Gifting Fire Read online

  Karim could see the cogs turning behind my father’s eyes, and his hand fell to the hilt of his firangi. “Virajendra would join with us. They would rather fight a war of annihilation than let Nizam control Mahisagar, and my mother, she is a Yaruban princess, her brother is the emir of Jesera, and he is rich in fire zahhaks. If you murdered her son, then my uncle would join us against you.”

  “You would have Registan’s support in this, your majesty,” Arjun said, cradling me protectively.

  “I would, no doubt,” my father agreed, crossing his arms, looking at me rather than the rival princes. “If I agreed to this, I would have allies with which to fight a massive and costly war against Mahisagar and Virajendra and Yaruba, and perhaps Safavia too, though perhaps they might join us instead.” He shrugged. “Tens of thousands of men would die, perhaps hundreds of thousands. Trade would be interrupted across an entire continent. Zahhaks would fall from the skies by the dozens. It would be a war like none we have ever witnessed before.”

  My heart sank. I knew what was coming next, even before he said it.

  “But if I give you in marriage to Karim Shah, as I have promised, there will be no war. Virajendra will be too frightened of Mahisagar’s fleet and the might of my zahhaks. Registan will not march outside of its borders for a foreign princess. And Safavia, while they might retake Ahura, or even attempt an invasion of Zindh, will be checked by Mahisagar’s newfound power in the air, and by your own thunder zahhaks. There will be peace. Trade will flourish. Countless thousands of lives will be not only spared but enriched.”

  “Not mine . . .” I whispered, my voice catching in my throat.

  “No, not yours,” my father agreed, his voice tinged with something approximating regret.

  “This is your final decision?” I asked him, hoping against hope that he would find it somewhere in his heart to change his mind.

  “It is,” he replied.

  I took a deep breath and let it out as a slow hiss, because that was the only thing keeping me from screaming in anguish. My mind was working furiously to come up with some way out of this mess, but if the plan I had spun for my father hadn’t worked to change his mind, then nothing would. He would force this marriage on me, even if it meant killing my sisters. They were nothing to him when set beside me, and he was willing to throw me to my rapist for a treaty, so I had no illusions about what would become of Sakshi and Lakshmi if I refused him. If only I had left them in Bikampur, I would have gone out shooting, I would have let myself die in a bloody battle rather than going meekly to Karim’s bed. But I couldn’t kill my sisters. God help me, I couldn’t let them suffer for my mistakes.

  “I need some time to make arrangements with Arjun and with Hina,” I said. “In private.”

  “Razia, you’re not going to surrender, are you?” Arjun asked, holding me close to him.

  “We don’t have a choice, my prince,” I replied. “My father will kill my sisters if I refuse him. I can’t let him do that.”

  “And you think we’re going to give you a chance to plot your way out of it?” Karim scoffed. The mask of affection had dropped—not that I could blame him; I had nearly convinced my father to murder him, after all.

  “I need an hour, Father, to determine suitable terms and to present them to you,” I said, hoping that he would at least extend me that much courtesy.

  “You have an hour,” my father said, and he held up a hand to forestall Karim’s objections. “You are getting what you want, and I have held fast to the terms of our arrangement. You will give my daughter the time she needs to see to the disposition of her household.”

  Karim shrugged. “Fine. One hour.”

  CHAPTER 9

  One hour. Was that really all the time I had left with Arjun? God, it hurt so much I could hardly stand it. I was clinging to him like a baby, still standing in my bedchamber, while Karim and my father waited in the courtyard, giving us some semblance of privacy.

  I was sobbing quietly in spite of myself, my shoulders shaking as Arjun held me tightly against his chest with one arm, the other stroking my hair gently.

  “We could still fight . . .” he whispered.

  I shook my head. “There’s no way to keep Sakshi and Lakshmi safe. The moment I tried to move them, Sikander would kill them. I know it.”

  “Do you really think any of you will be safe with Karim after everything you said?” he asked.

  Those words were exactly the last ones I wanted to hear. I felt my courage crumbling, and I choked back a thousand desperate pleas. I knew that if I asked Arjun to lay down his life for me, he would. I knew that if I asked him to charge into the courtyard with his khanda to cut down Karim, he would. But then he would die and all hope really would be lost.

  No, I had to use my brain rather than give in to my basest impulses. Karim wasn’t wrong. An hour was enough time for me to ruin his plans. I just had to stop crying like an infant and get to work.

  I wiped the tears from my face with my dupatta and took several deep, fortifying breaths. I had work to do. I had to have everything in place before I surrendered. After that, there would be no chance at all.

  “I love you with my whole heart, my prince,” I told Arjun, placing my palm against his rough cheek, savoring the sensation, not sure when I would ever experience it again.

  “Razia . . .”

  “I need you to listen to me,” I said. “There isn’t much time. We have to make the best use of the time we have left.”

  He understood at once. “You have a plan?”

  “Not a good one,” I confessed, the ridiculousness of it making me smile in spite of all the pain that was pressing against the walls of my chest. “But so long as you love me, I will have hope.”

  “I will always love you,” he declared, which was what I’d expected him to say. What I hadn’t expected was for him to hold me close and to look into my eyes and to say, “Whatever happens next isn’t your fault. I know how women are judged in this world for circumstances that are beyond their control, but I will never judge you for what comes next. You do what you have to do to survive. So long as you are alive, I will always love you. Nothing that Karim Shah does will ever change that.”

  I felt my resolve crumbling, because as much as his words gave me hope, as much as they reassured me, they also filled me with dread. Neither of us was naive. We knew what would come next. We knew what Karim would do to me once I was under his power. Arjun was giving me permission to survive it, but I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to survive it. I wasn’t sure I had the strength to face it again. But for my sisters, I would. For them I would have faced anything.

  “You will have to return to Bikampur.” I could scarcely choke the words out through my too-tight throat. “You and Arvind will have to go back, and you will have to convince your father and as many Registani noblemen as you can to fly for you against Mahisagar when the time comes.”

  “I can do that,” he assured me, hugging me fiercely. “If that’s what you need, then that’s what will happen.”

  “We will need to find some way to communicate,” I said, my mind working frantically for the answer, but I hit on it quickly enough. “Shiv. I can send messages through Shiv. He can relay them to loyal Zindhis in the town, and they can relay them to Sunil Kalani. He has river zahhaks. They can act as go-betweens.”

  “You think he’ll still work for you after you agree to marry Karim?” Arjun asked.

  I shrugged, tears spilling down my cheeks as I imagined the way I would be viewed by the Zindhis now, as some foreign whore, willing to sell them out at the first opportunity. “If I can convince Hina that I’m not betraying her, then I think so. I hope so. But I don’t know. I can’t be sure.” Admitting that was so painful, but I had to consider the possibility that they wouldn’t. “If they don’t, messages will flow more slowly, but I’m sure Shiv will find a way.”

  “He
will,” Arjun assured me, whether he really believed it or not. He cradled my face in his hands, brushing away the tears with his thumbs. “So we have messages worked out. And I will get you fire zahhaks. I can’t promise sixteen, but I think I can get at least eight.”

  “Eight would be enough . . .” I murmured. “How long will it take?”

  “At least a fortnight,” he replied. “But once they’ve agreed to fight, it will be better if the battle takes place sooner rather than later.”

  “A fortnight . . .” I didn’t know if that was enough time for Sunil to rally the Zindhi countryside to arms or not, but I supposed it would have to be. And I would need Safavia to attack as a distraction. It wasn’t absolutely necessary, but it would help. But in order to even get that far, I was going to have to convince Hina to trust me, and I was going to have to find a way of keeping her alive and safe. I thought I could keep her alive, but getting her to trust me? That was going to take work.

  “Go and tell Shiv of my plans,” I told Arjun, “and send Hina in here. Take command of the troops yourself, so that Sikander doesn’t get any ideas.”

  “I won’t let him hurt your sisters,” Arjun promised. But he didn’t let me go right away. He clutched me to his chest and pressed his face into my hair, drinking in my scent like he was trying to commit it to memory. I closed my eyes and pushed all the pain and the fear and the planning from my mind so that I could remember what it felt like to be held by him. I didn’t want to forget, and I didn’t know how long it would be until I felt it again.

  At last, Arjun let me go. He left the bedchamber, and I collapsed on my bed, curling up into a ball, with my knees hugged to my chest and my back pressed against the headboard. I cried then in earnest, because there was no one there to see my weakness, no one there to think any less of me for the anguish that was spilling out of me in a torrent of tears.

  I had intended to let myself have a moment, and to find my control again before Hina reached me. But she was at my bedside before I realized she was there. I looked up, startled by her presence, and one look at the fury in her hazel eyes told me that my plans were pointless. She wasn’t going to let Karim leave this place with his life, not after the way he had killed her beloved brother. She didn’t know me, and if she had ever trusted me to fight back, I’d lost that faith now, letting her see me this way, sobbing like a child.

  “I . . .” I didn’t know what to say. I frantically wiped my face with my dupatta, knowing it was too little, too late.

  “Arjun told me your plan,” she said, her voice taut with anger.

  “I can’t let them kill my sisters, Hina.” I was pleading with her, more like the subordinate than the ruler. “I can’t . . .”

  “He killed my brother,” she reminded me.

  “And he will pay for it.”

  She rolled her eyes, and I couldn’t blame her. I must have looked so pathetic, crying like that, but the scorn I saw on her face lit a fire inside me. The tears dried up as a familiar rage rose to replace them.

  “He will pay for this,” I declared, looking her right in the eyes so she would see the truth of my words. “I did not let myself be fucked by every rich bastard in Bikampur for it to end like this. I did not risk my death or mutilation every night, stealing from them, for it to end like this. I did not climb a cliff and steal back my zahhak just to give up now. But he has us outmaneuvered for the moment. It would be idiotic to fight him here, on the ground of his choosing. You never let the enemy choose the time and place of battle. So, we make a tactical withdrawal. We let him think he has won. And then, when the time is right, when the place is right, we kill him, and his father, and we make sure that no Mahisagari soldier ever dares set foot in Zindh again.”

  “All right,” Hina allowed, and she smiled slightly. I thought maybe we finally understood each other. “So how do we kill him? What is this plan of yours?”

  “Arjun will gather fire zahhaks in Registan. To communicate with him, I will need Sunil Kalani’s men, loyal river zahhak riders. Karim would never permit them to come and go as they pleased, but the eunuch here, Shiv, is trustworthy, and he would have access to servants and workmen. He could pass messages for us. Meanwhile, Sunil will continue to raise the levies of Zindh, gathering the army we need to fight.”

  “How do you intend to escape and reach this army?” she asked.

  “I don’t,” I said. “I intend to fly as part of Karim’s aerial armada. I will need an external threat, some force that will look foreign enough that Karim will believe that I will fly for him. And while he is busy with the invaders, we will strike him from all sides, and kill him, and his father with him.”

  “It could work,” Hina allowed, “but how do you intend to ensure this external threat arises? What if nobody tries to invade Zindh?”

  She had a point. We all thought Safavia would try invading before long, that they would strike at Ahura or Kadiro, but what if they didn’t? What if Ismail was distracted by something else? And even if he did attack, where was the guarantee that he wouldn’t just kill me too, once Karim was out of the way?

  “Haider . . .”

  Hina quirked a copper-tinged eyebrow. “Who?”

  “Prince Haider of Safavia,” I said, my heart beating a little faster. “When I was little, he was a very close friend. One of my uncles rebelled against my father, and there was a civil war. It looked for a time like my father might lose, so I was sent to the Safavian court to keep me safe. I lived with Prince Haider of Safavia and Princess Tamara of Khevsuria for two years. They treated me very kindly. If I could get a letter to Haider, I think he would come for me.”

  “You think?” Hina asked.

  I shrugged. “It was a long time ago. We were children then, and he’s a man grown now. But I think he would. Especially if I offered him Ahura.”

  “And what is my place in all of this?” Hina asked.

  “You’ll be kept safe,” I replied. “The Zindhis will fight for you and no one else, so you must live. Sending you to Bikampur probably makes the most sense. Arjun could ensure you are well protected until the time is right.”

  “No.” She gave a toss of her head. “No, I’m not leaving Zindh. This is my home. I will stay here until the fighting is done.”

  “Do you have a fortress? A place the Mahisagaris can’t find you?”

  “No, you’re not understanding me,” she said. “I’m not leaving you. I’m staying with you, to make sure that you don’t forget your promises.”

  “I would never forget them,” I replied. “And if you think for one second that I want to marry Karim after what he did to me . . .”

  She held up a hand for calm. “I get that. But you can’t fight if you’re dead. You’ll need bodyguards you can trust. You’ll need friends.”

  “I have my sisters. Karim won’t hurt them, but if you stay, I can’t guarantee your safety,” I replied. “I can negotiate it, but Karim and Ahmed can always go back on their word.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” she said. “If this plan doesn’t work, I want to be close enough to stick a dagger in Karim’s back. The only way to do that is to stay close to you. So, you will negotiate a place for me as one of your handmaidens, or I won’t agree to help you.”

  “I can do that,” I said, “but I can’t promise Ahmed and Karim will honor it once my father is gone.”

  “I understand,” she replied. “All the same, I want to stay with you. And if I die, I want your word that you will kill Karim in my place.”

  “You have it,” I assured her, taking her hands in mine. “I have no intention whatsoever of being Karim’s wife. I will kill him and kill myself before that ever happens.”

  “Then we have an agreement,” Hina said. “But you’re sure this is how you want things to play out? We have the troops now to just kill them and be done with it.”

  “They would kill us too,” I reminded her.
“And then Ahmed Shah would have free rein in Zindh, and possibly in large swaths of Nizam too. Is that what you want? For Mahisagar to rule Zindh for all time?”

  She scowled. “It’s just hard to surrender now, when we have weapons and zahhaks, and to believe that things will be different once we’re under Karim’s thumb . . .”

  I nodded my agreement. I was terrified that this plan would fail, terrified that I was making a miscalculation. But Karim had outmaneuvered me, loath as I was to admit it. My love for my sisters prevented me from ordering my soldiers to fire with the same callous cruelty my father and Karim himself would have shown. Did that make me weak? Unfit to rule? My father would have said so.

  “If you don’t believe I can succeed, then I urge you to go with Arjun, or to find some other prince who will protect you,” I told her. “There is no shame in living to fight another day.”

  Hina didn’t even consider it. “No, I will stay close to Karim. You may have managed to overturn fate and find yourself in a position of power, but such things are so rare as to be unheard of. I would be a fool to believe that life would offer me the same chance.”

  “Then I will speak with my father, and with Karim,” I said. “I want you to go and pass a message to Sunil Kalani telling him all of this. I don’t care how you do it, but do it now. Speak to a workman, a soldier who won’t be missed, anyone.”

  “I’ll get on it,” she agreed. She gave me a pat on the shoulder. “Courage, your highness.”

  “Thanks . . .” I whispered, forcing myself to smile until she was gone. Then I let my shoulders slump, let myself give in to the dread, if only for a moment. I was going to have to agree to marry Karim Shah. God, I wasn’t sure I had the strength to do it, even with the plans I had put in place. Hina was right. I had soldiers and zahhaks now, but I would have nothing at all once I surrendered. Did I really think I would be better placed to fight back once I was stripped of everything than I was at this moment?