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

and I’d never spent much time in this province. And anyway, Daryastani wasn’t even my first language, Court Safavian was, and it was even more removed from the tongues of the common people.

The lord, whoever he was, said something in Zindhi. His tone made it plain that it was a question, but I didn’t understand anything of it. There was a long pause, and then he asked a different question, in a slightly gruffer voice, and I knew it was Mahisagari, but I couldn’t follow that either.

I sighed. “If you wouldn’t mind speaking in Daryastani, I’d rather not stand here all night until you’ve exhausted your linguistic repertoire.”

He chuckled. “You’re educated. Who are you?”

“Razia Khanum, princess of Nizam,” I replied, pulling off the blindfold so that he could see my green eyes, which were nearly proof enough of my identity in these lands, though they were so much more common on the steppes where my people hailed from.

I had to squint against the brightness of the light pouring from half a dozen brass lanterns. It took my eyes a moment to adjust, to really let me see the figure standing before me. He was a tall, fit man, though I suspected he was at least twenty years my elder. His dark black beard hadn’t yet started to become speckled with gray, nor had his full head of hair, which was mostly covered by a heavily embroidered Zindhi cap. He wore an ajrak kurta of fine silk, depicting block-printed river zahhaks racing across a background of pale indigo, the color calling to mind the waters of the sea on a bright day.

His dark brown eyes met mine, studying them carefully. He examined my soaking-wet shalwar kameez, the ajrak pattern not so far removed from the one he was wearing. He pursed his lips as he considered the possibility that I was telling the truth. “Do you have any proof of that?”

“Aside from my eyes?” I asked.

He smirked. “Yes, aside from those.”

I switched into Court Safavian, because I knew it wouldn’t be common here in Zindh. “Do you speak the language of the Nizami court?”

His eyes widened a little, and he nodded. “Some.” His accent was unpolished enough that I heard it even from that one word. It would have got him laughed out of the diwan-i-khas in Nizam, but I supposed for a provincial lord it wasn’t terrible.

I returned to Daryastani so as not to embarrass him. “Would you be kind enough to grant me your name, sir?”

He worked his jaw, considering his answer. I knew he must have heard what had happened to me by now. Word of a marriage alliance with Nizam would have made its way through the ranks of the common soldiery of Mahisagar like wildfire, and from there the common people of Zindh would have heard the rumors too. If he believed that I was Karim’s willing wife, then he’d have done well to keep his mouth shut. But I had to believe that Hina hadn’t left Kadiro without making her plans to ally with me known to her emirs. So didn’t that work in my favor?

“I am Sanghar Soomro,” he said.

I breathed a sigh of relief, scarcely believing my luck. It was hard to keep a smile off my face. “Hina said you would help us.”

Sanghar Soomro quirked an onyx eyebrow at that claim. “Is that so?”

I nodded, but then I suddenly felt the weight of fatigue crashing over me, and I abruptly sat down beside a silk cushion a few paces away. I’d have sat on it, but I didn’t want to ruin it. While the warm breezes of a desert night were doing much to dry my clothes, they were still sodden enough with lagoon water that I didn’t think I could risk it.

“Please, sit down, your highness,” Sanghar said, the ironic tone in his voice bringing a smile to both of our lips.

“Forgive me, it was a long climb down from the palace and a difficult swim, and that was before your gunboat nearly battered me to death.” I rubbed the spot on my shoulder where I’d been struck—the same spot where I’d landed when I’d been thrown into the bottom of the boat. I was going to have a massive bruise there in the morning.

“And what were you doing swimming in the lagoon at night, your highness?” Sanghar inquired, once he’d taken his seat on one of his plush cushions.

“Coming to see you,” I replied.

“Oh?” He didn’t look like he believed that.

“Hina and I have sworn to each other that we will fight Karim Shah and his father to the death,” I told him, looking him squarely in the eyes, hoping he could see the determination in my own. “To do that, we must send messages to rally our allies. She assured me that you remained loyal to her, and that you had the necessary river zahhaks to see those messages delivered with speed.”

“Perhaps what you say is true,” Sanghar allowed, “but perhaps it isn’t. What assurances do I have that you’re not simply trying to trick me into committing treason against your father-in-law?”

“Ahmed Shah is not my father-in-law,” I growled.

Sanghar spread his hands in apology. “Father-in-law-to-be, then.”

“He will not be my father-in-law,” I assured Sanghar. “What he will be is a corpse. But to do that I need fighting men, and I need zahhaks, and to get those I need to send messages to my allies. Now, you can either help me do that or you can refuse me, but I need you to make your decision quickly, because if I am not back in that palace by sunup, Hina will be the one paying the price for it.”

His brow furrowed with alarm, and I knew then that he was truly loyal to Hina, that he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He pursed his lips like he’d tasted something sour. “All right, your highness, it seems I have no choice but to trust you. I will serve as your