She hurried to do it while Viputeshwar smiled and shook his head ruefully, and Sikander just seemed confused. He bowed his head to me. “I feel like I don’t know you at all, your highness.”
“You don’t,” I agreed. “But if you get Parisa and you help me fight Karim and Ahmed, I’ll give you the chance to learn as much about me as you like, Sikander.”
“I would be honored, your highness.” He hugged me again, like he had when I was little, and it broke my heart, but I tried not to show it. I had to stay strong. I had to get us out of this mess and then I could think about how I felt about things. Until then, I needed to keep focused on the mission, needed to get Lakshmi somewhere safe.
I hugged Sikander back and whispered, “I’ll see you shortly.” Then I let him go, and he and Viputeshwar stepped out of the room, closing the door firmly behind them.
“All right, sweetheart,” I told Lakshmi, taking her hand and leading her to the window. “We’re going to have to climb up to the roof. It’s not far, but I want you to use the rope, so tie it around yourself the way your tutor taught you, okay?”
“Yeah, okay, Akka,” she agreed, rolling her eyes, like she couldn’t believe what a fuss I was making about having to climb a heavily defended watchtower in the dead of night under threat of almost certain death. I smiled. She was growing up.
She tied the ropes with as much aplomb as I had shown, and then stepped to the edge of the window, preparing to start her climb. But at that moment, I heard the metal handle of the door rattling against the stone wall, and I turned, expecting to see Sikander or Viputeshwar returning for something they had forgotten. Instead, I heard a very familiar voice saying, “Lakshmi, honey, are you asleep?” And Karim Shah stepped into the room, a familiar, hungry look in his dark eyes.
CHAPTER 28
Razia!” Karim gasped, his eyes going wide.
My katars were in my hands in an instant, my fists clenched tightly around their handles, rage in my heart. I’d been right. I’d been right the whole time. I looked over my shoulder to where Lakshmi was standing uncertainly on the ledge of the windowsill, and I said, “Lakshmi, sweetie, you need to climb. Akka will handle this.”
Lakshmi nodded, and she started climbing. She knew that Karim wasn’t her friend, had known it for a while now. As she disappeared up the tower, I watched Karim draw his sword from its scabbard, his lip curling with scorn.
“You think you can fight me?” he scoffed, puffing out his chest, as if to show me how much bigger and stronger he was. Not that he needed to. I was fully aware of how dangerous he was. His mistake was not knowing how dangerous I was.
“I killed your mother,” I told him, because I knew that would unhinge him, that it would get in his head and make him sloppy. “I blew her away with a cannon. There’s nothing left of her but sludge.”
The stunned look on his face told me that he hadn’t realized I’d taken Kadiro. He’d thought this was a desperate escape attempt, that I’d sneaked out of Kadiro in secret to get Lakshmi out of his clutches. Well, I seized the opportunity to land the first strike, and I punched straight at his hateful face with my katars. He barely managed to parry the punch with the hilt of his sword, but that left him open, and I punched for his chest with a strong left that he hadn’t expected.
Karim twisted and staggered back, taking the punch as a slice that opened up a wide gash on his biceps, red blood spilling across his skin and staining his green sleeve dark brown. And then the little coward cried, “Guards!”
I punched again and again, driving him back toward the door, forcing him to frantically parry and stagger away from the razor-sharp points of my katars. In the tight confines of the room, I had every conceivable advantage with my two short weapons against his one longer one, and that advantage doubled when we reached the doorway, where he didn’t have room to take a swing. But I wasn’t trying to kill him. Oh, if I could, I would have, but I heard the footsteps in the hallway, and I knew my window for escape was closing fast. They’d be able to shoot me off the wall if I had to climb back up, rope or no rope. And the longer it took me to get away, the higher the odds that they’d saddle their zahhaks and attack. Even with the altitude disadvantage, our top cover couldn’t stop all of them.
So I threw one last punch for Karim’s neck to get a little space, and then I raced for the window as fast as my feet would carry me. He was stumbling back, so it took him a second to reverse direction, but then his long legs ate up ground faster than I’d thought they would. I was at the window, but with the katars in my hands there was no way to climb without throwing them down, and if I did that, I’d be helpless.
Karim kept his distance as guardsmen came rushing in, holding swords and shields. No toradars, that was a piece of luck. They must have thought they’d be worthless in such close confines. But even without muskets, they would cut me to pieces before I ever found my first foothold on the wall. I could see that now. There was no way out.
“Did you really kill my mother?” Karim growled, his whole body shaking with rage, his sword twitching from the tension in his fist.
I briefly considered lying, but I knew it wouldn’t work, so I just
