidated by a tome but there’s a subplot that doesn’t really gain momentum until the back third-ish of the book, which I  felt was a little late in the game for what turned out to be an important story element. I would have been a bit more invested in it if some of the desert wandering earlier on had been shaved down and this particular arc were given a bit more time to spread its tail fins. That said, it’s a pretty rad curve ball, so my initial, “Did we really need this at all?” feeling was slapped down with a resounding “Yes, yes we did.”

Other than that, The Empire of Gold is pretty much a lush, textural, magical masterpiece with a really fascinating wrap-up. Most of the characters get what ultimately turn out to be happy endings, but none of them get what they think they wanted when they set out. Which is, ultimately, a really innovative and practically perfect way to end an epic.

I’m going to miss Daevabad.

And there’s a little part of me that hopes, maybe, we’ll have a chance to go back someday.