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

chest at the threat, because I was plotting something, but he couldn’t know that for certain, not if I didn’t let on. Pretending to be demure and obedient would be my only defense from here on out. “If you will never trust me to be your wife, then why do you insist on marrying me?”

“Trust takes time,” he replied. “If you behave yourself, if you are useful to me, then we will see about trust. Until then, I will watch you closely.”

“As your highness wishes,” I said, because I knew better than to protest my innocence.

“There are other conditions,” my father said, which surprised me. I wasn’t expecting him to weigh in on the matter.

Evidently, neither was Karim, because he asked, “What conditions?”

“In the first place, there will be no marriage until all of Zindh is secure, and I am certain that it will remain so,” my father replied.

“Nothing in life is certain, your majesty,” Karim pointed out.

“All the same, if Zindh is calm, and the tax revenues are good, then the marriage may proceed,” my father said.

“Tax revenues?” I perked up a little at that. “But the harvest was brought in more than two months ago, and next year’s crop won’t be sown for another two or three months.”

Karim scowled. “You expect me to wait the better part of a year before the marriage is made official?”

“I do,” my father said. “I will leave my daughter in your care; she will be wife to you in all but name. You will have control of her subah, you will have her mind, which you told me was your real desire in marrying her. But you will not be her husband until I am certain that you and your father can live up to all that you have promised me.”

Karim grunted at that. “Very well. So long as she remains with me, in my household, I will not complain.”

“There is another condition,” my father added, feigning not to notice the tension it brought to Karim’s face. “Sikander will remain as Razia’s bodyguard and chaperone. As a princess of Nizam, she is not to be dishonored before her wedding night.”

Karim snorted. “She has opened her legs for every man in Registan, what honor has she got left?”

“If you think so little of her, then why are we here?” my father asked, his tone suddenly going cold and hostile. “Why should I not take my daughter up on her plan to destroy you instead?”

Karim realized he’d made a mistake, though he seemed as confused by my father’s response as I felt. Was the man defending me, after all this? Why?

“My daughter is a princess of Nizam and she will be treated as such; that was our agreement from the beginning,” my father reminded Karim. “If you do not believe her to be worthy of that respect, then there will be no marriage and no alliance. We will have war instead.”

Karim held up his hands for calm. “Forgive me, your majesty, I was wrong to say what I said. I will honor your daughter as a princess of Nizam, as was agreed. She will be permitted whatever chaperones and guards you think fit.”

“And you will not touch her before her wedding night, or there will be war,” my father added.

“As you wish, your majesty,” Karim agreed, though I could see in his dark eyes that he knew as well as my father did—as well as I did, for that matter—that once my father was gone, he wouldn’t necessarily know what became of me, not even with Sikander there to watch.

My father looked to me and asked, “Is there anything else?”

He was giving me a chance to make other demands? I hadn’t expected that. Maybe Arjun’s rebuke had finally gotten through to him? I didn’t know if I could really believe that after being disappointed by him so many times over the course of my life, but I wanted to believe it. I wanted to be stupid and naive and to believe that my father loved me in spite of all evidence to the contrary. I wanted to imagine that he was helping me, giving me the time I needed to avoid my fate, to come up with a plan to free myself of this engagement. It was easier than believing the alternative, that he didn’t much care what became of me, that I was just a pawn to him, not his only child.

I thought for a moment about what else I might want, but I had secured everything I needed to carry out my plan. Though there was something else that was weighing on me, something personal, and something that might be the key to escaping all of this.

“I’d like a moment alone with Sikander before we announce the arrangement to the men,” I said.

“Of course,” my father replied. He stood up, and waited for Arjun and Karim to do the same. The three of them left the room, and then it was just Sikander and me, as I’d requested, the pair of us sitting across from each other.

My father’s old guardsman looked a bit confused that I would request a one-on-one audience with him. His brown eyes were scanning my tear-streaked face with something that verged on concern, though I didn’t detect in them any of the affection he had held for me as a child. Maybe, after four years apart, and more years being beaten by him, it was too late for that, but if he was to be my only real protection from Karim, then I had to see where I stood, and now I knew the question to ask.

“I just have one question for you, Sikander,” I said, my voice quieter than it had been these last few days, my heart pounding at the memory I was about to conjure.

His brow furrowed with alarm. “Ask it, your highness.”

“Did it bother you?” I wondered. “Even a little?”

“Did what bother me, your highness?” he asked.

“When Karim raped me,” I said, every muscle