by Alina Boyden
“What are you going to do now?” Hina asked, and she sounded worried.
“We stick to the plan,” I replied.
“But your shoes!” she exclaimed. She kept her voice low, but the urgency came through all the same.
It was Sakshi who laughed then, a surprising sound when she’d just witnessed three women being murdered in cold blood in front of her. She came up beside me and ruffled my hair. “My little sister didn’t need special shoes to climb the cliffs of Shikarpur, or to steal from the wealthy havelis in Bikampur.”
“They do help, though,” I admitted. “I’ll be a little slower than I would have been otherwise, but now Lady Asma will believe that I’m helpless, and that’s the important thing.”
Hina’s eyes widened, and she shook her head ruefully. “I should have known. All right, your highness, what do you want us to do?”
“I want you to pick your three best actresses and dress them in the handmaidens’ clothes. Hide the bodies wherever you can so the guards won’t stumble across them. Put someone in my nightclothes and put her to bed just to be safe. The rest of your girls will need to be making ropes from clothes—as many as you can and as strong as you can. Dupattas, shirts, whatever it takes.”
“And if the guards try to get in?” Hina asked.
“Have your false handmaidens tell them I’m not ready yet. If I’m still not back when they return a second time, then let them in, pretend everything is normal. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get Sanghar and his men into the palace before that, though.”
“Right,” Hina agreed. She surprised me by embracing me. “Good luck, your highness.”
“I’ll be back soon,” I assured her.
“You’d better be,” Sakshi replied. “Lakshmi is counting on you, don’t forget.”
“I couldn’t,” I muttered. We hugged each other good-bye, though we didn’t call it good-bye, and I headed for the balcony, intent on murdering two men and leading a rebellion.
CHAPTER 23
I crept onto the balcony, my slippers skimming the smooth surface of the marble floor, my body crouched low, keeping to the shadows formed by the tall sandstone columns, which blocked out the light from the brass lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Half a dozen worries were vying for a place in the forefront of my mind, but the most pressing was the problem of guards. Had Asma increased the tower guards, or were there still only two men guarding this side of the palace?
I slid on my belly across the open gap between the protective shadows of the columns and the low marble railing that marked the balcony’s edge. I pressed my body tightly against the decorative stonework, peeking out through the finely chiseled rosettes, surveying first one tower and then the second. I swore under my breath. There were three guards in each tower now. Asma was taking no chances.
My heart pounded in my chest as I wondered what in the world I was supposed to do now. Sanghar Soomro’s men were counting on me to get those guards out of the way so they could climb into the palace without being shot. Hina was counting on me to get those men inside silently so that she and her celas wouldn’t be held hostage by the guards lurking outside my bedchamber. And Lakshmi, God, Lakshmi was in Ahura by now, all alone. And whatever designs Karim had on her, he would let Ahmed kill her once word reached them of my rebellion. I couldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t let that happen.
So I did the only thing I could to prevent it. I rolled over the knee-high marble fence meant to protect me from plummeting to my death, and I dropped my feet and hips over the ledge of the balcony, my fingers getting tight grips in the railing’s rosettes. My feet scrabbled against the sandstone buttresses for toeholds, and I found myself missing the reinforced toes of my climbing shoes as my cloth slippers did little to dampen the bite of the stone’s sharp-edged cracks against my feet. Had I gotten so soft since my victory over Javed Khorasani? That worried me.
But the less time I gave myself to think, the better. I couldn’t do nothing. I couldn’t sit back and watch. I’d done that for weeks now; I’d played the part of the cowed damsel and I was sick of it. Tonight, I was going to free myself and free my sisters, and it didn’t matter if there were three men in the guard tower or thirty. They were going to die.
Of course, that was easy to say, and harder to do. I wasn’t sure, even as I began making my way along the wall, groping blindly for decorative lotus flowers and cracks in the masonry to support my weight, how exactly I was going to kill three armed men by myself. I was much less sure how I was going to do it silently. But it needed to be done. I prayed to God to give me the strength to see it through.
But even getting to the tower was no easy task. This wall was covered not with loopholes for toradars, but with fine screens so that ladies could look out at the water. That meant I couldn’t risk climbing laterally across the wall. There was too much chance that some servant girl would be gazing out at the moon, only to see my body sliding across her marble jali. So, I had to lower myself into the water as I had the first time I’d escaped the palace, keeping my head barely above the surface of the waves and praying that no crocodiles found me.
It was hard, physical work, dragging myself through the water by my fingertips, each pull requiring me to jam my hands into crevices made slimy by algae. I couldn’t go too fast, not without making noise. But going slowly was its own agony. My eyes were fixed on the guards in the western tower, visible beneath their brass chandeliers. The three of them were leaning on their toradars, chatting to one another, looking relaxed. That was something. A small advantage, though it meant that they would notice if I killed one of their number. My stomach was churning with anxiety as I reached the base of the tower. How in the world was I going to manage this?
I needed the right approach. I couldn’t risk climbing where I would be seen by someone from one of the other guard towers. That meant climbing up the far southwestern corner of the wall. The curve of the circular tower would keep me just out of sight of both the men on the western wall of the palace and the soldiers manning the southeastern tower. But once I reached the top, I’d be visible, as would the murders I was planning to commit. How could I expect guards all along the wall to just not notice three of their number being killed? It was dark, sure, but they were standing full in the light of the chhatri’s half dozen brass lanterns. There were probably sharp-eyed men and women in Kadiro who could have seen it.
I started climbing anyway. I had no plan. This was so stupid. My fingers were slick against the palace walls, from the slime and the damp of the alga-thickened water. My body was dripping wet, and the sound of all those droplets pattering against the tower and the surface of the lagoon was like a monsoon storm in my ears. How could the men on the tower not hear that? Were they completely deaf?
No. They were having a conversation. I couldn’t quite make out the words, because they were speaking Mahisagari, but they were chatting quite happily with one another, and that was drowning out the sound of my dripping clothes. I hung there, my fingers burning, my leg muscles aching, scarcely able to breathe for fear that I’d make enough noise that one of them would finally take notice.
Even with the breeze stirring the hot desert air, it was a long wait for my clothes to dry enough that I felt confident climbing. I hadn’t heard any cries from the tower, any trumpets sounding, so the dripping must not have been as loud as I’d imagined it, but even if I did make it to the top undetected, I still wasn’t sure what I was going to be able to accomplish. Even though guards were rarely as well trained as princes, three grown men, armed and armored, would make for a fearsome set of opponents for me. I’d trained hard as a prince, but that was years ago now, and yes, I’d killed in the interim—once. And that had been some poor conscripted farmer who had been half-asleep at the time. What was I going to do against three alert men? I still didn’t have an answer to that question, and I was halfway up the tower.
My mind spun itself in circles, imagi
ning a half dozen possibilities as I felt for some new decoration I could cling to in order to lever myself up that little bit higher. I could shove one man off the tower, punch a second with my katars, and then the third would be alert, but he’d be alone. That might work. It’d make noise, but I didn’t see any way around that now. If I could clear this tower, it might give the Zindhis a chance to get their boat up to my balcony.
And then what? Without me there to lower the ropes, or to tell Hina to do it, how were we going to get the men onto the balcony? Maybe she would do it herself? She was smart, she knew the plan. But even if that worked, what was I going to do? Did I really believe that after I killed three guards nobody was going to think to look for me as I crawled slowly along the wall back to a second tower to repeat the feat?
And even if I did manage to—my hand slipped in midthought. I squeezed hard with my left hand, my right dangling free, my legs burning as I engaged every muscle from my hips to my toes, struggling to pin myself against the wall. My heart was like thunder in my ears, and I was shocked I hadn’t screamed in surprise. I was too high up to survive a fall. Stupid. I should have been focused on the climb. It was too dark to see what I was doing. I had to grab something fast, because I could feel my left hand starting to pull away from the slippery, smooth-glazed lotus it was holding.
I slapped the wall with my right hand, my fingers curling into a claw, my nails scraping the sandstone until they hit a tiny ledge. It was barely a fingerbreadth deep, but it was enough that I could pull against it with the muscles of my right arm, giving my left a little bit of relief.
I gasped for air, trying to keep it quiet, but the burning in my lungs was so urgent that it overpowered everything else. I hugged the wall, pressing my cheek against it as my body shuddered from pain and exhaustion and fear and the desperate need for air. And in the midst of all that, one thing leapt immediately to mind. I missed Arjun.
What a stupid thought. I was moments away from getting myself killed from distraction, and that was what my brain came up with?
I was tired. That was the other thing that entered my mind. I was tired of fighting all the time. I was tired of everything being such a struggle. I’d thought that was over after Bikampur, but then Karim had showed up, and this was even worse, even more hopeless. I was tired of being responsible for Sakshi and Lakshmi, tired of always having to have all the answers, tired of being constantly on my guard.
And I was physically tired too. My muscles were aching. My fingers hurt. And even if I succeeded here, there was every chance that Lakshmi would die anyway. I’d rather have died than live to see what became of her when Ahmed got word of what I’d done. If I’d thought for an instant that begging Asma would have saved Lakshmi’s life, I might have just climbed to the top of the tower, surrendered to the guards there, and thrown myself on my knees in front of her. But I knew better. I’d backed myself into a corner with this plot. Either I would win it all or I would lose it all. There would be no quarter given or taken. If I gave up here, Lakshmi died, it was as simple as that.
I gritted my teeth and pulled.
She was not going to die. Her akka was not just going to give up and let that happen to her, not while she could still draw breath. If I had to swim the four hundred miles to Ahura, then I would swim. I wasn’t going to leave her for Karim and Ahmed. She was counting on me. She trusted me. She believed in me. And so did Sakshi. And so did Hina. And Arjun and Sunil Kalani and Sanghar Soomro. They were all counting on me. Maybe I could have failed myself, but I wasn’t going to fail them.
My hand hit the top of the tower, and I eased myself up until I could peek through the knee-high railing that surrounded the chhatri. The three guards were still standing together in the center of the dome, chattering away in Mahisagari, looking at one another. There was no way to attack one without the others seeing, and they had toradars in their hands. I didn’t think they’d be able to get a shot off, not at such close range, but fourteen pounds of steel and wood makes for a pretty brilliant club, and that they would be able to accomplish.
I hesitated, but not from fear or doubt. I had to get this right. For Lakshmi. I couldn’t fail here. Not now. Not when I was so close.
Fire rained from the sky to the east. Long columns of flame belched from shadowy forms circling over the fortresses guarding the harbor. Arjun! Arjun was here, and the attack had started.
“Fire!” one of the men in the tower shouted, and he pointed at the fortresses.
All three men rushed to the far edge of the tower to get a better look. They were knotted close together, their legs pressed up against the low railing, which only came up to their shins. This was the moment.
I threw myself up with more strength than I knew I possessed, vaulting over the railing, landing on my feet, and running for all I was worth. My footsteps were loud and squelching, but the men were talking to one another so frantically that they couldn’t hear them. And anyway, it was too late. I hurled myself into all three of them, hitting them with every last ounce of strength I possessed.
The impact was so jarring that I felt like I’d been punched. Stars danced across my vision. But all three men lost their balance, toppling forward, shouting as they fell. I fell too, but not off the tower. I fell to the ground beside the marble railing, hiding myself from view just as the men splashed into the water, the impacts so hard that I knew there was no chance they’d survived. And even if they had, the armor they’d been wearing would drag them straight to the bottom of the lagoon.
I looked out from the railing’s pierced decorations, struggling to see if the men on the other towers had seen what had happened, and I couldn’t believe my good fortune. They were all too busy watching the attack of the fire zahhaks. They hadn’t seen a thing.
But I had to get back to the balcony. Damn the other tower. Hina and her celas would be in danger. Sakshi would be in danger. The alarms were sounding everywhere. I had to get those Zindhi men into my bedchamber, and I had to do it now.
Sanghar Soomro and his men must have made the same decision, because I spotted boats sliding out of the darkness, propelled soundlessly by long sculls flapping back and forth like the tails of enormous fish. They were heading straight for the base of the wall beneath my balcony, and if I wasn’t there by the time they arrived, then all would be lost.
There was no time to carefully climb back down the wall, and the parapets would be crawling with soldiers. But the rooftop was clear. I could run across it. I’d be visible to every guard in the palace, but it was too late to worry about secrecy now.
I scrambled to my feet and started climbing one of the chhatri’s decorated columns, grabbing hold of the stone awning that shaded the guards from the force of the sun during the day. With a pull that made the muscles of my chest and back burn, I hauled myself onto the tiled dome, breathing hard, keenly aware of the shouts going up throughout the palace as guards rushed to and fro to try to make sense of what was happening.
I put them out of my mind as best I could, because I had to focus on jumping the gap between the roof of the chhatri and the roof of the women’s quarters of the palace. They were separated by a ten-foot gap. It was a long way to jump, and I wouldn’t get much of a run-up. The awning gave me at best five paces to work with. This was going to be close.
I didn’t give myself time to think about it. I went to the corner of the tower and took a deep stance, leaning forward, preparing my legs for the explosive kickoff that I would need to see me safely to the other side. I knew that if I failed, I would slam my ribs into the hard stone roof at best, or fall fifty feet to my death at worst. But I’d come too far to give up now.
I sprang off with my legs, running for everything I was worth, watching my feet rather than my destination, so I would hit the edge of the roof with the ball of my foot, giving me the most powerful possible spring I could manage. I screamed through my teeth, heedless of the attention it might bring me. Not
hing mattered if I missed.
For one exhilarating instant, I was flying. There was nothing below me but the glittering waters of the lagoon, nothing around me but the desert air. And then the roof of the women’s quarters came rushing up in my vision and I realized that I’d missed it. I was dropping too fast. There was no way I was going to land on my feet.
I tucked my knees into my chest to avoid smashing my shins to bits on the edge of the stone awning. My feet hit hard, and there was no slack in my legs to take up the impact, so it jolted my whole body, all the way up to my head, which snapped painfully on my neck. I hit the rooftop in a heap, aching all over, dazed, the world feeling strangely off-kilter, like I’d suddenly stepped into a boat in rough seas.
I pushed myself up and ran all the same. A toradar cracked. Something whizzed through the air just behind me. I paid it no attention. My balcony was so close. I was almost there. And so were Sanghar Soomro’s boats. They were pressing forward, and the men on the far tower still hadn’t spotted them, because they were too busy watching Arjun’s zahhaks attacking the fortresses at the mouth of the harbor. I knew only seconds had passed since the attack had begun, but it felt more like hours. I was so sure that I was going to be too late.
I leapt off the roof, onto the dome that overhung my balcony, sliding down it in my wet clothes until my legs were dangling off the side. I grabbed a decorative row of lotus blossoms with my fingers, swung my body back once and then forward hard, and let go, tumbling to the hard marble floor and landing flat on my back with a thud that knocked the wind out of me.
A figure loomed out of the shadows, and I raised my hands to defend myself, but she took them in hers and jerked me to my feet. Hina.
“You’re crazy,” she hissed.
