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

“Except for one thing,” I said.

“And what’s that?” he asked.

“I’m not marrying Karim!” I fairly shrieked it at him, heedless of the muskets still raised all around us. “He raped me! Have you forgotten that?”

My father shrugged. “All the more reason for him to make an honest woman out of you, then.”

I made a sort of strangled choking sound, I was so furious with him for saying something like that. I was half-tempted to order Hina’s soldiers to kill him, and they looked like they were on the verge of doing it anyway, but if I did that, then my father’s men would have no choice but to fire, and we’d all die—Lakshmi included. She was still sitting beside my throne, taking this all in with wide, horrified eyes.

There would be shooting. I saw that now. If my father insisted on forcing me into a marriage with Karim, I would let Hina’s men kill him instead. And if I did that, then we would all perish. I needed a way to remove our negotiations from the courtyard, where all the men could hear. I thought I could make my father see reason if I could only get him alone.

“Enough of this,” I said, gesturing to the armed soldiers on both sides. “If you want to discuss this plan with me, Father, then let us discuss it in private, rather than holding toradars on one another like petty bandits.”

“Just the two of us?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at the notion.

No, that wouldn’t work. Leaving Karim and Hina together was a recipe for disaster. But if I brought Karim, then between him and my father, there was a chance they might simply take me hostage, and then I would have to surrender. Arjun was the obvious choice to bring with me. As good as Karim was in a duel, I thought Arjun was better, and having an important Registani prince at my side would remind my father that I possessed powerful allies still.

“You, me, Karim, and Arjun,” I said. “The four of us will retire to my chambers to discuss this.”

“If you agree to marry him, I’ll kill you,” Hina warned me.

“If I agree to marry him, I’ll let you,” I replied, drawing a trace of a smile from her lips, if only for a single instant.

My father considered that for a moment, and he must have decided that Arjun and I didn’t pose enough of a threat to his life to worry himself over, and he probably realized how foolish it would have been to leave Karim and Hina together. So, he nodded and gestured toward my chambers. “Lead the way, daughter.”

Now he called me his daughter? I scowled, but I stood up from the throne all the same. To my sisters, I said, “Sakshi, take Lakshmi out of here, please.”

“You will not,” my father said, wagging a finger at her. “Sikander, if those two try to leave, they are to be shot.”

Sikander’s nod was instantaneous. “Yes, your majesty.”

He would do it. I knew it with the same sick certainty that had informed all of my encounters with him in the palace of Nizam. My fists clenched, but they would do me no good here; only my mind could get me out of this. I couldn’t let anger rule me, but it was hard not to be furious when my father was using my sisters as hostages. For Lakshmi’s sake, I kept my voice calm. “Sakshi, keep Lakshmi close. I’ll be back soon.”

“We’ll be right here waiting,” Sakshi assured me, hugging Lakshmi so that I would know my little sister was safe.

I gave a gruff nod and stalked off to my chambers, Arjun right beside me, my father and Karim trailing close behind.

CHAPTER 8

Years ago, I’d have been fuming over Karim’s proposal, so angry at his betrayal that it would have been hard for me to focus on anything else, but living as a courtesan in Bikampur had changed me. I was still furious, of course; my training hadn’t robbed me of my emotions, but it had allowed me to act in spite of them, to set them aside, and to act with cold calculation. So, rather than fuming, I was scheming. There had to be some way to change my father’s mind, and I fully intended to find it.

“If you think that speaking to me privately is going to change my mind, you’re very much mistaken,” my father warned me from his place on the cushion opposite my own.

“I wanted to speak without risk of getting all of us killed, Father,” I replied, keeping my tone neutral for the time being. “Surely you can agree that it’s better to avoid a bloodbath if we can.”

“So long as you do your duty as a princess of Nizam and marry the man I have chosen for you,” my father allowed.

It rankled, hearing him suddenly talk about me as a princess with genuine enthusiasm. He’d made it plain what a disgrace he thought I was. Our last conversation had left me with few illusions as to why I had been brought to Zindh. He thought perhaps I was clever enough to do him some good, though he was well insulated from the possibility that I would fail. But nowhere in that conversation had he wholeheartedly embraced me as his daughter the way he was doing now. It was such a transparently self-interested manipulation that it made my throat tighten with anger, and with other emotions besides. How I had longed for him to recognize me as his daughter, and now he was using that childhood hope to destroy my life.

“Give me one good reason why I should marry Karim, Father,” I said.

“I can think of at least sixteen good reasons,” he answered, nodding toward the ceiling, indicating the thunder zahhaks still swirling overhead, and the ones in the courtyard besides.

“We might