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

“I can’t lie in bed all day,” I replied, trying to ignore the “Why not?” that came in return.

My mouth went dry as I approached my father, who was standing behind Malikah in the courtyard, seeming a little surprised not to see me in the diwan-i-am, where court was normally held. He spotted me slowly making my way toward him, clinging to Arjun’s arm, with a big thunder zahhak hovering close by, and he rushed over, moving faster than I’d expected.

“Should she be walking?” my father demanded the moment we were close enough to speak to one another without shouting.

“That’s what I said, your majesty,” Sikander answered. “And no, she shouldn’t be. The doctor wants her in bed as much as possible.”

“If I thought there was a chance of keeping her there, your majesty, believe me, I would have tried,” Arjun said. “But, as I’m sure you’ve realized by now, she has a mind of her own.”

“She always has,” my father admitted, his tone changing to one that was tinged with an array of emotions I couldn’t quite sort out, not with the pain in my back taking up so much of my attention.

“I’ve been holding court on the roof to be near Sultana, Father,” I explained. “Please, join us.”

He scowled. “You shouldn’t have come down to greet me. Do you want to walk again, or not?”

“I am walking, Father,” I pointed out.

“You know what I mean,” he said, and he was looking me over with far more concern than I’d ever seen from him before.

I was so bewildered I didn’t know what to do or what to say. After a moment, though, I thought I understood. I glanced to Sikander. “What in the world did you write in those summaries I asked you to send to him?”

“I sent a full report of everything that happened from beginning to end, your highness,” Sikander replied, “drawing on what I saw, but also conversations with Princess Sakshi and Jama Hina and Princes Haider and Arjun. And the doctor’s notes, of course, and what you told us of your encounter with Karim on the shore north of Ahura.”

The mention of that made my father’s eyes widen slightly and his jaw tense. He noticed Sultana standing there, and he reached out and petted her on the snout. “You’ve been a very good zahhak,” he told her, just the way he always praised Malikah when she did well.

“She has,” I agreed. I didn’t know what my father and I would agree on concerning what had happened, but we could agree on that at least.

He scowled. “If we’re going to meet on the roof, then we should go. You shouldn’t be standing around like this. If you want to marry her, boy, you ought to take better care of her.” He aimed that last at Arjun.

Arjun and I exchanged confused glances, though I thought I understood a little of what was going on here. Sikander had said something in those letters. Or maybe it was many things. He must have told my father everything, what Karim had done to me, what I had done to him, what he’d been planning to do to Lakshmi, how close he’d come to accomplishing it. My father had never been an easy man to live with, but he wasn’t a rapist like Karim either. In fact, when it came to women, maybe he was a little sentimental. After all, he hadn’t remarried after my mother had died. It was an oddity many men had remarked upon. Most rulers had more than one heir. My father should have married again, but he never had, and he never spoke of my mother either. I wondered sometimes why that was.

Going back up the stairs was harder than going down them had been. I gritted my teeth against the pain that lanced through my hips as I took the first two steps, but it faded almost immediately, because my father took my other arm and lifted hard, so that I didn’t have to bear much of my weight on my legs and back.

“How long has she been like this?” he demanded of Sikander.

“Your majesty, this is the best I’ve seen her since the battle,” he replied. “She and Sultana were both nearly killed. It was just sheer luck that they landed in shallow seas and not on hard rocks. Another hundred yards north and neither of them would have made it.”

My father set his jaw, but said nothing until I was safely settled on my cushions on the dais once more, Sultana having returned to take up her place as my backrest, curling in close behind me, her snout making a very comfortable armrest for my wounded right arm.

No sooner had we been seated than refreshments arrived. I sipped at my nimbu pani with a sigh of pleasure, and was grateful that my father seemed to be enjoying his too. My other courtiers had departed, to give us the chance to speak alone, and I was glad for that.

My father noticed. “Haider not here?”

“He’s here, Father,” I assured him. “As are Tamara and Hina.”

“Good. I always liked Haider and Tamara,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow, because that was half-true. He’d liked them until he’d found out they’d let me prance around the Safavian court as a princess for two years while he was fighting a civil war, but I didn’t want to rehash that old argument. Like I’d said, he would be more likely to agree to the marriage if he was in a good mood, and I was starting to think that he was. Or at least he was amenable to the idea.

“You’ve been kept up to date with developments here, Father?” I asked, because for the moment he’d seemed content to sip his drink and eat a few snacks.

He nodded. “It was very clever, the way you defeated Ahmed Shah. And the act of putting swivel guns on river zahhaks . . .” He actually smiled. “I would have loved to