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

zahhaks landing in the middle courtyard told me that Karim’s father, Ahmed Shah, was here too. With all of Mahisagar’s nobility at our mercy, with the entire male royal line here in our province, why not just kill them all and take Mahisagar for ourselves? That idea must have occurred to my father, so why hadn’t he done it? It wasn’t like him to hesitate at times like this.

Well, whatever my father wanted, I didn’t have to abide by it. I had soldiers now too, and with Sikander gone to deal with Karim and the Mahisagaris, I was free to issue whatever orders I liked to those men I controlled who were not ultimately beholden to my father.

“My prince,” I said, turning to Arjun, “I want Bikampuri musketeers on the parapets of the inner courtyard, as many as you can muster, before Karim or my father can get here.”

“Right,” he agreed, and he took off at a dead run to see it done.

To Hina, I said, “Get as many Zindhi men in this courtyard as you can. Whatever my father is planning, it’s obvious he hasn’t killed Karim and the Mahisagaris. If he means to ally with them, I must have the means of refusing him.”

Hina nodded, her expression grim. “I’ll see to it.”

She started to leave, but I grabbed her before she could take a step. “But my father cannot be killed. I want to make that clear from the start. We can’t fight Nizam, and killing him would make everything worse.”

“I understand, your highness,” she assured me. I let her go, and she went with her celas to see to the disposition of their soldiers.

Trumpets blared, and my sisters were quick to descend toward the diwan-i-khas. I ran to meet them, hoping that this wasn’t what it looked like, that my father hadn’t cut some deal with Karim and Ahmed, granting them control of Kadiro, but I couldn’t think of another explanation.

I reached the diwan-i-khas at about the same time that my sisters landed with Hina’s fliers. Lakshmi came running toward me right away. “Akka! Akka! Did you see? It’s Prince Karim!”

She sounded excited, which made my insides twist. Karim had always been careful to be kind to her, to use all of his considerable charms on her. He was nothing if not experienced at grooming young girls to be abused later, and the fact that my little sister came from a coastal city where handsome men rode acid zahhaks had made her even more vulnerable. I’d tried to explain to her that he was a bad man, but she wasn’t old enough to understand manipulation.

“I saw,” I said, letting my tone tell her how unexcited I was to see Karim. “We are going to wait for him here.” I nodded to the baradari, and to my throne. “He attacked us in Kadiro, and he killed Hina’s brother, remember?”

“I don’t think he would do something like that, Akka,” Lakshmi told me.

“He did!” Nuri exclaimed, the young girl from Hina’s ranks having flown right alongside Lakshmi on patrol. She was still holding the reins of her river zahhak, and her fury made the animal turn its head toward Lakshmi in alarm.

“We stay calm when we are around zahhaks, Nuri,” I reminded her, my voice gentle. The last thing we needed was to get in a shouting match.

“But it’s true,” she insisted, her voice softening nonetheless.

“I know it’s true,” I assured her. “I will see to everything; I’ve given Jama Hina my word. For now, we must wait, all right?”

Nuri nodded, as did the older celas arrayed around her. I took Lakshmi with me to my throne, collecting her thunder zahhak’s reins along the way. Sakshi and Ragini joined us, for which I was wholly grateful. I wished more than anything that Sultana was beside me, rather than in the stables, but two obedient thunder zahhaks and hundreds of loyal soldiers would be protection enough against my father and Karim and whatever they were planning.

As I sat on the throne, Bikampuri musketeers took up their positions all along the walls, led by Arvind. Arjun was striding across the courtyard to join me, followed closely by Hina and half a hundred Zindhi soldiers, to say nothing of her celas. The young women were keenly aware of the precariousness of the situation, and they gathered around her, all armed with the long-barreled rifles with fish-shaped stocks that were so popular here in Zindh.

The Zindhi contingent took up their positions all around the diwan-i-khas, their weapons at the ready. They used the banyan trees and the marble columns for cover, their faces grim beneath their steel helmets. They expected to be attacked. For a moment, I regretted my decision to bring them here, as so many armed men full of fear increased the odds of something going wrong. But I wasn’t going to let my father dictate his terms to me as he had before. I may not have had as many soldiers within the palace walls as Sikander did, but I had enough to make a fight of it.

Prince Karim, the heir to the throne of Mahisagar, strode through the gates of my courtyard with all the swagger of a conquering hero, though to my eyes he looked more like a plundering pirate in his silk dhoti, with his curved firangi sword swinging from his hip. It was the little details that marked him out as a prince—his perfectly coiffed black hair that glistened in the sunlight, his carefully trimmed beard, the fat jewels on the rings that graced his fingers. And his attitude, which could only have belonged to a prince as well. Though he was in a foreign city, about to meet a ruler who had every cause to murder him, he was smirking, not an ounce of fear evident in the haughty gaze of his dark eyes.

I wondered how much of his confidence was owed to my father’s presence here, and how much to misplaced arrogance. Though, watching his