The novice had been criticizing my techniques during our practice fight—something that the other girls usually left to our instructor, Uma Didi. I remember getting annoyed at first and then angry. Then, the girl rose high into the air, her kick knocking me flat on my back, my head hitting the ground so hard that I saw stars. Her bare foot was descending, ready to crush my nose, when a scream rose into the air. Hers, not mine.
It’s one of the last things I remember about that fight, along with my hands gripping her foot and the searing pain in my right arm, moments before I blacked out. I’ve refused to participate in any magical battles since then, despite Kali’s encouragement and Amira’s shouts.
“Juhi doesn’t trust me,” I say now.
“It’s not about trust,” Kali corrects. “It’s about samarpan, as Juhi calls it. Juhi doesn’t make anyone a Sister unless they’re ready for that.”
Samarpan. A Common Tongue word synonymous with dedication, submission, and sacrifice. With immersing oneself so completely in the Sisterhood’s main mission—protecting the unprotected—that everything else ceases to exist. The truth of it doesn’t take away the sting of Kali’s words.
“Perhaps there is more to your destiny than being a Sister,” she tells me. “Have you ever considered that?”
“And what destiny is that? A common pickpocket?” I ask sarcastically. “The way things keep going, I’m probably better off selling myself in the Ambarvadi flesh market—aaah!” I nearly scream when Kali pinches my arm.
“Don’t you dare joke about such things. The flesh market is no place for you. For anyone, for that matter. I don’t know how you even heard of it.”
“Everyone knows, Kali. It’s not exactly a secret,” I say, even though this time I’m more careful with my tone. “People offering themselves up as servants. Being sold for hundreds, thousands of swarnas at auction. Even Raja Lohar sends buyers there.”
My last sentence hangs in the air, spoken without real thought. Words that I would on any other occasion have bitten back.
“The king isn’t the only person who buys from the flesh market.” Kali’s eyes are icy in the moonlight. “There are others as well. Ministers, Sky Warriors, shopkeepers, merchants. They don’t care for the rules binding masters to their servants. Even if you do make it into the palace, there’s little hope for your survival. The life of an indentured laborer is little better than that of a non-magus living in the tenements. In many cases, it’s even worse. You must promise me you’ll never take such a step. Promise me, Gul!”
“I”—another pinch—“ow! All right! I promise! I promise!”
Kali stares at me for a long moment and then, as if satisfied with my answer, releases my arm. “Power comes in many shapes and forms. You keep doubting yourself, Gul. That’s your biggest weakness. When you don’t, you can take down men twice your size. Remember that shopkeeper in Ambarvadi last year?”
I’m tempted to tell the truth. That the shopkeeper, though huge, had been distracted by the gold sheen of a swarna I’d planted on his floor. That luck and finely milled glass powder had a lot more to do with his eyes watering than the blow I’d managed to land on his hand when he grabbed at me, freeing my ankle from his grip, before escaping with a sack of his money.
“Come now,” Kali says after a pause. “You must be hungry.”
Perching on top of the short staircase leading into the courtyard, Kali takes the cloth off a metal plate and hands it to me. I tear off a piece of the thick khoba roti and scoop up the lentils in the container next to it before dipping into the spicy lotus sabzi on the side. I chew slowly, relishing the taste.
“So. Was he handsome?”
I nearly choke on my food. “Wha—who?”
“The boy you kissed,” Kali clarifies.
I scowl. She must have scanned my mind when she touched me. “I suppose he was handsome.”
Handsome the way a cactus is handsome, the way metal is when shaped to form a mace. Sharp edges. A soft mouth. A neatly trimmed mustache and dark-brown eyes. Warmth unfurls in my belly when I think of the kiss, making my toes curl. My next bite into the roti is savage, a grisly grinding of teeth.
“That good?” A note of amusement has crept into Kali’s voice.
“It wasn’t that good,” I mutter.
Kali laughs. “You can lie to me if you want, but at least don’t lie to yourself. We’re all allowed a kiss that makes our head spin. Even if it is with a stranger.”
“You mean like the one between you and that girl during last year’s moon festival?”
“Maybe.” Kali gives me a sly smile. “But we’re not talking about me right now. We’re talking about you.”
“My head did not spin.” Though I did feel insatiable, reluctant to break away from the boy’s kiss, the warmth of hands that were strong but didn’t hurt.
While the boy and I were talking, I’d seen something else on the front of his simply wound orange turban: a brass pin with the king’s symbol of a warrior wielding an atashban. From eavesdropping on various conversations over the past two years, I know that Ambar Fort is self-sufficient, surrounded by a fortified city with its own small farms and irrigation system, its own clothing shops and libraries. A part of me longed to start interrogating the boy immediately, to flirt my way into more information.
But when he mentioned he was from the tenements, the words had washed over me like a bucket of cold water. As a boy with no magic in his veins, Cavas took a great risk to save me by pretending to be my mate in front of that crowd. I nearly said yes when he asked if I was from the tenements: I didn’t want the warmth in
