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

handed the shoes over. “I just want to sleep in peace, your majesty.” My voice was thick with emotion, and I let my head hang. Maybe I was overselling it, but I didn’t think so.

Asma snatched the shoes from me. “You were planning to run, were you?”

“No, your majesty, I just felt better with them, that’s all,” I murmured.

“Well, you won’t be going anywhere now,” she declared. “You may change without the men present, but they will return once you are suitably attired for bed.”

“Thank you, your majesty,” I said.

“Hmph.” She sniffed and turned to go, but thought better of it after a moment, her eyes still flickering over the climbing shoes Karim had given me. “If you learn your place, Razia, and I mean truly learn it, then we can end these games, you and I.”

“I’d like that, your majesty.” I gasped, pretending to choke back a sob, thankful that my dupatta and my posture were doing a good job of hiding my face from view, so that she couldn’t see the smirk I was fighting to suppress.

“Show me that, and we can talk,” she replied.

“I will, your majesty,” I promised.

“Fatima,” Asma said, “you will step out and inform the guards when she is decent. I expect you to watch her closely.”

“I will, your majesty,” Fatima assured her, bowing to her as she left the room. Asma had motioned for the male guards to follow her, so that left Fatima alone in my chambers with just two other handmaidens, against eighteen of us. I liked those odds.

I removed my dupatta and gave Hina a significant look. She smiled, her hazel eyes lighting up. She knew just what I was asking for without being told, and I thought most of her celas did too. Had Asma forgotten that Hina was a mercenary captain, that her disciples were all zahhak-riding warriors? Maybe it was because they were all such disarmingly pretty ladies, and because they carried no weapons, but it was going to be the old woman’s undoing.

“Let’s help get Princess Razia ready for bed,” Hina said, but the tone of her voice held an edge to it that I noticed, and that even her less observant celas seemed to notice too. Some of them went to fetch my clothing chest, others went to get my jewelry boxes, a third group went to get water and towels to help clean the makeup off my face. I sat on my cushion, letting the women remove the bangles from my wrists, and the tall necklace and the earrings, putting each piece away carefully in a hardwood box. All the while, I was looking into the mirror, watching as the celas who had gone to fetch water and towels crept up behind Asma’s handmaidens. Their ajrak dupattas were wound into narrow ropes of silk, and they kept them stretched tightly between their hands.

When the moment came, it all happened in a flash of movement. The three celas threw their dupattas around the handmaidens’ necks and pulled tightly, their collarbones standing out as they yanked with all their might. Other celas rushed forward, stuffing their sleeves or their skirts into the handmaidens’ gaping mouths to muffle their cries. The women struggled, clawing at anything they could, kicking out with their legs, but they died quickly and quietly, just as I’d intended. Poor Fatima. She shouldn’t have taunted me.

I stood up and stripped off my ajrak clothes, trading them for a black shalwar kameez. I moved with purpose, selecting a pair of simple slippers to protect my feet, making sure they were flexible enough that I could bend my toes in any direction I liked. They were the opposite of the climbing shoes Karim had bought for me, but that didn’t matter so much.

“What are you going to do now?” Hina asked, and she sounded worried.

“We stick to the plan,” I replied.

“But your shoes!” she exclaimed. She kept her voice low, but the urgency came through all the same.

It was Sakshi who laughed then, a surprising sound when she’d just witnessed three women being murdered in cold blood in front of her. She came up beside me and ruffled my hair. “My little sister didn’t need special shoes to climb the cliffs of Shikarpur, or to steal from the wealthy havelis in Bikampur.”

“They do help, though,” I admitted. “I’ll be a little slower than I would have been otherwise, but now Lady Asma will believe that I’m helpless, and that’s the important thing.”

Hina’s eyes widened, and she shook her head ruefully. “I should have known. All right, your highness, what do you want us to do?”

“I want you to pick your three best actresses and dress them in the handmaidens’ clothes. Hide the bodies wherever you can so the guards won’t stumble across them. Put someone in my nightclothes and put her to bed just to be safe. The rest of your girls will need to be making ropes from clothes—as many as you can and as strong as you can. Dupattas, shirts, whatever it takes.”

“And if the guards try to get in?” Hina asked.

“Have your false handmaidens tell them I’m not ready yet. If I’m still not back when they return a second time, then let them in, pretend everything is normal. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get Sanghar and his men into the palace before that, though.”

“Right,” Hina agreed. She surprised me by embracing me. “Good luck, your highness.”

“I’ll be back soon,” I assured her.

“You’d better be,” Sakshi replied. “Lakshmi is counting on you, don’t forget.”

“I couldn’t,” I muttered. We hugged each other good-bye, though we didn’t call it good-bye, and I headed for the balcony, intent on murdering two men and leading a rebellion.

CHAPTER 23

I crept onto the balcony, my slippers skimming the smooth surface of the marble floor, my body crouched low, keeping to the shadows formed by the tall sandstone columns, which blocked out the light from