“Father, I know you’re angry with me,” I said, “but I would think that this province would be more important to you than a feud with your own child. I can’t reclaim Zindh with five hundred men and six zahhaks, let alone defend it from Safavia. You might as well hand it over to Shah Ismail right now.”
“Welcome to being a ruler, Razia,” he replied, and for the first time he was saying my name without the least trace of scorn. He didn’t even sound angry with me, just tired. I saw then what I hadn’t let myself see before—the dark circles under his eyes, the wrinkles creasing his face. He was getting older, and the cares of the empire were weighing on him.
“The Virajendrans heard about what happened here,” he said. In a different tone of voice, it would have been an accusation, a reminder of my betrayal, but he was just stating a fact. “They’ve been launching raids across our southern border, probing our defenses, testing us for weakness. If I don’t respond in force, there will be an invasion.”
I saw it then. This was a calculated loss, a strategic withdrawal to strengthen the empire in the long term.
“If Zindh falls, we’ll have a river between Lahanur and our enemies,” my father said, laying it out for me. “Lahanur is one of our strongest provinces, filled with soldiers and fortresses, and unlike Zindh, I won’t have to cross the most barren desert in Daryastan to resupply it. And if Lahanur becomes our westernmost province, then Registan will serve as a buffer between us and the Safavians. As rich a province as Zindh is, the difficulty in defending it makes it expensive. I’m not sure our revenues will even suffer very much.
“But if I let the Virajendrans cross the Bhima River,” he continued, “they’ll swallow up two whole provinces before I can stop them. Maybe more than that. I can’t let that happen. Far better to content myself with the loss of Zindh than to endanger the heartland of the empire in some foolish bid to save it.”
It was all perfectly logical. All except one thing. “Why the charade, then, Father? Why not just take your zahhaks back and leave me in Bikampur where you found me? Or just kill me. That would be simpler.”
“I had intended to,” he allowed, and my heart lanced with pain, not from fear, but from sorrow. “You’re right, it would have been simpler just to execute you and be done with it. But Prince Karim of Mahisagar changed my mind.”
“Karim?” Had he gone and visited my father after the battle? “What did he say to you?”
“You were there,” he replied. “After the battle of Rohiri, Karim said that you had devised the plan to defeat the Firangi fleet, that you had stolen zahhaks from a heavily guarded palace, that you had devised a battle strategy that had crushed Javed Khorasani’s army, and that you had killed Javed and his son in aerial combat.”
I remembered that speech. It had been so out of place from a selfish bastard like Prince Karim Shah.
“It occurred to me then,” my father continued, “that if anyone in Daryastan could save Zindh, it would be the girl who had pulled herself out of the gutter to become a princess.”
The air went out of me in a rush. God, that was the nicest thing he’d ever said to me in my entire life. I was so confused. Why say something like that while leaving me here in this province to die? There was only one explanation that sprang to mind. “You think I can win?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know anything about you, Razia. I don’t know what you’re really capable of. My son, Prince Salim, was a spoiled brat and an effeminate disgrace. If he were in charge of this province it would fall within the hour. But you’re not him, are you?”
“No, Father,” I said, trying and failing to keep my voice from crackling with emotion.
“No,” he agreed. “You’re not a pampered prince. You’re a whore who was clever enough and ambitious enough and ruthless enough to make herself a provincial governor.”
He let that hang in the air for a moment before saying, “I don’t think you’re clever enough to save Zindh, but I’d have to be a fool to underestimate a courtesan who somehow orchestrated the worst defeat Nizam has suffered in my twenty-seven-year reign.”
I stared at the floor, torn between wanting to hug my father and wanting to murder him. I should have been so proud that I’d finally impressed him, finally made him see my worth, but it was hard when it was so clear that he didn’t see me as his child at all, just a pawn in Daryastan’s never-ending political game. Just once in my life, I wanted him to be a father to me like Udai was to Arjun. I wanted him to tell me that he cared about me, that he was proud of me. I wanted him to admit that I was more than just an effeminate disgrace. But I knew that was too much to ask.
My father stood up from his throne. “Come along, then, Razia. We’ll review the men I’ve left for you.”
“Yes, Father,” I murmured. I followed him out of the diwan-i-khas, but my head was still spinning from the things he’d said about me. I was hearing them over and over again in my mind. If anyone in Daryastan could save Zindh, it would be the girl who had pulled herself out of the gutter to become a princess . . .
CHAPTER 3
Sixteen cobalt-scaled thunder zahhaks stood in neat ranks of four, their riders holding them steady with firm hands on their reins. It had been years since I’d seen my father’s honor guard fully assembled, and the sight of them squeezed my heart with a familiar pressure of loss
