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

real sorrow at that admission. “Zindh is a land rich in indigo and cotton, but poor in zahhaks. To our east and west, fire zahhaks occupy the deep deserts of Registan and Khuzdar, but Zindh has nothing except river zahhaks to protect her.”

I was struck by the bittersweet tone in her voice, and I realized then that I was wearing cloth covered in swirling block-printed patterns of river zahhaks, their brilliant colors rendered in exquisite detail by a masterful application of ink to silk. I saw then the reason for the tone in her voice, for the look on her face.

“They’re beautiful animals, and graceful fliers,” I told her.

“But they have no breath,” she added, her voice tight, the tendons in her slender neck standing out through her skin.

I tried to put myself in her place, to imagine growing up with a zahhak that was the living symbol of my homeland, to love her and cherish her and learn to fly her, only to discover that she was incapable of battling the zahhaks of other nations, that her very existence rendered all of my training as little more than quaint entertainment. The first half of that picture was easy enough to imagine, but the latter half tied my stomach in knots. If Sultana hadn’t had breath, I would still be a concubine left to pray that Arjun never lost his affection for me.

“So you need my zahhaks,” I concluded.

“And you need us,” she answered.

I nodded, because that was the truth of the matter, but it brought a slight smile to my face. “Does that mean we can be friends?”

She rolled her eyes, but she was grinning. “I’d like that very much, your highness.”

“As would I,” I said, pleased to have at least one ally in this country. With Hina’s celas, and her ten thousand soldiers, I would be free of the threat of Sikander and his guards hurting me, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough to drive out the Mahisagaris. For that, I would need the emirs of Zindh to rally around me, and I had to start here in Shikarpur. “I suppose we should get moving. We don’t want to keep them waiting.”

“No, I don’t think we do,” Hina agreed.

We stood up and left my bedchamber together, Hina and her celas, and me with my two sisters. By now, Sunil Kalani, the soldier I had met the night before, and Pir Tahir, the sheikh, would be waiting for me to summon them to the diwan-i-khas. Sunil was the local emir, and Pir Tahir the spiritual leader of Shikarpur’s community. Without their approval, I would never gain control of my city, let alone my province.

“Do you really have your own zahhak?” I heard Lakshmi asking Nuri as the pair of them walked hand in hand behind us.

Nuri nodded. “Her name is Nalini. She’s the prettiest zahhak in the whole world. You can ride her with me if you want.”

“Can two people really fly on a river zahhak?” Lakshmi asked.

“They can if one of them is Nuri’s size,” Hina replied, giving the younger Zindhi girl a playful pat on the head. “They’re lighter than thunder zahhaks and acid zahhaks, but they have bigger wings, so they can carry more weight.”

The thrilled look on Lakshmi’s face tugged at my heartstrings, and Nuri was growing on me too. But then I’d always loved children, especially children like me who were being given the opportunity to grow up as their true selves.

“If you two want to go flying together, or to play in the gardens, there’s no reason for you to sit through a boring meeting,” I told them, because I’d hated meetings when I was eleven and my father had forced them on me.

“I don’t like playing here; this palace is ugly,” Lakshmi muttered.

That struck a nerve. I’d dragged her all the way out here to Zindh, to a war zone, and for what? So she could live in an ugly palace with no servants. She’d been so much happier in Bikampur.

I sighed and put my hands on her shoulders. “I know it’s not everything we wanted it to be—not yet. But I’m working hard to make it better, all right? Once the workmen are done with the zahhak stables, they’ll get to work on the rest of the palace.”

“I know, Akka,” she said. “I just miss Bikampur sometimes. It was like home.”

I hugged her close to me, taking deep breaths to keep the tears from flowing. Home. The word was loaded with so much meaning for girls like us, girls who had been driven from our homes, who had been forced to start over, sometimes more than once. But she was right. The palace in Bikampur had been our home, right up until I’d gone and ruined everything by attracting my father’s ire.

“I miss Bikampur too, sweetheart,” I whispered. I wanted to tell her that this was going to be our new home, that I was going to build something wonderful here for her, but I knew how hard it was going to be to dislodge Karim and his men from Kadiro, and I didn’t want to build her hopes up only to destroy them. I didn’t want to be made a liar. So I kissed her on the top of her head and let her go, turning to Hina, who had been watching all of this, her brow knitted with sympathy.

“Sorry,” I said.

“You have nothing to apologize for, your highness,” she replied. “My girls and I all miss Kadiro. It’s hard to start over.”

I felt some of the tension in my chest ease at being so readily understood. I’d forgotten what it was like to be surrounded by others of my kind, other women who knew exactly what it was like to give up their homes and their families to be their true selves, who understood how tenuous all the good things in life could be. If God had brought Hina to me, then maybe he intended for me to