Chapter 23
I got the cutting of hair you sent, and the jasmine petals. The scent flooded out as soon as I opened your letter and for a moment I imagined I could reach out and touch you. I closed my eyes and I could see your face.
But when I opened them, all I saw was blood.
The only thought that gets me through this fighting is knowing you and Yaseema are safe and healthy. But how long until it’s your blood in front of me?
—Excerpt from a letter from Zimran Nazir to Mahira Nazir, contained in Mahira Nazir’s journal
Yaseema
When the fae male left me, I had a chance to peruse the room I’d been given. It was bigger than my entire cottage with Nani and Safiyya.
A bath stood in the center of the room and was already filled with steaming hot water. Alongside it sat a plate of food on a small table.
I rushed over to the food, not caring that I was still covered in the filth from the dungeon and gulped down water from a red crystal on the table.
It had been hours since I’d eaten or drunk anything, and drinking the cool water felt like gulping air.
Then I stuffed my face with the food on the plate—dates, flatbread, spicy cold chickpeas.
Once I had eaten as much as I could I pressed my forehead to my hands, trying to still my heartbeat.
I still had access to the map and the book.
That was all that mattered.
Even though I didn’t have it in my hands, I knew where it was. I was the Viceroy’s prisoner, but at the very least I still had access to the relic. This was no different from working for the Citadel, I just needed to find a way out.
The stink of the prison filled my new room, and I looked down at myself—the general’s blood still crusted my clothes and skin, looking like streaks of red earth. My already wild hair was a cloud of curls behind me. I must have looked half crazed when the Viceroy made his deal with me.
When his hunting dog had made his assessment of me.
Peeling off my clothes took some effort, as the fabric was stiff and stained. I dipped my hands into the bath to test the water, and sighed happily.
I’d seen cook heat her cooking water often with a muttered word and a wave of her hand, much like the silver-haired fae had unlocked the door to my cell.
I stepped into the bath, feeling the grime melt from my skin as I slid under the water, sinking beneath the surface until everything around me was muted and I could finally think.
My satchel, was still tucked away in my old room. They had removed everything from me when they’d arrested me, including my mother’s bangles. I wanted them back so badly I hadn’t realized that they’d almost felt like another limb until they’d been taken from me.
I wish I had the book and the map on me. Then I wouldn’t be beholden to a Viceroy who threatened to torture me if I didn’t agree, or a silver-haired peri who looked at me like he wanted to devour me whole.
If you ever try to escape, I will find you.
When all the air had left my lungs, I sat up from the water.
And let out a piercing scream at the face peering down at me.
An older woman stood over me, her dark hair streaked with gray and pinned back against her neck. Her ears had the telltale point of the peris, and her eyes had a catlike quality.
“Good. You’ve already found the bath. I heard you needed it.”
She poured some rose-smelling goop over my head before I could utter a response and I sat in the bath gaping at her. But when the lather turned the water pink with old blood, I was glad of the soap. Relief coursed through me at the general’s blood being washed away.
“Are you meant to be washing my hair right now?” I gritted out after a few minutes of her rinsing the soap out from my wild strands. It felt good to be clean, but I still had no idea who she was.
“I should hope so. We need to make you presentable.”
“For . . . ?”
“For the Viceroy! You think you can just recline all day eating honeycomb in your room? You have work to do. And so do I if you want to look like you belong here.”
She pulled out a deep red frock with bell sleeves and matching trousers underneath, embroidered with tiny gold beads.
It was undoubtedly expensive, but not ostentatious—a far cry from the beige kitchen smock I’d worn every day here and even from my brown canvas skirt and white blouse that had been my standard clothing at the Citadel.
I got out of the bath and she noted the color of the water with disgust, as if she imagined that my killing a man and then sitting in a stinking prison for a night meant I wouldn’t get a speck of dirt on me.
But based on her immaculate appearance, it was likely that the filth from the prison wouldn’t touch her.
She wrapped me in a large towel that was incredibly soft, and I curled into the fabric.
“I should probably know your name if you’re going to be helping me dress.”
She paused as she lifted the dress and huffed out a breath. “Gul,” she said, begrudgingly.
I smiled. She reminded me of my grandmother, gruff and efficient, but not unkind. “I’m Yaseema.”
“I know.” Her words were clipped. “You swindled your way into the kitchens and infiltrated the palace. And now the Viceroy favors you.”
She frowned at me, and I nearly withered under her gaze. It was as if she were telling me exactly what she thought of someone who was favored by the Viceroy.
After a pause, she cleared her throat. “Thank you for what you did. For the kitchen girl.” She nodded stiffly, as if it were foreign to her to express thanks. “The staff will remember that.” Then as swiftly as it came, her sweet mood was gone.
At the mention of Mishah, my stomach tightened. It wasn’t for praise that I had fought the general. If I hadn’t helped her, I would no longer be able to look myself in the eye.
She laced up my red frock briskly, the long dress falling gently past my knees. Then she brushed out my wet hair and braided it down the side and over one shoulder, my curls looking much more manageable.
“Thank you,” I whispered softly. It had been a long time since anyone had braided my hair for me, and I touched the plait, thinking of my mother.
Gul snorted. “Do you think we’re finished? Wait until you have to go to the feast. It will take hours to get you ready.”
I shuddered at the thought of spending hours primping for a feast with the black-eyed Viceroy who looked as though he would enjoy torturing small animals. “Well, that sounds exciting.”
Gul rimmed my eyes with black kohl and put on a golden jewelry set with matching jhumka earrings and a choker.
I decided to test the waters and ask the one thing I desperately wanted to know.
“Gul, I had personal items in my other room, and bangles when they’d arrested me—do you know where they are?
” I tried to make my voice nonchalant, even though I could hear my heart hammering between us louder than thunder.
“The guards were ordered to bring them for you. They are on your bed.”
My heart slowed its panicked beat as I whipped my head around to see my satchel. I dove for it, unwrapping my mother’s journal and holding it to my chest. Her bangles were tucked inside the bag, but Queen Azari’s haath phool was gone.
Still, it was relieving to even hold my mother’s bangles, and to still have her words with me. I slipped the thick bangles on my wrist, tucking them under my sleeve and vowing never to take them off again.
The cool metal against my skin was a reminder of why I was still here, and how much I had to lose if I didn’t continue.
But why would they give them back? Perhaps the Viceroy didn’t think they were important like the haath phool was.
“I wouldn’t have thought the Viceroy would think of returning these,” I said to Gul, surveying the thick bangles gracing my arm.
From what I had seen of him, he was cruel and selfish. The type of man to completely ignore those he deemed lesser than him, and he certainly wouldn’t have her personal things sent to her room.
Gul stopped what she was doing and turned to face me. “It wasn’t him who thought of that. it was the captain. He is the one who ordered it.”
“Captain?” I frowned. “The fae with the silver hair? He’s the captain of the palace guard?”
She shook her head. “Captain of the Salt Guard. His job is to hunt rebels traitorous to the Empire and bring them to heel.” Her mouth grew thin. “You don’t want to get involved with him either.”
It sounded dangerously close to what the Citadel did to my family, hunted down those they’d deemed traitors to the Empire, even though we’d never once sworn our loyalty to them.
“What’s his name?” I asked her, wanting to put a name to those dark eyes.
He saved me in the forest, only for him to be my jailer at the palace.
At least I should know more about him. “The captain I mean?”
Her brows dipped at my question. “Kiyan. Don’t know his family name. He’s one of us though, from the River Court, not like the Viceroy. That’s why the Viceroy promoted him to the position—the captain knows how to hunt the rebels because they are just like him.”
Safiyya would hate him.
He was just like every Astolan who worked at the Citadel, betraying his countrymen for the good of an Empire that would never sacrifice for them in return.
Just like you, Safiyya would say.
I thought of Kiyan’s dark eyes burning into me when I was in the dungeon, and of how they darkened when the Viceroy spoke of the relic.
Kiyan. Captain of the Salt Guard.
I’d stay as far away from him as I could, if only to stop him finding out all my secrets.
I smiled brightly at Gul, and our eyes met in the mirror. “Thank you, Gul.” She’d given me far more than a new dress and neat hair. And now, I had to take my measure of my new situation.