“Also, Cavas, I could use one of your concoctions on the mare to calm her down. Get her to sleep.”
“Of course.” It is what I do best, why Govind has kept me here for so long instead of replacing me with another stable hand with magic in their veins. Though, most days, I rarely ever use sleeprose on animals. Not only do they sense it and refuse, but too many doses of the herb can be dangerous in the long run. It was the first thing Papa taught me on the job: Never do something just because it’s convenient.
“We could have used you last night with the mare,” Govind muses, eyeing me. “Remember what I told you, Cavas. Be—”
“—careful with Latif,” I finish. “I know. I am.”
Govind nods. “You’re a good boy.”
I push aside the twinge of guilt that sometimes comes from lying to Govind. But the truth is a luxury I can no longer afford. Govind might bend the palace rules here and there, but he will never overlook something as big as leaking palace secrets. And lawbreaker or not, Latif’s money is the only thing keeping Papa alive.
I get to work, first by cleaning out a few stalls and then checking in on the mare.
I don’t approach Tahmasp’s horse until the mare and her foal are calm and settled, and until Govind and the other stable hand are nowhere to be seen.
“Shubhsaver, Raat,” I say upon entering the stallion’s stall. Good morning, Night. The greeting never fails to amuse me. I think Raat finds it funny, too, because he always whinnies when I say the words, as if acknowledging a private joke. He whinnies now, and I grin. “How are you doing today?”
I reach out with a carrot in my hand and get a rough lick in return before Raat nibbles down the offering. The affectionate gesture is a rare one, reserved for General Tahmasp and, over the past five years, me. Most of the other hands are terrified of Raat, a stallion bred for war, powerful muscles rippling in his thighs and haunches, his mane and coat as black as his namesake. Today, when I go through the motions of grooming him, though, I note iridescent white sand on the back of his hooves, mixed in with the red mud of Ambarvadi.
I frown. I scrape off a bit of the sand, lift it close to my nose. A ticklish sensation curls through my belly, and I curb a laugh just in time. So not sand, then, I think, carefully wiping my hand with a rag. I don’t know why I didn’t guess before. During my earliest meetings with Latif, I’d seen enough men and women inhaling lines of the powdery Dream Dust in Ambarvadi’s seediest inns. Found only on the southern edges of Ambar, deep in the Desert of Dreams, the dust is so difficult to obtain that a tiny vial of it goes for close to twenty swarnas on the streets.
“So you went to the desert,” I murmur into Raat’s ear. “Did you see the fabled city of Tavan?”
Raat, of course, does not answer, except with another lick.
As a young boy, on the days when Papa and I had nothing to eat except what we could conjure in dreams, I would imagine our leaving the tenements behind and heading into the desert—to mythical Tavan, a city that began as a pit stop for weary travelers. In Tavan, it was said that firestones grew like fruit on trees, the streets were paved with gold, and the air always smelled like flowers and rain. It was a place where humans and animals wandered the streets and soared the skies unchained, where magic did not divide people the way it did in Ambarvadi.
Outside the stables, I reach into the pocket of my tunic and touch the green swarna lying there. Latif told me to use it whenever I had any information about the general. But before I can do anything with the coin, my ears pick out the sound of approaching footsteps, followed shortly by the word Ambarnaresh.
I freeze in place. There is only one person in the kingdom who can be referred to by that title, and that is Ambar’s ruler—King Lohar.
“Your restraint only led you back here to the Ambarnaresh, empty-handed.” The woman’s voice is familiar, angry. “If I were there—”
“You’d have had our heads delivered to the king on a platter.” It’s General Tahmasp. But it’s the woman’s voice that makes my hands both clammy and chilly at once. There is no way I can escape without either of them noticing, so I kneel to the ground, pretending to clean the dirt on my jooti. “Our western neighbors are not like the Jwaliyans, Shayla. The Brimlanders might be our allies now that Raja Lohar has made their princess one of his queens, but they are still wary of us politically. They will not bow to our every whim. I had to proceed with caution.”
His voice is so smooth that I nearly believe the lie myself.
“Some would say your speech is traitorous, General. Even disrespectful of the Ambarnaresh.” The threat in Major Shayla’s words makes my skin crawl.
“Rest assured that Raja Lohar knows my thoughts,” Tahmasp tells her calmly. “You are not privy to our every conversation.”
The rivalry between the two isn’t that surprising. Major Shayla has never been secretive about her disdain for Tahmasp or her ambition to be general herself. Some say that Shayla’s gender is the only barrier that has kept her from being promoted. But I also sense that it’s more to do with her cruelty, which, unlike Tahmasp, is not calculated, and the terror she inspires in some of the king’s own ministers. You cannot predict what Shayla will do at any point in time.
“You are not—” Shayla’s voice breaks off abruptly as she notices me.
I rise to my feet and bow, pressing a hand to my heart.
“Boy. What are you doing here?” Tahmasp’s voice is sharp, and there’s
