Naqi al-Akram was supposed to go north with Crown Prince Awad. His sister died, so he begged off. He went home for her funeral, took ill, and died. The Crown Prince died on the trip Naqi didn’t take.
The Question
Did Naqi die of an illness, or was he removed from Awad’s protection detail and then removed from the world? And what is Sadiq not saying?
What We Know
- Naqi was an Eagle Knight often assigned to protect Crown Prince Awad; Haroun squired for him. Branch of the Eagle still unestablished. (S2, Aaron)
- He was supposed to accompany Awad to the dwarfhold. (S6)
- He begged off because his sister had died. (S6)
- He went to his family’s estate, took ill there, and passed. (S6)
- Awad died “exploring dwarven ruins to the north,” days before the campaign began. (S1)
- Haroun learned of Naqi’s death during the funeral-season weeks in the capital. (S2)
- Naqi’s household — widow Rashida al-Sabri, son Sajid, daughter Rim — is a distant branch of House al-Akram, not the main line. (S6)
- Sadiq, the elf who also squired for Naqi, told the party all of the above and is holding something back. Haroun pushed gently and got nothing. They agreed to meet again within the month. (S6)
Why It Matters
This closes the theory the wiki has been running since S2 — “either he was in those ruins, or he conspicuously wasn’t.” He wasn’t. Which was supposed to be the boring branch, and instead is the interesting one: the prince’s usual bodyguard was taken off the trip by a family death, and then died himself, and then the prince died.
Three deaths in one season around one household. The party has never had a cleaner-looking coincidence.
Theories
Theory: Exactly what it looks like
Sisters die. Grieving men catch fevers at funerals. Princes die in ruins. Sequence is not causation, and Haroun is not a neutral observer of the man who trained him. This theory is still the front-runner and should stay on the list.
Theory: The detail was cleared first
To kill a Crown Prince in dwarven ruins you first remove the knight who knows how to keep him alive. A death in the family is the one excuse no commander refuses and no one investigates. Then the man who could later say “I was pulled off that trip” dies of an illness in a country house with no witnesses but his own family. On this reading Naqi’s sister is the first casualty of the plot, not a coincidence — and nobody has asked how she died.
Theory: He knew something and went home with it
He begged off, went to a remote estate, and died there. If he had reason to avoid the trip beyond grief, the illness is a tidier ending than an accident in the ruins would have been. This is the version where Sadiq’s reticence is fear, not grief.
Theory: Sadiq's silence is private
A dead foster-father, a widow, and a stranger asking questions in a winehouse. The withheld thing may be something about Naqi, about the family, or about Sadiq — and none of the party’s business. Rule it in before ruling it out.
Contradictions & Oddities
- Nobody has established how his sister died, or when relative to the expedition’s departure.
- Nobody has established what the illness was, how long it took, or who attended him.
- Naqi was of House al-Akram, which leads the Conservatives and produced Haroun’s nemesis and ex-betrothed — so the one person who can ask freely is also the one person the family has reason to stonewall.
- Naqi’s branch is distant enough that he doesn’t appear on the gazetteer’s al-Akram roster at all. A knight close enough to the throne to guard the heir, and invisible in his own house’s records.
Next Steps
- Meet Sadiq again — he agreed, within the month, and he is the loose thread
- Ask what Naqi’s sister died of, and when. This is the unexamined death
- Get the roster of who did go with Awad — Sadiq is an Eagle quartermaster; expeditions are outfitted through quartermasters
- Find out who replaced Naqi on the detail, and who approved it
- Establish which branch of the Eagle Naqi served in — line knight or Eyes
- Consider Rashida al-Sabri, carefully. She was in the house when he died. Haroun has already sent condolences; a second approach needs a real reason
- Ask whether anyone examined the body. A knight of a Militant Order dying suddenly at home in the same season as the Crown Prince is the kind of thing a church might look at