“No. I wasn’t sold at the flesh market.” I tell them about Cavas and how he helped me get in.
“Cavas?” Kali frowns. “But wasn’t he the one who refused to help you and Juhi in the first place?”
I avoid looking into her eyes. “I guess he changed his mind.”
“Desperation makes people do things they wouldn’t otherwise do,” Amira says without a trace of her usual mockery, and I wonder if she’s thinking about her own parents, who sold her for money in Havanpur. “Well, the one good thing that came out of it is that you haven’t been magically bound to any contracts. It’ll make tracking you a lot more difficult. It was Juhi’s greatest worry.”
My throat tightens. “Juhi. Where is she now?”
“She isn’t here at the moment,” Kali says cryptically. “But she has a plan to get you out. Now that we’ve found you—”
“I’m not leaving,” I interrupt. It’s not until the words leave my mouth that I realize they’re true.
“Right.” Amira snorts. “And Sunheri and Neel lived happily ever after.”
“You can’t be serious, Gul.” Kali, for the first time, sounds angry and a little afraid. “You can’t possibly think you’ll be able to kill the king!”
“Maybe I can. There’s an old law.” I fill them in on what Prince Amar told me, notice nearly simultaneous expressions of distaste cross their faces.
“Challenging the king to a death duel over a binding? I’ve never even heard of such a law!”
Amira shushes Kali, whose voice has grown alarmingly loud, and turns to me, frowning. “Whether the law exists or not, it’s still much too dangerous, princess. Lohar is the most powerful magus in Ambar. He could kill you before you take a step into the dueling arena.”
I know what she says makes perfect sense. It’s not like I haven’t thought of the same thing myself. But her assessment still infuriates me.
“If you still believe in that ridiculous prophecy—” Kali begins.
“That prophecy is why my parents died!” I snap. “It’s why you both were tortured in that labor camp, why that woman in Javeribad lost her baby. Raja Lohar will be coming for me anyway, so isn’t it better if I meet him head-on? Maybe I’ll die in the process, but that’s better than coming so close and doing nothing!”
“This is not what Juhi wanted.” Amira shakes her head. “As much as she believed—still believes—in that prophecy, she never meant for you to die because of it. Use your mind, Gul. Allow yourself to think rationally. If, by some miracle, you win this so-called duel and the king dies, he’ll be succeeded by Yuvraj Sonar, who is known throughout Ambar for his cruelty. Sonar will leave no stone unturned in trying to avenge his father. Also, if you think Ambar under Lohar’s rule is bad, then try imagining a reign of the crown prince.”
Maybe it’s because Amira called me Gul and not princess. Or maybe it’s simply because of the horrible ring of truth in her words—one that even I can’t deny.
“If I leave with you, then I need to warn Cavas first,” I say finally. “I don’t want him getting caught unawares.”
“Now isn’t the time to be noble,” Kali says impatiently. “If by chance something goes wrong or someone else discovers our plan to get you out—”
“It’s not about being noble! More than one person has seen me talking to him.” Malti. Amar. The stable master, Govind. “Tell me, Kali. Who do you think they will turn to when I’m gone?”
Amira glances warily between me and a furious Kali. Neither of them responds.
“If I disappear, the first people they’ll come for are Cavas and his father. I can’t…” My voice trails off. I think of the grim resignation I saw on Cavas’s face, his fierce love for his only parent. If either of them gets hurt because of me, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.
There’s a long silence.
“You have tonight,” Amira speaks this time, her voice calm.
My stomach swoops.
“What?” Kali’s head turns so quickly I hear the bones in her neck snap. “Amira, you can’t be serious!”
“Tonight,” Amira repeats. “Figure out a way to tell him, princess. Decide what you want to do. Because tomorrow, we leave, regardless of whether or not you’ve succeeded. Whether you want to come with us is up to you.”
There’s a flicker of emotion in her eyes—an understanding I saw only once before, the night I ran away from the Sisters’ house in Javeribad.
“Our plan involved rescuing Gul, not taking her with us by force,” Amira tells Kali. “She isn’t our ward anymore. She made the choice to come here. Let her decide if she wants to leave.”
I realize that deep down, Amira probably knows what my decision will be, what it has been since the day I saw the head thanedar snatch an infant from her mother in Javeribad, since a group of Sky Warriors entered my world and ripped it apart.
32CAVAS
“You did the right thing.”
Govind’s soft voice startles me, nearly making me drop Dhoop’s saddle to the floor. Catching myself in time, I place the saddle carefully over the blanket on the pony’s back and adjust its position before kneeling to tighten the girth.
I don’t need to ask the stable master what he’s referring to. Govind was inside the building, only steps away, listening when Gul came to see me earlier this morning, dressed in royal finery—a princess in every way except in name. It should have been easy to remain cold and detached, to raise a wall between myself and a girl who was little more than a beautiful stranger, her lips rouged and shiny, her eyes painted in jeweled tones, not a single black hair out of place. But then she scowled at me for calling her Siya ji, throwing me back to another time, another girl whose eyes burned fire, whose hand I had trouble letting go of.
“Knew
