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

I felt something warm and soft brush my hand, and I looked over to find that Lakshmi had come to stand beside me, her hand clutching mine, her eyes downcast like a properly shy princess. She’d even draped her sari so that the pallu covered her hair demurely. It was the acid zahhak sari I’d bought for her in Bikampur, paired with the acid zahhak jewelry that had once been mine, but which was now effectively hers.

“And you must be little Lakshmi,” Asma said, bending over a little so that she was at her eye level. “You’re even prettier than my Karim said you were.”

Lakshmi’s cheeks reddened at the compliment, and she lowered her big brown eyes still further beneath her thick lashes. God, she really had learned her trade well from Ammi’s tutors in Bikampur. Another two years, three on the outside, and she would have been one of the most sought-after courtesans in Bikampur. As it was, she looked every inch the young Virajendran princess, which worried me. If Karim had noticed her beauty already, then I was going to have to make good and certain that I never gave them a moment alone together.

“Did my son’s gift please you?” Asma asked Lakshmi, her eyes darting in Mohini’s direction.

Lakshmi bobbed her head, her earrings jingling in time with the movement. “I’ll never be able to thank him enough for bringing my Mohini back to me! I missed her so much.”

“Well, you’re quite welcome, dear,” Asma said. “My son, Karim, has told me that he considers you to be like his own daughter, and so I will consider you my own granddaughter. How’s that?”

“I’d like that very much,” Lakshmi said, with such longing that it tore open a whole host of scars across my own heart that I’d almost forgotten were there. The desire to be accepted for myself, and to have the family I was robbed of by dint of my birth, was so strong it was almost overpowering. And either this woman was far kinder than her son, or she knew something about the pain we’d experienced and she was using it to manipulate us. I supposed time would tell which it was.

“If you’ll come with me, I will take you to my husband,” Asma offered. “He’s waiting to meet you in the diwan-i-khas.” She gestured to the building in question, and now that I was standing on ground level, I could see more clearly past its colonnaded facade, to where Sultan Ahmed was sitting atop a marble throne not at all unlike the one in the palace of Shikarpur.

“Normally we ladies do not have much cause to visit the outer palace,” she said as we walked, her maids moving to surround us on all sides, “but given that you were arriving in the company of so many men, my husband thought it appropriate to receive you here, and to permit me to join him.”

To permit her to join him? I resisted raising an eyebrow at that phrasing, but it still sent a chill through my heart. Were they planning on sequestering me away in the inner palace, then? I supposed I was about to find out.

Hina and her celas joined us as we made our way to the diwan-i-khas. They filtered through the handmaidens until they had effectively boxed them out, positioning themselves close to me and to Asma as well.

She regarded the newcomers with the same smile she had shown me. “And who might you be?”

“That’s Ali Talpur’s little sister,” Karim said, having moved to stand in front of us, flanked on either side by at least a dozen Mahisagari musketeers. “She’s here as Razia’s handmaiden.”

“Oh!” Asma gasped, holding her hand to her mouth in horror. I expected her to run and hide behind her son, knowing that Hina likely wanted her and every other Mahisagari in the palace dead, but instead she reached out and took Hina’s hands in hers and said, “I’m so sorry for your loss, dear. The wars men wage are such dreadful things, and too often we women are the ones left to bear their consequences.”

Hina seemed as startled as I was by Asma’s behavior, but the older woman plowed ahead as if she didn’t notice, patting Hina’s cheek gently. “Whatever you may be feeling now, you have my word that you’ll be safe here.”

Hina bristled at the older woman’s touch, and the muscles behind her temples bulged as she worked her jaw, struggling to muster a response to Asma’s words. In the end, she just gave a stiff nod, but I noted the way her olive eyes darted to Karim, standing just a few paces away, and I knew she was thinking of all the ways she’d like to murder him for what he’d done to her brother. Her self-control in coming here like this was almost superhuman. I didn’t think I could have done it.

I put my hand on Hina’s shoulder and whispered, “Thank you for coming with me. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”

“It’s my pleasure, your highness,” Hina replied, but her voice was stiff and wooden, and her eyes were still staring unblinking at Karim and his men. There were more of them now, almost three dozen, blocking our path to the baradari.

For a second, I wasn’t too worried by that, as I was confident that Karim and Ahmed had no intention of murdering me, but then I realized that wasn’t necessarily true for Hina. If they killed her, I could protest, I could scream and shout and complain, but I was powerless to stop them. That realization made my stomach churn.

“Is there something wrong, your highness?” I asked Karim, my voice betraying the fear that was coursing through me as I worried that I had delivered Hina’s head on a platter to her enemies.

“No, there’s nothing wrong, Razia,” Karim replied, and his voice was gentler than it usually was, more like it got when he