“The Three-Year War between Ambar and Samudra,” a voice says from behind, and I nearly fall over. I hadn’t heard him sneak up on me. He must have jootis cushioned with rabbit fur. A weathered brown hand traces a picture of a woman being dragged by her hair, a streak of blue running through it. “A fine victory, don’t you think?”
I bite back my fury and greet him with a bow. “Raja Lohar.”
His hands clamp onto my shoulders, push me upright. “Come now, Siya. Why the formality? You are going to be my daughter now. And we are alone.”
His eyes narrow when I move back slightly, nauseated by his closeness.
“You are a fascinating girl, you know. A simple peasant from goddess knows where, controlling a savage Prithvi mammoth that needed to be dosed with sleeprose most of the time. That required a whisperer and three other magi to contain it at the flesh market.”
“Luck favored me, Ambarnaresh.”
“Luck? Luck, my dear, has nothing to do with it. My father, the old fool, believed in it. Believed in the gods. But I know better. There is no luck. There are no gods.” He smiles at me. “So why don’t you get along with what you’ve wanted to do and challenge me about your binding?”
The blood drains from my cheeks, leaving them cold. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you? After everything my son said about challenging me to a death duel?” He laughs. “Did you really think I would allow such an antiquated rule to remain after I came into power? Regicide is regicide, regardless of how it happens.”
The back of my throat tastes sour. Amar played me. How could I have been such a fool? “You’re mistaken, Raja Lohar.”
“Mistaken, am I? But then perhaps there are other ways to make you talk.” The king claps his hands twice, and the door bursts open.
Major Shayla comes in, pulling along with her—to my shock—my attendant. “You called, Ambarnaresh?”
“Tell me, girl. What did you see?” he asks my attendant. “Quickly now.”
Shayla pulls out a small dagger and presses it into my attendant’s neck. The serving girl’s eyes are wide, terrified. “It’s on her right arm, the birthmark! I accidentally saw it yesterday morning when she was getting dressed. I swear I’m loyal, Raja Lo—” Her voice cuts off as Shayla presses the dagger harder against her skin, drawing blood.
My heart rises, feels like a stone in my throat. He knows. Knew about my birthmark before he called me to him today.
“Are you loyal, girl?” There’s a cruel smile on the king’s face. “Perhaps not loyal enough. You see, you waited a whole day to tell one of your supervisors about the cursed mark, when you should have gone to her at once. Shayla.” He nods at the Sky Warrior.
“Ambarnaresh, please,” the girl pleads. Tears run down her face, and I can’t help but pity her, even though she just threw me to a pair of dustwolves.
“Let her go, Raja Lohar,” I say, forcing myself out of my own stupor. Why does it matter that she told the king? So what if he knows I’m here to kill him? I curse myself for my lack of foresight, wishing I had strapped my daggers to my calves instead of my thighs. “You have me, now. So why don’t you—”
My voice dies. The girl’s mouth opens, sputters blood. With another twist of the dagger, Major Shayla sighs, and the girl falls to the floor with a thud. Her body jerks for a moment, her eyes on me, and then goes still. I didn’t even know what her name was. A buzzing sound fills my ears. I don’t know if it’s from their laughter or if I’m simply going to faint.
“Arrest this fool and have her tossed into the dungeons!” I hear the king say, as if from a distance. “I will relish seeing the magic drained out of her.”
“Ambarnaresh,” Major Shayla says.
It happens in a matter of eyeblinks.
The major grabs me by the hair and throws me to the floor. A shadow rises over me, followed by a loud cry. King Lohar looks even more surprised than I do by the blood seeping from the cut in his throat. He sways in place for a brief moment and then collapses after the second thrust of the dagger in Shayla’s hand.
“You killed him,” I sputter, my voice a wheeze instead of a shout. “Y-you—”
“Don’t bore me, stupid girl.” Major Shayla turns to me, tossing the dagger aside. “No one can hear us. For now.”
The buzzing in my ears. That must be the sound barrier she put up. There’s no guarantee that I will be quick enough to grab the daggers strapped to my thighs—not with the major eyeing my every move.
“Look at you,” she says now, her voice as soft, as melodious as I heard it the first time. “A girl who is both fool and simpleton, yet was so close to stealing away everything I’ve worked for. My legacy. My birthright.”
Birthright?
I stare at her face: the cropped gray hair, the angular features, the full cruel lips. It doesn’t seem possible. There is no similarity between the two, but …
“You’re the king’s daughter?”
“I? Lohar’s daughter?” She laughs. “I am Megha-putri Shayla, the only daughter and heir of Ambar’s last and greatest queen. Lohar was no more than a usurper, the son of the fool my mother bound with, a man whose blood was no more royal than a dirt licker’s. My mother would have wanted me if she had known I was a girl. She always wanted a female heir. She would have raised me at the raj darbar itself. But my father had other ideas. He didn’t want me under my mother’s influence. Called her cruel. He paid the vaid to lie to her, to tell her I’d been born a boy. She wasn’t interested in male heirs, so she let him have me without looking at my face even once.”
She smiles bitterly. “I’ve
