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

my bare hands, knowing that a single false move would send me plummeting to my death, took not one-tenth the courage it takes to wear a beautiful lehenga in your presence and my father’s.”

His eyes widened slightly with understanding, and I drove the lesson home. “Imagine what your father’s reaction would have been, had you dressed as I dress, had you spoken of yourself as I speak of myself, had you behaved as I behave, and tell me again whether or not you believe it takes courage to wear a skirt.

“Or better yet,” I said before he could respond, because I didn’t really want his answer anyway, “remember all the times you beat me for dressing this way, remember all the harsh words and harsher blows I suffered at your hands, and tell me again whether or not you believe it takes courage to wear a skirt.”

“What I did, I did for your own good, your highness,” Sikander protested.

Hot anger rose up from the pit of my stomach on hearing those words, but my voice was colder than ice when I spoke. “You think so, do you?”

Sikander gritted his teeth, realizing, I thought, how perilously close he was to being executed, but he nodded all the same. “Had I succeeded in making a man out of you, we would not be in this position.”

I sighed. “Has it still not occurred to you, after all these years, that it was never something that could be changed? That you can’t beat a person’s soul out of them?”

His gaze flickered from me to Sakshi, to Lakshmi, to Hina and all her celas, his jaw working in time with the movements of his eyes. “I thought perhaps with more time . . .”

I let him shake his head slowly, let him draw his conclusions from the presence of so many of my kind in one place. All of us had lived through the same hell, run away from our homes, fought to be recognized for who we truly were. Sikander had likely never seen so many of us before. I had been alone in the palace in Nizam, the only one like me, but here I was one of nearly twenty, and there was a strength in that. I wasn’t some lone deviant, some prince who wouldn’t accept his duties and insisted on acting like a girl. I was one of a larger category of person, a member of a group whose shared history lent credence to her claims in ways that no amount of tearful begging in Nizam ever could have.

To Shiv, I said, “Please have Sunil Kalani and Pir Tahir brought forward. They have been made to wait long enough.”

“Right away, your highness,” Shiv agreed, bowing to me with the deepest respect, and staring pointedly at Sikander before he turned and headed for the second courtyard, where the Zindhi emir and the holy man were waiting for their audience.

“Anything I should know before they get here?” I asked Hina, as she knew both of these men.

“They have already agreed to serve you, your highness,” she replied. “Their loyalty is greater to me than to you, but they have accepted my decision. Treat them as you would your own retainers, and I believe their loyalty will only grow.”

My own retainers? I had precious few of those. Sikander hardly counted. Arjun was my lover, not my retainer. And Arvind was Arjun’s friend, a Bikampuri noble who had come to Zindh because it was an exciting adventure and he had no real responsibilities. It occurred to me that, unlike Hina, I’d never had my own retainers before in my whole life. She was the closest thing I had to such a creature, and I thought it would be the height of foolishness to treat her as such. She might have been willing to serve me, but she was the rightful queen of this land. To act as though she were merely a follower of mine struck me as a poor idea.

Sunil Kalani and Pir Tahir arrived in the diwan-i-khas before I could consider the matter further. Shiv announced them, and they bowed properly. Pir Tahir was an old man with a full beard and bushy eyebrows that had been stained orange red from henna. He wore a white cleric’s robe and matching prayer cap, and might have been mistaken for any village imam, but his dark eyes were keen, and were watching me closely. Sunil Kalani was wearing mail and plate armor over his fine silk ajrak tunic, his talwar still hanging from his hip. He was younger than the cleric, fiercer, his bold brown eyes staring right into mine in a way that suggested I had not won his loyalty just yet. I knew that I needed to choose my words carefully if I was to command them. I had an idea for how I might go about it.

“Good day, gentlemen,” I told them, smiling politely. “Her majesty Jama Hina has informed me that you are willing to fight alongside me to free Zindh from Karim Shah and the forces of Mahisagar.”

Their eyebrows shot up to their hairlines as they realized that I had recognized Hina by her proper title, and not as some mere retainer or hanger-on. They couldn’t have missed that while I sat on the throne, she sat on the cushion directly beside it, in the place of honor. So far so good.

“That was her majesty’s command,” Sunil agreed, making it plain that he would fight for me only so long as Hina ordered it.

“Like you, I am honored to support her majesty, my distant cousin, in her time of need,” I declared.

The reference to our shared ancestry brought fresh scrutiny. Sunil and Tahir could not have missed my emerald eyes, proof of my membership in the Nizami royal family as surely as any title. They noted the ajrak I was wearing, the fine Zindhi jewelry, and I knew that this Jama Sakina of theirs had been immediately called to mind, just as Hina