But Seledri’s warm brown skin seemed as gray as death.
Aniri held her breath, frozen at the doorway of Seledri’s room. Her sister shouldn’t have already taken to her bed, and that unnatural pallor… Aniri prayed to Devkasera, mother goddess of Dharia, and any other goddess who would listen, for Seledri to open her eyes. While Aniri was fixed in place, fear clenching her heart, Pavan hurried to his wife’s side, and gently shook her awake.
Her sister sleepily blinked up at her husband. “Pavan.” Her voice was thick.
Aniri’s breath released all at once, relief flooding her body.
Pavan beamed and helped her sister as she eased up to sitting. “I’ve brought you a visitor.”
Seledri frowned and pulled back from Pavan’s touch, then looked to the door. Her shock at seeing Aniri stilled her momentarily, then her hand flew to cover her mouth, like she might cry. That unlocked Aniri, and she crossed the room in two large strides, climbing across the bed to reach her sister more quickly.
“Aniri!” Seledri reached for her.
Aniri hugged her sister, hard. She bunched up the red silk of Seledri’s loose-fitting bedclothes, and it occurred to her that she might be holding Seledri wrong, squeezing too tightly for the baby. But the need to hold her sister was too much to let go.
“You’re here.” Her sister’s delicate frame shook, her face buried in Aniri’s hair. “I can’t believe… you’re here.”
Aniri held her tighter. “I’m here.” She kept hold of her sister a moment more, then she had to see Seledri’s face. Her eyes were shot with red and rimmed with tears. Her smile was far too tremulous. “Tell me you’re well, Seledri. Please.”
“I’m fine.” Seledri gave short laugh that sounded uneven, like she might be crying instead, then pulled Aniri into another hug. “Everything’s going to be fine now that you’re here.”
Aniri’s eyes pricked, but the strength with which Seledri held her was reassuring. Aniri glanced to Pavan, whose smile had grown even wider.
“Could you…?” Aniri wasn’t sure how to politely ask him to leave.
But he dipped his head and seemed to understand. “Take your time.” He backed away from the bed, and the door clicked as he closed it behind him.
Aniri loosened her hold on her sister and eased back on the lumpy bed, but Seledri didn’t let her get far. Her hands went to Aniri’s face, and she could feel them shake.
“Gods, Aniri, am I dreaming this? I think maybe I’ve summoned you on the power of my wishing alone.”
“Of course I’m here. I came as soon as I heard.” Seeing her confident, wise, funny sister in such a state—distressed, trembling in her bed clothes, seemingly on the edge of a dark precipice—carved a hole in Aniri’s chest. She took Seledri’s hands from her face and held them. “Are you truly, well? You don’t look it.”
“No, no, I’m fine.” Seledri put a protective hand over the small bump on her belly, which had grown since Aniri had seen her last, but was still just beginning to show. “Thanks to poor Alisha. She paid a terrible price—” A hitch in her sister’s voice cut her off.
Aniri’s heart squeezed. She couldn’t imagine how distraught she would be if Priya took poison meant for her. “I’m so sorry about your handmaiden. Pavan said she was dear to you.”
Seledri’s gaze sharpened. “What did Pavan tell you?”
Aniri frowned. “Only that your handmaiden was poisoned and he didn’t know whom to trust, so he secreted you away.”
Seledri leaned back against the headboard. Her eyes—the deep brown ones that were always filled with warmth and made Aniri feel loved with just a glance—were dull and weary, a film of fatigue drawn across them.
Unease climbed into Aniri’s throat. “What’s wrong?” She glanced around the room—it was clearly meant for illicit activities, not securing the life of a royal. Her gaze dropped to the bump. “Is it the baby?”
“No.” Seledri put both hands on her belly. “Well, maybe it is. I can’t be sure.” She took a deep breath. “I think Pavan may be behind the attempt on my life.”
“What?” Aniri drew back, rocking the bouncy mattress with her movement. She glanced at the closed door, but Pavan and his guard had more to fear from Janak than the other way around. “I don’t understand. Pavan loves you. You’re carrying his child, the future heir of Samir—”
“That’s just it,” Seledri said, then stopped, her eyes welling with tears. She blinked them back. “When I first told Pavan, he seemed overwhelmed with joy. His love for the baby, the sweetness of it… it captured my heart. I thought that, maybe, finally, I had found a way to love him.” She looked away, past Aniri, beyond the walls of the tiny room. “Then something changed. He suddenly stopped talking about the workings of the Queendom. He withdrew and became distant. When we heard news of the skyship and the attack on Dharia, I could hardly drag answers from him about the fate of the ambassador and your courtesan.”
Her sister’s words seemed so at odds with the concern that had been plain on Pavan’s face. “Why do you think he was acting so strange?”
“I think… perhaps…” Seledri seemed to struggle to get the words out. “I think Pavan may have taken a lover.”
“What?” That made no sense at all. Her sister was the most beautiful among the three Daughters, but more than that, she was kind-hearted and sweet. And funny. And now she carried Pavan’s child, giving him the one thing he needed to rule Samir, once his mother the Queen stepped aside. It didn’t make sense to risk all of that with a lover. But there was undeniable heartbreak in her sister’s eyes. “What makes you think all this?
“He hasn’t just been distant,” Seledri said, dropping her gaze. “We no longer share a bedroom.”
In the haste of everything, it had escaped Aniri’s notice that Pavan referred to the room as Seledri’s room, not their room. Aniri gestured to her sister’s rounded belly. “Well, that obviously hasn’t always been true. Is it because of the baby, perhaps?” Aniri didn’t understand why that would change anything, but Samirians were more strict in some of their customs. And she certainly didn’t know all of them.
“That was what he said at first, that he wanted to allow me the comfort of my own bed. But then he was often missing from the palace. The keepers of the estate didn’t seem to know where he had gone. I stopped inquiring because of the looks they gave me. As if they knew something I didn’t.” She took a shaky breath. “Oh, Aniri, I should have tried harder to love him. He didn’t have to ask for my hand. He broke with tradition to make me his wife, and loved me so sweetly, and yet… I still didn’t love him in return. I just couldn’t. It was the one thing left that was truly mine to give, truly my choice.”
Aniri reached out to squeeze her sister’s hand. “You can’t force your heart to feel something it doesn’t.”
Seledri shook her head, gaze falling to their hands. “When has it ever mattered what my heart truly felt?”
Her words cut into Aniri. “It has always mattered!”
Seledri looked up, sadness a deep well in her eyes. “Oh, little sister. You’ve always believed the heart should rule. It’s one of the many things I love about you.”
That cut even deeper. Aniri’s heart certainly hadn’t been a wellspring of good choices lately. Possibly ever.
Seledri took a breath and let it out. “But following my heart was never a choice for me.” She shook her head. “Maybe if I had loved Pavan the way he wanted... but instead I made him wait and wait, and now…” She gave a bitter smile. “Now I’m afraid I’ve simply become too inconvenient to keep around.”
Aniri could barely stand the tremble in her sister’s voice. “That doesn’t make sense. You’re carrying his child—”
“I am carrying a child who is half Dharian!” A flush of red darkened Seledri’s face. She swung her legs off the bed and rose quickly, leaving Aniri off balance. Her sister paced and spoke rapidly. “In Samir, there is less love for Dharians than you might imagine. It is one of many things th
at divides the brothers. And there has always been a competition between them—I’ve seen it grow from a boyish taunting to a more serious thing. A more deadly thing.”
“Competition for what? The crown? But Pavan is First Son.” If the Samirians had different ascension traditions, surely she would have heard of it before now. But Pavan did mention not trusting his own raksaka—
“Yes, he is First Son,” Seledri continued, pacing and gesturing as she spoke. “The only son of the Queen and her first husband, who is now deceased. The husband who was rumored to have been found with a lover before his untimely death.”
“A lover?” Aniri was truly shocked. Courtesans entertained unmarried members of the court, but royal marriage was held sacrosanct. It wasn’t simply a marriage, but the understructure of the country. Her mind’s eye flashed unwillingly to the image of Devesh stumbling out of the ambassador’s bedroom, half dressed. Were Samirians simply incapable of fidelity?
“Yes, a lover. And then he died mysteriously in an accident while mountain climbing. The Queen soon took a second husband. One who has been supposedly more loyal, and who gave her a Second Son.” The anger on Seledri’s face rose again. “Apparently assassination is preferable to divorce in Samir.”
Aniri’s mind recoiled from the thought. Royals married for life—one reason why her heart quaked in the face of taking that step with Ash. She had to be sure, because there would be no changing one’s mind after the wedding. But if a royal found themselves trapped in a loveless marriage, and found someone else to love… and were desperate enough… was death the only escape?
She shuddered. Then she realized her own father had left his Queen as well, faking his own death in order to run away from the court and its obligations. And they had been in love, at least at the beginning. Her shoulders fell with the weight of that thought. Was royal marriage nothing but a trap, no matter how it was arranged?
“Let’s say, just for the moment, that Pavan wanted out of the marriage,” Aniri said, hardly believing her own words. “But orchestrating an attack on you? And his child-to-be? He’s such a… a gentle soul. I can’t imagine it.”
“I know! It begs belief.” Seledri fluttered her hands, and the tears came back. “But it’s no secret that the Second Son charms his mother, the Queen. And she’s already broken with tradition once, in allowing her First Son to take a Dharian wife. She could give the crown to whomever she favors. But if Pavan found a Samirian to love, someone in keeping with tradition, someone who…” She choked up for a moment. “…actually returns his love…” She paused. “I’ve only ever been useful as a trading chip, Aniri. A pawn in the political drama of Dharia and Samir. I should never have pretended I could be anything else.”
Aniri scrambled out of the bed to rush to her sister’s side. “That’s ridiculous. You have always been more than that.”
Seledri grabbed her into a hug. “To you, my beautiful younger sister. Perhaps. Not to anyone else.”
Tears were threatening to burst forth, but Aniri managed to hold them in. “If Pavan can’t see it, he’s a fool.”
“Pavan is not a fool,” Seledri said bitterly, releasing her. “Tell me, what does the world think of my disappearance? Where is he saying I’ve vanished to?”
A sick feeling churned in Aniri’s stomach. “He’s telling people you’ve taken to your bed, still sick with the poisoning.” She left unsaid that she had basically confirmed Pavan’s story to her entourage and sent them away.
“How easy it would be for me, then, to take a turn for the worse. Once he’s found a suitably convincing way for me to die. Did Pavan tell you who brought the food that contained the poison?”
“No.” Aniri’s chest tightened.
“He asked the kitchen to make a special dessert. I hadn’t told him I had been suffering from sickness with the baby. So you see?” Her sister’s hard look narrowed further. “He couldn’t have known I would ask my handmaiden to eat it for me.”
Aniri sucked in a breath. “Oh, Seledri.”
“You can imagine my distress when it killed her.”
The hardness in Seledri’s face broke Aniri’s heart. Was it really possible? Could Pavan have poisoned his own wife and child-to-be simply to clear the way for a new one? What kind of people were these Samirians that they could even conceive of doing such a thing to someone they supposedly loved?
Then it hit Aniri like a slap to the face. They were people like Devesh.
“Seledri… I don’t know what to say.”
She reached out to grip Aniri’s hands. “I need your help, Aniri.”
“Of course. Anything.”
Fervor burned in Seledri’s eyes. “You need to get me out of Samir.”
“You want me to do what?” Janak asked in a tone of voice that clearly said Aniri had gone mad.
“Knock out the prince and his guard and help me secret Seledri away on the skyship,” Aniri said as evenly as she could. She had explained everything, but Janak simply looked back and forth between her and Seledri, as if trying to decide which Daughter had gone mad first in hatching this far-fetched and ill-considered plan.
“You brought the aetheroceiver, yes?” Aniri pressed on. “You can simply message Captain Tarak and have him meet us outside the city.”
Janak was speechless for a moment, his mouth working, but no sound coming out. Finally, he shut his mouth, closed his eyes, and rubbed them, as if gathering patience. When he opened them again, his gaze settled on Aniri, and she could feel the weight of his judgment. He had found her guilty of this plan, probably figured she had intended it from the start. Which, really, wasn’t too far from the truth.
“You want me to assault the First Son of Samir, kidnap Samir’s future Queen and unborn heir, and spirit them away via skyship to Jungali,” he said coolly. “In other words, you wish to have me start a war, and by your leave, your most royal highness, in the process abandon half the skyship crew, your Master Tinker, and your handmaiden to a country which will soon want our heads.”
Aniri cringed. She hadn’t thought about what would happen to Priya, Karan, and the others.
“All because your sister suspects her husband may be having an affair.”
When he said it that way, it sounded even more foolish than Aniri already knew it to be. She bit her lip and looked to her sister. What hope had been in her eyes was now crushed into a dull glaze. Seledri pressed her lips tight and averted her eyes. She wouldn’t force Aniri to look her in the face while she told her no. That they weren’t going to help her. That Aniri was going to leave her to her fate in Samir, whatever that was.
A pawn in the political drama of Dharia and Samir. Her sister deserved better than that.
Aniri turned back to Janak, steeling her voice. “I want you to protect the life of the Second Daughter of Dharia. It’s your job.”
Janak straightened, and Aniri knew she was perilously close to a line she shouldn’t cross. His eyes were pitch black in the dim light, and his gaze roamed her face, taking the measure of her. She knew he would find her lacking. It was ill-considered and reckless and something only a child so naïve or willfully ignorant of the realities of life as a royal would demand. But she also knew she couldn’t leave her sister under these conditions. It was an impossible situation, and she prayed Janak would help her find a way out of it.
Aniri held her face neutral even though every part of her was wilting under his stare.
The tension in Janak’s shoulders eased ever so slightly. “I doubt the prince would attempt anything in our presence. If he has any ill plans toward the Second Daughter, he would wait until we have been reassured and departed again. Then a second assassination attempt, or success, could plausibly be blamed elsewhere.”
Aniri held her breath, not certain exactly what that meant for them.
Janak tipped his head to Seledri, and Aniri thought she saw a softening of the tight crinkles at the edges of his eyes. “Naturally, we will not give him the chance to make such an attempt.”
> Seledri let out an audible gasp that was loud enough to cover Aniri’s similar gush of breath in relief. Her sister threw her arms around Janak, who seemed slightly alarmed at the sudden contact. It took everything Aniri had to keep her grin in check, knowing that could easily make Janak rue his decision even more. Seledri pulled back quickly, sparing him from deciding what to do with his arms as they hovered mid-air behind her.
Janak cleared his throat. “Given that we have a small measure of time before we would have to return to the skyship or raise suspicions, perhaps we should message Captain Tarak and see if he could make arrangements to pick up our crew who still remain on Samirian soil.”
Aniri nodded fervently. “Yes. That would be… prudent.”
Janak scowled. Of course, nothing about this plan was prudent. “I will wait until we have incapacitated the prince and his guard and made our way to the edge of the city before contacting Captain Tarak with our true plans.” He looked over Seledri’s loose fitting bedclothes, rich in their red embroidered silks. “Do you have more suitable clothing for travel, my lady?”
“I do,” she said. “When Pavan brought me, he insisted I wear a heavy cloak. And he has since provided other changes of clothing, as the days wore on.”
Janak’s scowl grew deeper. “Truly the mark of a man bent on killing his wife.”
Seledri’s shoulders drooped. “I know you must think me mad, Janak—”
He cut her off by holding up a hand. “Someone is trying to kill you, my lady. I’m not certain it’s the First Son. But then again, I’m not certain that it is not. The politics of your situation concern me far less than ensuring your safety. I’ll do my job.” Janak turned a hard look to Aniri. “Your job will be to handle the politics that may fall out from it.”
Aniri gave him a sharp nod. Whatever befell from this decision would be squarely on her. She would accept it, broker a solution—or wage a war, if it came to that.
Second Daughter (The Royals of Dharia, Book Two) Page 10
