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

Fire rained from the sky to the east. Long columns of flame belched from shadowy forms circling over the fortresses guarding the harbor. Arjun! Arjun was here, and the attack had started.

“Fire!” one of the men in the tower shouted, and he pointed at the fortresses.

All three men rushed to the far edge of the tower to get a better look. They were knotted close together, their legs pressed up against the low railing, which only came up to their shins. This was the moment.

I threw myself up with more strength than I knew I possessed, vaulting over the railing, landing on my feet, and running for all I was worth. My footsteps were loud and squelching, but the men were talking to one another so frantically that they couldn’t hear them. And anyway, it was too late. I hurled myself into all three of them, hitting them with every last ounce of strength I possessed.

The impact was so jarring that I felt like I’d been punched. Stars danced across my vision. But all three men lost their balance, toppling forward, shouting as they fell. I fell too, but not off the tower. I fell to the ground beside the marble railing, hiding myself from view just as the men splashed into the water, the impacts so hard that I knew there was no chance they’d survived. And even if they had, the armor they’d been wearing would drag them straight to the bottom of the lagoon.

I looked out from the railing’s pierced decorations, struggling to see if the men on the other towers had seen what had happened, and I couldn’t believe my good fortune. They were all too busy watching the attack of the fire zahhaks. They hadn’t seen a thing.

But I had to get back to the balcony. Damn the other tower. Hina and her celas would be in danger. Sakshi would be in danger. The alarms were sounding everywhere. I had to get those Zindhi men into my bedchamber, and I had to do it now.

Sanghar Soomro and his men must have made the same decision, because I spotted boats sliding out of the darkness, propelled soundlessly by long sculls flapping back and forth like the tails of enormous fish. They were heading straight for the base of the wall beneath my balcony, and if I wasn’t there by the time they arrived, then all would be lost.

There was no time to carefully climb back down the wall, and the parapets would be crawling with soldiers. But the rooftop was clear. I could run across it. I’d be visible to every guard in the palace, but it was too late to worry about secrecy now.

I scrambled to my feet and started climbing one of the chhatri’s decorated columns, grabbing hold of the stone awning that shaded the guards from the force of the sun during the day. With a pull that made the muscles of my chest and back burn, I hauled myself onto the tiled dome, breathing hard, keenly aware of the shouts going up throughout the palace as guards rushed to and fro to try to make sense of what was happening.

I put them out of my mind as best I could, because I had to focus on jumping the gap between the roof of the chhatri and the roof of the women’s quarters of the palace. They were separated by a ten-foot gap. It was a long way to jump, and I wouldn’t get much of a run-up. The awning gave me at best five paces to work with. This was going to be close.

I didn’t give myself time to think about it. I went to the corner of the tower and took a deep stance, leaning forward, preparing my legs for the explosive kickoff that I would need to see me safely to the other side. I knew that if I failed, I would slam my ribs into the hard stone roof at best, or fall fifty feet to my death at worst. But I’d come too far to give up now.

I sprang off with my legs, running for everything I was worth, watching my feet rather than my destination, so I would hit the edge of the roof with the ball of my foot, giving me the most powerful possible spring I could manage. I screamed through my teeth, heedless of the attention it might bring me. Nothing mattered if I missed.

For one exhilarating instant, I was flying. There was nothing below me but the glittering waters of the lagoon, nothing around me but the desert air. And then the roof of the women’s quarters came rushing up in my vision and I realized that I’d missed it. I was dropping too fast. There was no way I was going to land on my feet.

I tucked my knees into my chest to avoid smashing my shins to bits on the edge of the stone awning. My feet hit hard, and there was no slack in my legs to take up the impact, so it jolted my whole body, all the way up to my head, which snapped painfully on my neck. I hit the rooftop in a heap, aching all over, dazed, the world feeling strangely off-kilter, like I’d suddenly stepped into a boat in rough seas.

I pushed myself up and ran all the same. A toradar cracked. Something whizzed through the air just behind me. I paid it no attention. My balcony was so close. I was almost there. And so were Sanghar Soomro’s boats. They were pressing forward, and the men on the far tower still hadn’t spotted them, because they were too busy watching Arjun’s zahhaks attacking the fortresses at the mouth of the harbor. I knew only seconds had passed since the attack had begun, but it felt more like hours. I was so sure that I was going to be too late.

I leapt off the roof, onto the dome that overhung my balcony, sliding