Chapter 4
AMEIRAH
Mihrunnisa was quick to forgive the offense I caused my first night in the capital.
There wasn’t a hint of resentment or anger in her golden eyes.
On the contrary, she gave me a sly smile and linked her elbows with mine as we walked through one of the palace’s three opulent riads, verdant plants framing benches carved with suns, moons, and stars, creating private spaces where friends and lovers gathered to share a quiet moment.
I expected Mihrunnisa to lead me to one of these, but we crossed the purple mosaic floor, slippered feet whispering over the Saber wolf tiled in the heart of the garden and left the waxy leaves and delicate floral scents behind.
“Don’t look at it too closely, but I have a gift for you,” she murmured so her voice would only reach my ears.
“A gift?” I replied at the same volume, glancing pointedly at the silver gloves on my hands, the rich purple djellaba that had been waiting for me when I returned from prayer this morning. “Another gift?”
She waved a hand, leading me into a broad corridor. “Clothes don’t count. Besides, this is a functional gift, and you can never be too prepared given what happened in Tourlestyn last night.”
My lips pressed thin. Yes, Tourlestyn was the talk of the palace this morning.
Finally, the acts of the dark clergy had reached the capital, but instead of panic and wariness, there was a buzzing air of gossip.
Speculation. Were the clergy making a move against the king and gentry?
Did they want to usurp them and rule Ithanys alone?
It wouldn’t be the first time an attempt was made, but that was centuries ago.
This time, those dark soldiers who acted under the clergy emblem had rounded up the people of Tourlestyn and repeated the warning we were issued in Wyfell.
The three-day storm had created a lightning soul, and we were all at risk.
Turn in our neighbours, evict any newcomers, trust no one who was even remotely abnormal, etc, etc.
No one had been executed on a stage, thankfully, but a fae steel mine and a nearby factory had been conspicuously burned to ruins on the same day.
“Well, put it on,” Mihrunnisa urged, a sly smile crossing her face that piqued my curiosity.
She passed over a hammered silver bangle inlaid with green enamel with the same level of secrecy and discretion as payment for an illicit deal or a forged document.
Amused, and a little touched by the gift and the acceptance it implied, I slid the bangle over my glove and admired the way it sat against the beaded fabric.
“There’s a catch on the bottom that will release spikes if you’re in danger and need to rip someone’s face off,” she told me with wicked glee.
I muffled a laugh, recognising where we were in the palace as our route carried us past the training rooms. Traumatised, my muscles flinched in remembered pain at the sight of the arched doorway to that hall of endless bruises.
Yesterday’s session ended with my legs shaking so hard I couldn’t stand, but I’d learned three new moves and almost caught Kamaal with the flat of my hand.
“How often do you need to rip someone’s face off?” I asked Mihrunnisa with a wry smile.
She grinned. “Daily. But I display a level of restraint befitting a princess and suppress the urge.”
“Very impressive of you.” I laughed, checking the bangle was secure on my wrist. The laugh wasn’t quite natural, the matching smile awkward like everything else felt awkward in a new city around new people.
I wanted to go home, but until I had all the available information about those dark soldiers and the lightning soul, I wouldn’t leave the great library behind.
Someone in this city must know something. Maybe even Mihrunnisa herself.
“Thank you for this. I’d pay you back, but my husband neglected to leave me any money, and I haven’t yet had time to rob the nearest storehouse.”
Mihrunnisa snickered, earning a sharp glance from a passing gentry man dressed in rich brown clothes, the hyena of house Fathi stitched across his chest. He went a little pale when he saw it was Mihrunnisa he’d silently berated, and quickly glanced away, making my smile sit more genuinely on my face.
It was nice to see gentry arrogance break upon the granite cliffs of royal status.
“Where are we going?” I asked my sister-in-law when the man strode past us.
I hadn’t cared to ask before now; I was just glad to be somewhere that wasn’t the four walls of my room, and relieved to not be alone.
I should have been braver, but the furthest I’d travelled alone was to the training room, then the kitchens, and the library.
“To the aviary, obviously,” she said with a smile. “It’s been a week, and you haven’t been out on your wyvern once.”
“I didn’t even know where to find her,” I admitted, the truth unpleasant on my tongue. “Or honestly, if Varidian had even brought her with me when he knocked me unconscious.”
She groaned loudly. “I hate when he does that. He used to knock me out at the dinner table, and I’d wake up with vegetables stuck to my face. Don’t look so horrified,” she laughed.
“But—he controlled you, and you’re okay with it?”
“He’s my brother,” she said with a wave of her hand, bangles clacking together. “He’d never hurt me. Now enough talk of my insufferable brother. I want to know everything about you.”
I was relieved when we reached a wide doorway that led out into a courtyard hugged by the palace wall.
An open gateway guarded by four guards in Saber purple linked the elaborate building behind us to the huge, towering aviary where the scent of copper and smoke thickened the air, wrapping my tongue in the taste of blood.
I should have realised eleven wyverns and the handlers who maintained the building wouldn’t discourage Mihrunnisa from wheedling details about myself from me.
But I couldn’t help the urge to conceal the true parts of me.
Fear of being unwanted, discarded had been drilled into me so consistently for so many years that I couldn’t shake it, even when I knew it was ridiculous.
Rawiya had accepted me despite knowing everything. Varidian had, too.
But as the princess led me through the huge doorway into the aviary, I found myself guarding my secrets and only confessing the parts of myself I liked, even if the half-truths tasted sour on my tongue.
Mounting Raheema was a trial in itself. All my practise at running up her leg, throwing myself onto the curve of her thigh and then propelling myself onto her back had come undone during the week we’d spent apart.
It took four attempts to get atop her in the wide aviary stall, and I felt Mihrunnisa’s eyes on me the entire time.
She said nothing until I was safely in my seat, until she mounted Layla, the pearlescent wyvern that reminded me of a smaller, female version of Mak. She was every bit as fierce, with towering horns, vicious teeth, and the row of spikes down her back and tail.
“Fear of heights?” Mihrunnisa guessed, tucking the ends of her lilac headscarf into the collar of her dark violet leathers. She said nothing about my lack of a scarf, nothing about the way I’d flopped onto Raheema’s back instead of gracefully scaling her.
“Severe fear,” I agreed.
And because it was both a lie and the truth, and I’d had enough of bittersweet half-truths, I added, “I was never permitted a wyvern.”
“But… you’re gentry,” she replied with clear confusion. Layla tilted her giant head in my direction as keepers ran along the stalls, clearing space to embark, as if she agreed.
I avoided both stares, stroking Raheema’s warm neck as I considered my words.
“I have very dangerous magic, as you know. Hence the gloves.” I could have coated the words in honey, softened their blow, but as wary as I was of everyone, I liked Mihrunnisa.
She was generous and kind and a little wicked; if I was going to lose her potential friendship, better it be now than later.
“When I was young, I killed two people in an accident. One of them was my younger sister. My father deemed me too dangerous for a wyvern; told me this magic was too evil. That no single creature would claim me or allow themselves to be claimed.”
Raheema’s sharp growl could be boiled down to a single word: bullshit. I was inclined to agree and stroked the spot between her stubby horns that she loved, but the words had done their damage long ago, and I still felt phantom pains from the scars.
“Does he have powerful magic, your father?” Mihrunnisa asked, a shrewd look in her eye when I dared a glance across the stall at her.
“No. An average ability to encourage plants to grow.”
She nodded, a sharp smile baring her teeth.
“Weak men always fear powerful women. Especially powerful girls. They try to break us, or shelter us, to hide our power from us so we might never learn what we’re capable of.
” She gave Layla a pat on her shoulder, encouraging the wyvern to exit her stall and approach the wide yard at the back of the aviary.
But she paused to say over her shoulder, “You were too much a threat to him, but with a wyvern and that magic? You are unstoppable.”