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

“If they escape, Lakshmi dies!” I screamed it so that nobody would be under any illusions as to the stakes. And then I flung myself over the railing, heedless of the ten-foot fall to the grass below. I hit with both feet, let myself crumple and roll, and was on my feet running an instant later like nothing had happened, sprinting for the gatehouse.

“With the princess!” Hina shouted, and I craned my head over my shoulder just far enough to see her take the same improbable leap, landing hard but getting to her feet and running after me. And then one by one all of her celas jumped, and Sakshi too, and I gritted my teeth and turned my head forward, my whole will bent on saving Lakshmi. If those women could follow me, then maybe there was some hope after all. If I could just get to the stables, I could climb onto Sultana’s back and chase them down. She was faster than any acid zahhak and I knew where they were going. I would tear them from the skies as I had torn Asma from this world, that was a promise.

I raced toward the gates, my eyes fixed on the acid zahhaks climbing into the darkened sky, barely visible by the glint of the moonlight on their scales. If I didn’t get to Sultana soon, they’d vanish. I had to get to her. Everything depended on it.

“Razia, no!”

I hit the ground just as a bullet whizzed overhead, Sakshi pinning me to the paving stone. It was only then that I saw what had been right in front of me—a mob of Mahisagari soldiers using the low hedges of the garden for cover, blazing away at us with their muskets. If not for Sakshi, I’d have been cut down. As it was, we might both be killed. Chips of paving stones were being kicked in our faces as they tried to shoot us, the smoke preventing them from seeing clearly enough to get a fatal shot.

We both rolled behind the rounded tower of the gatehouse, where Hina and her celas were waiting for us, along with Sanghar Soomro and his men. It was Sanghar who shouted, “You can’t save your sister if you’re dead, girl!”

I swore under my breath. It was over. Lakshmi was gone. I couldn’t believe it. After all we’d been through, this was how it was going to end?

“Razia!” Hina shrieked, trying to break through to me. “We have to capture the palace first!”

She was right. I couldn’t run off like an idiot. They needed me too.

“We take the parapets and we’ll have them trapped in the open, just like before,” I said, and I wasted no time in running up the stairs on the backside of the wall. The parapets were empty. Most of the men had gathered in the outer courtyards, and the ones who had been guarding the inner courtyard had been following Asma, and we’d killed all of them.

Hina’s celas and my Zindhi soldiers followed me, taking up positions behind the tall merlons atop the palace wall, using funnel-shaped firing ports to shoot their muskets at the men hiding behind the hedges in the courtyard below them. It was a massacre, and that was before Sanghar Soomro himself slapped a swivel gun down into one of the spaces between the tall battlements and set it off, mowing down a whole column of men who had been rushing forward to join the fight.

More cannons roared. We had at least four swivel guns with us, and I knew more would be coming. The courtyard was quickly being cleared. There might still be a chance.

I searched the skies for the acid zahhaks, and felt a surge of hope as I spotted them to the west. They were pretty small, pretty hard to make out against the gray of the sky and the black of the water, but they were there. If I could just get to Sultana . . .

I chanced a look back into the courtyard. It seemed clear. It was clear enough, anyway. I ran down the steps and sprinted toward the stables, nearly slipping in puddles of blood as I picked my way over the corpses of Mahisagari soldiers. But before I could get to the stables, I saw something I couldn’t explain—trails of white sparkling clouds in the air near the acid zahhaks, like the tails of comets.

In the distance, beasts screeched in pain and terror. The acid zahhaks’ wings folded up, and the animals tumbled from the sky, a mix of dark shadow and bright white light, like snow on the mountains at night.

Snow. Ice zahhaks. Hope ran through my body like a tangible thing, making my skin tingle and my heart soar. “It’s Tamara! She came!” I was suddenly aware that Sakshi was with me, and I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. “She came!”

“That’s great, your highness,” Hina told me, “but this fight isn’t over yet.” As if to prove it, she nodded toward the distant gatehouse, where enemy soldiers were rushing through by the dozens. God, there were so many of them, and we were in the open now. If it came to a gun battle, we would surely lose.

“Find cover!” I cried. I looked frantically for a place to hide, but there was nothing between us and the walls we had left except for open ground and mounds of bodies. What had I done? I’d been so desperate to save Lakshmi that I’d condemned us all.

“Too late!” Sanghar shouted, and he was right. The Mahisagari guardsmen were forming up into ranks, readying their muskets, and they had us badly outnumbered. Even with our cannons, we didn’t have a prayer against them.

Just before death rained down on us, I heard a man shout, “For Jama Hina and Zindh!” The only trouble was, it wasn’t any of my men.