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

was famous for her skills as an aerial warrior. But Sultan Jahandar needed to make peace with Zindh, because he was fighting wars against Vanga and Virajendra, so he gave his youngest daughter, Sakina, in marriage to Jam Nizamuddin Talpur, the greatest emperor to ever rule Zindh.”

“Talpur?” I gasped, recognizing that name at once.

Hina nodded, grinning at my response. She must have known what I was thinking—one of my ancestresses had married one of Ali Talpur’s ancestors. I was pursing my lips, thinking back to my history lessons in the palace. Jahandar really was the greatest Nizami sultan. He conquered northern Virajendra and Vanga, adding them as new subahs to the empire. I’d paid particular attention to him because his daughter Razia Sultana, my great-grandmother, had been the only woman ever to rule our empire, and my source of greatest inspiration. Had she really had a sister married off to a Zindhi emperor? This was the first I was hearing of it. But if it was true, then Hina was a distant cousin of mine. Maybe that explained the hint of green I saw in her brown eyes when the light struck them at just the right angle.

But the history was right. Jahandar had been at war with the Zindhi emperor at the same time he was fending off attacks from Vanga and Virajendra. He’d made peace with Zindh, keeping it free and independent until my grandfather’s conquest of it in the years before my father was born, and had instead turned his sights on Vanga and the southern plateau.

“And what do your stories say of this Shahzadi Sakina?” I asked Hina, while Nuri put gorgeous river zahhak–inspired bangles on my wrists, their exquisite plumage rendered in sapphire, turquoise, jet, and mother-of-pearl cloisonné.

“Jama Sakina,” Hina corrected. “The stories say that everyone expected the daughter of Sultan Jahandar to be arrogant and to support her father’s concerns above those of the Zindhi people. They all knew she would be plotting to turn Zindh into nothing more than a Nizami subah, and that she would use any son she produced from her pairing with Nizamuddin to undermine him at every turn.”

I grunted at that, not at all flattered by the comparison. “I see.”

“Not yet you don’t,” Hina replied, her eyes flashing with just a hint of mischief. “You see,” she continued, as much to Lakshmi as to me, “when Jama Sakina arrived, she came to the people of Zindh dressed in ajrak.”

“Ajrak?” Lakshmi asked.

“This.” Hina held up the end of her dupatta, showing off the fine indigo block printing. “Ajrak is the cloth of Zindh, made to look like our beloved river zahhaks. It’s made nowhere but here, where indigo grows wild on the banks of the Zindhu.”

“And Jama Sakina wore it?” Lakshmi asked.

“That’s right,” Hina told her. “She wore ajrak, and she showed her husband perfect loyalty and faithfulness. And when war came with the Safavians, who thought to attack Zindh while Nizam was busy fighting against Virajendra, Jama Sakina took to the skies on her thunder zahhak and helped save Zindh from disaster. They say she used the lightning from her zahhak, and the zahhaks of her handmaidens, to tear up the earth itself, changing the course of a river, using its waters to flood the Safavian camp, drowning them all in one night.”

“Is that really true?” Lakshmi asked, wrinkling her nose like she didn’t quite believe it.

“I don’t know,” Hina admitted, “but that’s what the stories say. And there is a great lake to the north of Kadiro, the largest in all of Daryastan, and we call it Lake Sakina. The stories say that’s where she drowned the Safavian army and saved Zindh from invasion.”

“And she looked like Akka?” Lakshmi asked, smiling at me with evident pride.

“She was your akka’s twice-great-aunt,” Hina affirmed. “And, like all Nizami princesses, she had jet-black hair and eyes like emeralds.”

“Just like Akka’s!” Lakshmi exclaimed.

“Just like hers,” Hina agreed, a hint of sadness in her voice.

I understood why at once. She had hazel eyes—the remnants of the emerald green that belonged to the Nizami royal line. If Jama Sakina was my twice-great-aunt, she was likely Hina’s own great-grandmother. She probably felt the same way about stories of Jama Sakina that I had when hearing stories of Razia Sultana growing up.

And it explained the clothes I was wearing. They weren’t just lavish gifts from a new retainer; they would give me legitimacy in the eyes of the Zindhi people and their emirs. If I looked like Jama Sakina, then they would draw those parallels in their own minds, particularly now with their rightful king dead, and an enemy occupying their country.

“Thank you, Hina,” I said.

Hina didn’t reply right away. She just smiled and gestured to Nuri, who added one last piece to the costume. It was a magnificent necklace depicting two river zahhaks, each diving from my shoulders, across my collarbones, toward the center of my chest. Their sapphire wings were folded in tight crescents, their long blue topaz tails trailing behind them. Their necks were outstretched, jet scales glistening in the morning sunlight, their mouths wide, revealing diamond-studded fangs. Each was racing the other for the necklace’s centerpiece, an enormous fish with emerald scales and diamonds for eyes.

“There, finished,” Nuri announced, stepping back and admiring her handiwork. “I think the necklace really suits your eyes.” She looked back to Lakshmi. “Doesn’t it?”

Lakshmi nodded enthusiastically. “I think so!”

“Thank you, Nuri,” I told the girl, giving her an affectionate pat on the cheek before turning back to Hina, who had been studying me carefully, no doubt trying to predict what effect my new clothes might have on the emirs I was meeting today.

“Do you think they’ll accept me?” I asked. They’d agreed to abide by Hina’s decision, but that wasn’t really the same thing as being loyal to me as their ruler.

“I think they will, your highness,” she said after a moment’s consideration. “They know we can’t win this fight on our own.” Her face betrayed