“Razia?” Arjun’s concern was so plain in his voice that it was audible even across the fifty-foot gulf of roaring wind that separated us.
“My prince?” I asked, hoping that I’d covered up my anxiety well enough not to alarm my sisters. I hadn’t yet told them that I suspected my father might just execute me on my arrival to Shikarpur. If he did, they’d never be able to stop it, and if he didn’t, then there was no sense worrying them over it.
“It’s not too late to go back to Bikampur,” Arjun said, his voice strong and clear and determined, almost like he was speaking directly into my ear and not shouting from one zahhak’s back to another’s. “It will never be too late to go back to Bikampur. Say the word, and we can fly back there right now.”
“Can we, Akka?” Lakshmi exclaimed, and I felt my resolve crumbling to dust. My younger sister was riding her own thunder zahhak, soaring in the wake left by Sultana’s and Padmini’s wingtips. It was the animal she had stolen from Shikarpur in our desperate bid to save our home from destruction. Hadn’t I vowed after we’d survived all that that I’d never knowingly put her in danger again?
But turning back would be more dangerous. My father had threatened war if I didn’t take up the post of subahdar of Zindh. So I had to go. And though I was sad to be leaving my home, and worried that my father might have me killed, there was a part of me that wanted to go. For all the danger, for all the fear I held of my father, becoming the subahdar of Zindh and a recognized princess of Nizam gave me my power back. It let me choose my own destiny in a way that I never could as a concubine in Bikampur. And that was what I’d craved more than anything during my years as a courtesan—the power to choose. To choose whom I loved and who shared my bed. The freedom to speak my own mind. I could have lived the rest of my life without palaces and gemstones, but of all the penalties I’d suffered for living as my true self, the loss of my freedom had been the harshest one of all. If I had even the slightest chance of winning it back, then I would fight for it with all my might.
And maybe that was why my father had made me the subahdar. Perhaps he’d seen it in my eyes, or guessed it, or just knew me better than I gave him credit for. Every other subahdar in the empire could retreat, could fall back on his soldiers and his family connections if things got too difficult. But not me. For me, there could be no retreat, no failure—not if I ever wanted to maintain my freedom.
“Shikarpur is going to be a wonderful new home for us, little sister,” I told Lakshmi, and I even found myself believing it. “We’re going to have a beautiful palace, and we’ll get to ride our zahhaks together every day—you’ll see.”
Lakshmi’s tentative smile made my stomach churn. She trusted me with her whole heart. I hoped I knew what I was getting her into.
“Well, if we’re going, we should go,” Arjun said, without the least hint of judgment. He just nodded to the palace below us, and to the patrol of four thunder zahhaks that were circling warily over the city walls, waiting for us to descend. With Arvind flying Arjun’s wing, our flight of four zahhaks would have been enough to alarm any patrol, and the longer we lingered, the less we would look like guests, and the more like enemy scouts. Better to get down before the patrol decided to investigate.
I reached forward, just ahead of my saddle’s high front cantle, and gave Sultana’s cerulean neck scales a fond pat. “Ready to see our new home, girl?”
My thunder zahhak’s beakless snout twisted slightly in my direction, so that one of her jade eyes could look straight at me. She was waiting for an order.
I gave a sharp tug backward on my top set of reins, and Sultana responded at once by pitching up into a climb. As she went, I leaned my body to the right, pulling a little on the reins in that direction. Sultana responded with perfect grace, rolling smoothly onto her belly before plunging into a sheer, vertical dive.
I forgot all about my worries as her wings tucked in tightly to either side of her body, like a pair of sickles poised to cut the wind. The air roared across my face, tearing at my flying goggles, sending my silk dupatta streaming out behind me like a lancer’s pennant. The golden domes of Shikarpur’s palace rose up to greet me, and I aimed myself for the ruins of the zahhak stables, still in a shambles thanks to my attack weeks before.
I put a little gentle back-pressure on the reins, bringing Sultana smoothly out of her dive at the height of the mango trees crowding the palace’s outer gardens. We zipped over the parapets of the yellow sandstone wall before breaking into a hard left turn to slow ourselves down. Sultana back-beat her wings and settled onto the smooth tiles of the polished limestone courtyard with all the grace of a dancer.
Beside me, Lakshmi’s zahhak alighted easily, but Sakshi, Arjun, and Arvind were slower, their bigger, bulkier fire zahhaks having taken longer to descend. They landed off to my right, just as grooms came
