Chapter 24
Dear Amma,
Safiyya says I am being foolish, writing to you.
But I hope one day you will read all these letters.
I hope you’re still alive.
I have to believe you wouldn’t have left me unless you thought we had no other choice. Unless you knew you would come back.
—Letter from Yaseema Nazir to Mahira Nazir, written in Mahira Nazir’s journal
Yaseema
I’d only been to the dining hall once before, when I’d helped Mishah carry dishes from the kitchens.
I had nearly dropped all the plates when I’d first walked in, and even now I had to temper my reaction to the opulent room.
It was all glass and gold like the outside of the palace, but shimmering water ran down the surface of every pane of glass like a waterfall.
It was as if every wall in the hall was alive with the flow of water.
The torchlight created a multicolored effect on the glass, and made the entire room into a warm, glittering diamond.
And if that weren’t enough, the ceiling was held aloft by golden curling vines that erupted into real plants and flowers along the top of the room.
It was like being in one of the glass conservatories at the Citadel with hot house flowers pouring from the ceiling—if the conservatory was fueled by fae magic that made you feel as though you were in an extraordinary, hazy, midsummer dream, filled with the scent of jasmine and surrounded by shimmering waterfalls.
The only thing that felt incongruent was the addition of enormous crystal crusts of salt covering large areas of the plants and water. They looked like an overgrowth of mold choking the beautiful room, and I longed to take a poker from the fire in the kitchens and smash them to pieces.
“That’s from the Salt Court,” Mishah had whispered when she’d noticed my lip curl. “They wanted to put their stamp on everything as soon as they took over. They wanted to make sure that every part of the palace was a reminder that they owned us now.”
They owned us now.
I thought of those words as I strode into the room, no longer the one serving the food, but now sitting at one of the tables.
But still no less a servant.
They led me to the large table at the head of the room, also made of wrought gold, curling green vines and shimmering glass.
I could tell it had been beautiful once, but now the table legs and surface was covered in overgrown salt crystals, like a winter frost had eaten away at a new spring garden.
It was here that the Viceroy sat with his advisors, his blue coat and crystal emblem on his sleeves a mirror to the ostentatious crusts of salt littered around the room.
The silver-haired fae was beside him, and I felt his dark eyes watching me as I moved closer.
Kiyan, I repeated to myself. His name was Kiyan.
At least it was easier to call him that than ‘shirtless silver-haired fae warrior’ in my head over and over.
And now I knew he was captain of the Salt Guard, and the one who hunted down the rebels in this Court for daring to stand up against their oppressors.
I certainly didn’t want to enmesh myself with the person in charge of hunting rebels with the plans I had.
But tonight, they put me at Viceroy’s table. Worse than that, the only empty seat was right beside the captain, the person I’d hoped to avoid.
All eyes turned to me.
Instead of being as innocuous as I could, I had somehow made myself the most conspicuous person in the room.
“Our esteemed guest.” The Viceroy leaned back in his chair and surveyed me from next to Kiyan.
When I’d first seen the Viceroy in the library, I’d found him handsome in a slick, scholarly sort of way. But now he had another aspect to him that colored my opinion—entitlement.
It flowed off him in waves as he studied me, as if he could see through me.
As if he owned me.
They owned us now.
The captain stayed in the same position as when I entered, looking stiffly ahead with a tight jaw.
“I’m a guest now? Don’t most guests have the option to attend? I think I might be more of a prisoner.” I tilted my head, not reacting to the gasps that echoed around me. The strange half smile lifted the Viceroy’s lips again, as if I were a toy he couldn’t wait to break.
Kiyan now watched me, not reacting to my words, though he did not look amused.
The Viceroy gestured to the chair beside Kiyan. “Sit. Eat. You look lovely tonight.” He said it in the way someone might comment flatly on the weather. Looks like rain. You look lovely.
Not no, you are not my prisoner.
“I just look clean.” I touched my hands to the dark red frock, the fabric falling down to my knees and skimming my hips tightly. I don’t know where they got it from, but it fit me well. I sat beside Kiyan, barely looking at the food placed in front of me, despite my stomach growling in hunger.
I’d made a bargain to be here, but the Viceroy could kill me at any moment, and his hunting dog had taken a keen dislike to me.
The only thing I could focus on was finding the Queen’s crown. I just needed a way to steal it and escape without getting caught. I took a sidelong glance at the fae captain beside me and suddenly couldn’t get the image of him standing in the woods, naked from the waist up, out of my mind.
As if he noticed my attention, he turned to face me. His eyes flicked to the Viceroy, who was talking to an advisor on his other side, and then back to me.
“Can I help you with something?”
“I know you remember me,” I said, my voice low, unable to stop the words from tumbling out. “We met in the woods with the . . .” I paused, thinking of the word, “halmasti. You killed it.”
His mouth firmed as if he didn’t want to talk about the night we’d met. As if he wanted to pretend it had never happened. “I see you didn’t scare off, despite you running through the woods as if your hair was on fire.”
“You’d just gutted a giant wolf. I think I was entitled to be a little terrified.”
“I saved your life,” he growled, reminding me of the wolf in question.
I cleared my throat, determined to get more out of him than just accusatory growls. There was no doubt in my mind that he was the one who had taken the haath phool from my satchel. But he had also returned my mother’s bangles to me, which left me not knowing how to feel about him.
If I was going to figure out a way to find the queen’s crown and steal it, I needed to get to know those I was meant to be working with. Even if he only spoke in monosyllabic grunts.
“I heard you were captain of the Salt Guard. Were you tracking rebels in the woods?”
Kiyan leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands behind his head, affecting the appearance of nonchalance, but I could tell from the tightness in his jaw he was anything but.
“Not that evening. Unless you are one of them?” He cocked his head, his dark eyes burning into me. And yet, something told me he knew I was not part of the rebellion.
“No.” I shook my head. “As I told you, I’m not a rebel.”
Not on this side of the River, anyway.
The others at the table began eating and I turned my attention to my food, managing to scoop a little of the gravy and rice from my plate with a piece of the bread. Then I let out a exhalation of surprise. What we were eating in the kitchens was good, but this was food like I’d never tasted before.
It was as if every spice was enhanced on my tongue; the turmeric was somehow more earthy, the pickles sharper.
Dishes were placed in front of me—roasted meats, salted river crocodile, flower-stem curries, baby pumpkin stew, deep red pomegranates.
I almost choked in my rush to get the next bite in, unable to suppress a low moan with every mouthful.
“We mustn’t have fed you very well in the kitchens.”
“Thinking about your own execution really builds an appetite,” I said between bites, scooping up more flower-stem curry.
The ghost of a smile touched the captain’s lips.
“And what we ate in the kitchens really didn’t compare to this.”
It was the truth, but what I didn’t say was that nothing I’d eaten before compared to this.
Not the husk of a boiled mango or thin lentil soup Nani would make in the evenings.
This food stuck to the insides of my stomach and made me feel heavy in a satisfied way.
It was as if my body had woken up and finally remembered what eating good food was like.
Kiyan leaned forward, his eyes flickering between the bread in my hand and my lips. His gaze was so intense, just like it had been in the forest.
I’d never met someone who looked at me so wholly before—as if no one else was in the room and he could only focus on me. It was disconcerting, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his.
“What was the magic you used to find the book?” he said, his voice low, pulling through me like a caress. “The Viceroy said he’d never seen it before.” His curiosity had overcome his usual frostiness, and I blinked at the change of subject.
“I’m a scholar. And yes, I happen to have magic, which is what the Viceroy saw me use. I only really use my powers to find things—usually in books.”
“I’ve never seen a human with magic before.”
“It isn’t common,” I said, not bothering to tell him I hadn’t either. “But I’ve studied Queen Azari’s pieces and I knew what I was looking for.”
“Yes, you had her bracelet.” He angled his head, his eyes touching on my empty left wrist and hand, where it had once been. “Queen Azari’s lost haath phool.”
“Which is no longer in my personal items. I want it back.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.
” He gave me a wolfish smile as he picked up a piece of bread sprinkled with black sesame and bit into it.
This time it was me watching his mouth as he chewed slowly.
I was reminded of when he’d been on top of me in the forest, and I’d slid his dagger between his teeth while he held the giant wolf back with one arm.
Get it together.
“Reza’s been looking for Queen Azari’s vault for a long time. And the Queen’s artifact contained in it.”