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

But it was another thought that really put fear in my heart. Sakshi and Lakshmi were the riders we had up on patrol alongside Hina’s river zahhaks. If the Safavians decided to attack . . .

I ran out of the room, slamming straight into the hard mass of muscle and steel that was Sikander, who had just been coming to get me. I rebounded off of him, and would have fallen flat on the floor if he hadn’t steadied me with strong arms. “Your highness—”

“I heard the trumpet!” I exclaimed, pushing him aside and racing for the zahhak stables. “We have to get airborne now, while there’s still time!”

“Your highness!” Sikander grabbed my arm, holding me back.

“My sisters are up there!” I practically screamed it in his face, but no matter how I twisted I couldn’t wrench my arm free from his grasp. “We have to move now!”

“Your highness, the thunder zahhaks belong to your father, I’m sure of it,” Sikander said, his voice calm and steady.

I glanced up at the sky, where the sixteen thunder zahhaks were already circling high above my sisters and the four fliers Hina had sent out on patrol that morning. From so far away, one thunder zahhak looked much like another, but I knew Malikah, my father’s mount, from every angle, and there was no mistaking the distinctive pattern of black barring on the golden undersides of her wing and tail feathers.

“What’s he doing here?” I wondered aloud.

Sikander’s hand slid free of my arm as he realized that I wasn’t going to rush off in a blind panic to attack. He pointed with his other hand toward a cluster of zahhaks lower down, coming forward to make a landing approach.

The five emerald and turquoise acid zahhaks were keeping perfect formation as they flared wide their peacock-like tails, back-beating their wings to slow themselves as they overflew the walls of the palace. At their head was an animal I knew well, having flown alongside her in the battle against Javed Khorasani. Her name was Amira, and she belonged to none other than Karim Shah of Mahisagar.

“Your highness!” Hina exclaimed, rushing toward us with her celas close behind. “What’s going on? Are we under attack? My fliers don’t have weapons!”

“It’s my father,” I told her, pointing to the thunder zahhaks, which were circling lower and lower, forcing Lakshmi and Sakshi to give way, lest they put themselves in an indefensible position.

“What about the acid zahhaks?” she asked, nodding to the ones that were just now landing near the stables.

I swallowed hard, not wanting to tell her the truth, but knowing that a lie would be so much worse, and would spare her nothing. “One of them was Amira, Karim Shah’s animal.”

“Why would your father be with Prince Karim?” Hina demanded, her voice shrill with panic. “Was this a trick the whole time?”

I held up my hand to forestall a fight and said, “I don’t know any more than you do. If I’d had the slightest inkling that Karim was showing up, do you really believe I’d have placed my sisters on patrol today?”

“I don’t know,” Hina answered, her voice tight with fear. “Maybe you had an arrangement with him this whole time.”

“She did not,” Arjun snapped. “Razia would never play you falsely. She has treated you with nothing but courtesy, and you owe her the same.”

Hina crossed her arms over her chest, her mouth clamped tightly shut, though it was plain that she was close to panicking. Her celas were gathered close around her, hugging one another, their fear palpable. Karim had murdered their king; they’d exhausted themselves fleeing him. They had come here in the hopes that they might escape the same fate, that they might find some way to get their revenge, and now it looked as if they’d been played for fools all along, that it was all for nothing, that they would be slaughtered.

I went to Hina and put my hands on her shoulders. “I don’t know what’s going on, but what I do know is that you protected me when I needed you, Hina. I’ll do the same for you. I swear to God, whatever happens, no one is going to hurt you or any of your people. I give you my word.”

She nodded, but her mouth was a hard line, and tears were spilling down her cheeks as she fought to get her emotions under control. I couldn’t blame her. I was furious and afraid too, and Karim hadn’t killed my family members. I kept my arms around Hina as I waited for my father and Prince Karim to arrive.

“What are your orders, your highness?” Sikander asked.

“Have our trumpeters order my sisters and Hina’s fliers to descend to the diwan-i-khas and land there. I don’t want them anywhere near the Mahisagaris,” I said. I flickered my eyes to meet Hina’s, took a deep breath, and added, “And I want guards in the middle courtyard, a lot of them. When Prince Karim lands, he is to be arrested, disarmed, and brought before me as a prisoner.”

“I’ll see to everything, your highness,” Sikander promised, but then he added something that I wished he hadn’t. “Unless your father countermands it.”

I grimaced, but nodded. I couldn’t very well ask Nizami men to go against their sovereign, and Sikander knew as well as I did that my father must have had a reason for traveling with Karim rather than simply knocking his zahhaks out of the sky.

But we weren’t the only ones drawing that conclusion. Hina and her celas were glowering at the descending zahhaks, and I had to admit that their arrival didn’t do much for my mood either, because try as I might, I couldn’t work out what Karim and my father would have been doing flying together. Karim had attacked one of our cities. How could my father possibly let that stand? Shouldn’t he have dealt with Karim when he had the chance? And anyway, the five acid