Gifting Fire by Alina Boyden (read my book .TXT) 📕

and longing. There could have been just one reason for all of my father’s fliers to have gathered outside the palace stables.

“You’re leaving now?” I couldn’t keep the note of surprise out of my voice, but I thought I managed to hide the hurt. It was silly; I wasn’t a little girl who clung to her father’s kurta and never had been. That opportunity had been stolen from me like so many others by the circumstances of my birth. But somehow, even after all the bitter arguments, the traded barbs, the harsh insults, there was still a part of me that longed to have my father in my life. The fact that he would only spare half a day for me at a time like this only served to remind me how forlorn that hope of mine really was.

My father arched a black eyebrow at the question. Maybe I hadn’t hidden the hurt as well as I’d thought. His mustache quivered slightly as his lips tugged into a superior smirk. “Why? Are you going to miss me?”

I shrugged, letting him make of that what he would, and nodded to the flame-red orb of the sun, which was sinking below the waters of the Zindhu to the west. “It’s getting late is all.”

“I like night flights best,” he replied.

His words brought with them a flood of memories. I could still recall my first night flight, so many years ago. I’d been so little then, small enough to cram myself between my father and his saddle’s front cantle, the pair of us sharing the safety straps. His zahhak, Malikah, had nuzzled me gently with her snout, making sure I was safe and secure. And then we’d taken to the skies together, the tiny orange flames of the palace’s lanterns glittering like stars in the darkness below us, the heavens bright above us, suffused with the brilliant light of a silver moon.

My eyes flickered up to meet my father’s just as his lowered to meet mine. All traces of his superior smirk had been erased from his face, replaced by deep furrows in his brow. I wondered if he’d just been reliving the same memory I had. I wanted to ask him. I wanted to reach out across the gulf between us, to say something, anything that would make him understand that it wasn’t my fault that I was the way I was, that I’d done the best I could, that I’d never meant to cause him any pain or shame, that my whole life all I’d ever wanted was to make him proud of me.

But I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t find the words in time, and I wasn’t sure that there were any words left to say. And then my father spoke, and the opportunity was lost forever.

“I’m leaving Sikander with you. He will command your personal guards, and your zahhak riders.”

I glanced to the man in question, my father’s shadow, his chief lieutenant, his most trusted guard, and my foremost tormenter. A myriad of competing emotions warred inside of me. I was touched. My father was leaving his most trusted bodyguard with me. That must have meant that he really wanted me to succeed. Or was it a trap? Was Sikander meant to keep me in line, to kill me if I strayed from my father’s plans? Or was it petty revenge, sticking me with the man who had beaten me until my insides hurt for every imagined offense against the standards of masculinity he had set?

It was those memories that made up my mind. I couldn’t imagine trusting the man who had whipped me with a cane for something as innocuous as remarking on the beauty of the flowers in the garden. After a moment of stunned silence, I opened my mouth to refuse my father’s offer, but I was too late.

Sikander had dropped to his knees at my father’s feet, his head bowed. “Your majesty,” he said, “in all the time that we have known one another, I have never once questioned an order, but I beg you to reconsider this. What use will I be to you here when Virajendra threatens in the southlands? If this is a punishment, if I have displeased you, please tell me how I can make it right.”

Anger and sorrow tightened around my heart. Of course he would think that being asked to serve me was a punishment.

My father laid his hand on Sikander’s shoulder with a fondness he had never shown me. “This is no punishment, my friend. On the contrary, I would consider it a favor.”

“A favor?” Sikander’s deep brown eyes were pinched with worry. “But, your majesty, this is a hopeless task.”

“If Zindh falls, it falls,” my father answered with a shrug that filled me with a bitterness that stung the back of my throat. “But losing this province to a hijra has made us look weak. If Zindh is to fall, it must not fall too quickly, and our enemies must pay a price in blood to take it. Otherwise we would look weaker still. I need someone here who can fight like a wounded lion surrounded by hungry jackals. Can I trust you to hold here as long as you can, and to punish those who would attack us with all the strength you possess?”

I crossed my arms over my chest, the sour expression not leaving my face, but I had to admire my father’s way with men. He always knew how best to stroke their egos, how to flatter them and cajole them and get them to follow his orders. He’d have made a pretty good courtesan himself, though I suspected I’d have lost my tongue for telling him so.

“I will hold here for as long as you require, your majesty,” Sikander swore, just as I’d known he would.

“That won’t be necessary,” I said. “I can hold Zindh on my own. In fact, I’d prefer it that way.”

My father’s green eyes narrowed in irritation, but for