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

have been there to see the moment thirty-six river zahhaks with cannons strapped to their backs destroyed Ahmed Shah’s entire force of zahhaks.”

“He didn’t get to see it himself. He was chasing me, and Hina cleared my tail feathers. Without her, he’d have killed us. Sultana was too tired.” I patted her head gently. “I shouldn’t have pushed us that hard . . . it was almost a disaster.”

“Karim would have killed Princess Lakshmi if you hadn’t, your highness,” Sikander reminded me.

“I’m told that not a single zahhak was lost,” my father said. “Is that true?”

“It is, Father,” I admitted, and I allowed myself a slight smile then, because it had been a tremendous victory. “We killed sixteen of the twenty-four they brought against us. Three acid zahhaks and five fire zahhaks survived. Of those, the three acid and two fire were taken as tribute. Two fire zahhaks remain in Jesera, the fifth having been used as a messenger.”

“And we’ve added Mahisagar to the empire, their fleet intact, and taken Jesera as a protectorate . . .” he murmured, shaking his head in disbelief. “And Ahura has been gifted to Safavia to secure peace—was this accepted?”

“It was, Father,” I replied. “Shah Ismail told me to consider him a second father, and said that there would be peace between our lands.”

He stroked his mustache, still trying to take it all in. “In a stroke you have brought us a new subah, and revenues from the richest trading port in Yaruba. Only Registan and Virajendra stand independent now.”

“And Registan wishes a marriage alliance, your majesty,” Arjun reminded him.

“I don’t care what Registan wants,” my father replied. His lively green eyes flickered over to me. “What matters is what my daughter wants.”

“I want to marry Arjun, Father,” I answered, because it had been the only thing on my mind since he’d asked me.

“Then you shall,” he said.

I couldn’t believe it was that easy. After everything we’d been through, he was just going to give me whatever I wanted? I frowned. “That’s it? No negotiations? No demands? No conditions?”

He sighed heavily, and nodded to Arjun and Sikander. “If you please, I’d like a few moments alone with my daughter.”

“Of course, your majesty,” Sikander agreed.

Arjun was more reluctant. “She isn’t well, your majesty,” he warned.

“I’m fine,” I protested, but Arjun didn’t move.

He stared my father down instead. “This is the best day she’s had since the battle. Only two drafts of opium.”

“Sikander has made the situation clear to me, Prince Arjun,” my father said, favoring him with his title for the first time in my hearing. “As I have said, I will consent to your father’s marriage request, because my daughter wishes it. And I am grateful you are concerned for her well-being. But I am still her father, and I would speak with her alone.”

“I’ll be fine, my prince,” I said, resting a hand on Arjun’s knee.

Arjun grunted at that. He kissed me on the cheek and said, “We’ll be right downstairs if you need anything.”

“Thank you, my prince,” I told him, though I watched him go with some reluctance. Private conversations with my father always made my stomach churn, even if he was acting strangely today.

“Do you love him?” my father asked me once they were gone.

It was not the question I’d been expecting, but I nodded cautiously all the same. “I do, Father. I know you don’t approve, but—”

He held up a hand to forestall my arguments. “I agreed, didn’t I?”

“Why?” I asked, because none of this made any sense. How had he suddenly come around to the idea of my marrying Arjun? Why was he so concerned for me now when he never had been before?

“Sikander,” my father said, the name coming out as an exasperated sigh. “He sent me a summary of what happened here. A very, very detailed summary. And he also attached a personal letter in which he resigned himself from my service and told me that from now until the end of his life he would serve you and you alone.”

“Me?” I gasped, having not heard any of that from the man himself.

“You,” he agreed. “He told me that you were his daughter, his only child in this world, and that he would fail you no longer. He told me that you were twice as courageous as I was, and orders of magnitude more intelligent. He said that you would make the finest sultana in the history of the world, and that if I weren’t so blinded by my own prejudices I would have seen that for myself.”

I shook my head in disbelief, bewildered that the man was capable of writing such a letter, capable of expressing his feelings so clearly. “And you haven’t killed him yet?”

My father smiled. “It occurred to me, momentarily. But he made a good argument. After all, I never had to single-handedly scale palace walls to deliver missives, never had to organize a secret rebellion, never came up with a stratagem half so clever as mounting light cannons on river zahhaks. The results spoke more clearly than any letter.”

“Ah.” That made sense. He saw an advantage in being nice to me. I was good for the empire now.

“But that wasn’t what really got to me,” he admitted, and his voice had gone quieter than I’d ever heard it.

“Oh?” I asked, wondering what else Sikander had put in that letter.

“He said that the fact that you looked just like your mother should have made me cherish you more, not less. And he told me about a man named Viputeshwar, your new governor of Mahisagar. He told me about a conversation the pair of them had. And he said that my wife was gone, but her daughter was still here, her spitting image, so like her in mind and body, and that if I didn’t stop punishing her for being a daughter instead of a son I would lose her forever. In fact, he said, I nearly had. He told me what Karim did to you on the beach.”

I shrugged