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

soldiers to exploit any victories they might bring me. Lakshmi had already kept one of those four animals for herself, and now Sakshi was well trained enough to claim a second.

“I thought you would like this one best,” I said, “because her name is Ragini.”

“Ragini?” Sakshi gasped, delighted by the name, as I’d known she would be. My sister was a brilliant sitar player, and raginis were the melodic moods she drew upon to color her performances. Whoever this zahhak’s first master had been, he must have had an interest in music.

The zahhak responded to her name, but she was still eyeing Sakshi warily. In truth, the bond between zahhak and rider was always forged from the moment of the animal’s hatching. If a rider died before his zahhak, she could be made to serve another, but never as completely as she had the one who had raised her. I wished I could have given Sakshi a zahhak egg, as I had been given, so that she might have the joy of raising her own mount, of training it, of bonding to it properly, but eggs were difficult to come by, and it took years for a zahhak to grow big enough to ride. I needed riders now, so we would have to make do.

“For the first few weeks, I don’t want you to come see Ragini in the stables unless Sultana or Padmini is there too,” I warned.

My thunder zahhak heard her name and pressed her face close against mine in response. I reached up and gave her a fond pat along the ridge of golden scales that traced the edge of her sapphire neck, which could flare into a hood like a cobra’s. Though Sultana was nuzzling me gently, her emerald eyes were fixed on Ragini, the less dominant zahhak held under control by threat of death at Sultana’s teeth and claws. Otherwise, she might well have eaten us all.

“Will she ever care for me?” Sakshi asked, the uncertainty in her voice making my heart ache for her. She deserved a zahhak who loved her the way mine loved me.

“Yes, eventually,” I said, and it wasn’t even a lie. “It will take a long time, but she will grow accustomed to following your commands, to serving you. She will trust you eventually. It will never be like a zahhak you raised yourself, but you won’t always have to worry about her eating you.”

“Well, that’s something anyway,” Sakshi allowed, her lips twisting into a smile as she went back to gazing up at Ragini’s big green eyes. I didn’t know what my sister imagined that she saw in them, but I knew from long experience that the zahhak’s expression was one of tolerance rather than affection.

“And I’ll get to fly with you in battle if it comes to it?”

I glanced back at her, surprised to hear the determination in Sakshi’s voice, to see the seriousness etched across her face in the hard line of her mouth and the little wrinkles between her eyebrows.

“I’m not staying behind again, Razia,” she declared. “I’m not going to wait in the palace, not knowing if you and Lakshmi are ever coming back to me. If we have to fight, we do it together or we don’t do it at all. Promise me that.”

“I promise,” I told her, and I sealed it with a tight embrace. “It’ll be just like we always dreamed it would be when we were little.”

If I closed my eyes, I could see it, the pair of us staring up at the night sky as we lay on the rooftop of our dera, our little hijra household. The nightmares had been so frequent then that I was often afraid to sleep, but Sakshi had always held my hand and made me tell her stories about flying zahhaks through the skies of Nizam until I got so tired I drifted off in peace. I couldn’t have asked for a better elder sister.

I let her go, somewhat reluctantly, but I didn’t have a choice. There was too much work to be done. “You can stay here and get to know Ragini if you like. Sultana and Padmini will protect you.”

“You’re not getting back to work already, are you?” Sakshi asked, her brow creasing with concern.

“This palace isn’t going to repair itself, this household isn’t going to organize itself, and I still don’t know precisely what I’m dealing with when it comes to the local emirs, and the people here in Shikarpur,” I said with a sigh. “I don’t know how much more time Ali Talpur is going to give me before he strikes, but we’ve already been here three days. I’m sure he’s heard of my arrival by now, and he must have started preparations to attack.”

“Your highness, are you in here?” an unfamiliar woman’s voice called from outside the stables. No, not an unfamiliar woman’s voice—a familiar eunuch’s voice.

“Shiv!” I exclaimed, thrilled that he’d finally arrived. I rushed out to greet him. Though he was covered with the dust of the desert, he still looked like an elegant young lady in men’s clothing. He’d been cut young enough that he might have passed for one of us if he’d had any desire to do so, but he’d never once suggested that he had. I embraced him all the same, because even if he wasn’t a hijra, he was family of a sort. “I’m so glad you made it safely!”

“As am I, your highness,” Shiv replied, not hugging me back, but bowing awkwardly instead, as if reminding me that he was a servant and not a sibling. “We’ve brought the furniture, of course, and the servants, and all of your clothes, as well as cooks and implements for the kitchens.”

“Thank the heavens!” Sakshi sighed, because she’d been doing the cooking these last three days and she’d had nothing but camping supplies to work with. “Point me in their direction, Shiv, and I’ll get the kitchens up and running. Everyone here could do