“I’ve missed the two of you terribly,” I told them, now that we had a moment alone together.
“Once all this is over, you’ll have to visit my summer palace in Tamtra,” Tamara offered. “I always wanted to show you the waterfalls, but they wouldn’t let you leave Safavia. Now you can go where you please.”
“If I can convince my father not to execute me for this,” I muttered.
“We won’t let him do that,” Haider declared, placing his firm hand on my shoulder. “We grew up together, Razia, and I’ve always considered you the younger sister I never had. I promise you that I won’t let your father hurt you.”
“You really think Safavia would go to war for me?” I shook my head to show him how likely I thought that was.
“I think once this is over, you’ll have a stronger force of zahhaks than any subahdar in Zindh,” he replied. “And your father would be a fool to move against you then.”
“I hope you’re right,” I whispered, but I wasn’t as sure as he was. My father had seemed to want to protect me from Karim, at least a little, but when push came to shove, he’d let me be married off against my will to my rapist. How could I trust him not to hurt me when he was willing to do something like that?
“Razia!” Hina called, jarring me from my thoughts.
I turned and saw her riding toward me on Sakina’s back, the cannon barrel pointed skyward to keep clear of the zahhak’s long, sinuous neck. That neck would be held horizontal in flight, allowing the barrel to come down and face forward. The upper position would also make it easier to quickly reach the breechblock for reloading. At least I hoped it would. Whether a rider could really focus on flying and shooting a cannon at the same time remained to be seen. For that matter, I still wasn’t certain they’d even be able to get off the ground when carrying so much extra weight.
“Do you think she’ll be able to fly with all that?” I asked.
“She’ll get in the air,” Hina assured me. She tossed me a balled-up bedsheet, which I caught easily enough. It was big, but still scarcely a quarter of the size of a zahhak’s wing area. That would make it a good test. If she could hit this, she could definitely hit an enemy flier.
I saw the way Hina’s celas had gathered to watch with their river zahhaks at their sides. Sunil’s men were pressed in close too, as were Sanghar’s fliers. The look of desperate hope on the face of every Zindhi in the courtyard wasn’t lost on me. For centuries, they had been conquered by outsiders because their zahhaks lacked breath. But if this worked, then they might for once be able to choose their own destiny. I didn’t know what that meant for me, for my relationship with my father, for my future, but I knew that it was the right thing to do.
“Sultana, we have to fly now,” I told my zahhak, who had fallen asleep beside her old friend. She opened one groggy eyelid, her emerald eye finding me at once, and when she saw that I was beckoning her, she perked right up. With a yawn that exposed teeth bigger than my hands, she sank her wing claws into the ice and levered herself up with practiced ease, not slipping despite the slick surface. She stretched, shook out her wings and her tail, and then padded over to me with a prance in her step, ready to get to work.
“That’s my girl,” I told her, giving her a kiss on the nose before climbing into the saddle and strapping myself in. I petted her neck scales a few times, and then took up the reins and nodded to Hina to let her know that I was ready.
“After you, your highness,” Hina said, sweeping her hand toward the clearest path across the courtyard, one that was long enough to let a zahhak run up to speed before bounding her way into the air.
“Let’s go, Sultana,” I said, giving her the forward pressure on my seat to get her moving forward, tapping her neck gently with my heels to let her know it was time to take off.
She needed no more urging than that. With a surge of her powerful wing muscles, she threw herself into a headlong gallop down the path, taking several long bounds before springing up, beating her wings, and kicking off with her crane-like rear legs. It was a moment of violent action, followed by a stillness that nothing else in the world could rival as we began to fly.
She beat her wings hard, jarring me in my seat as we climbed to get over the walls of the palace; but soon they were far below us as we made a lazy, spiraling left-hand turn through the night sky. How I had missed this. Being kept away from Sultana had been one of the worst parts of being engaged to Karim. It had been like running away from home all over again. But now we were reunited once more, and after I won this battle, we’d never be separated again, I would make sure of it.
I twisted in my seat to see how Hina was getting on. Sakina’s takeoff run was longer than usual, but her bigger wings and her lighter body helped to compensate for the weight of the cannon, and I was surprised how easily she got herself into the air. She looked less buoyant than usual, and I knew that to some degree her performance would be impaired by the weight and drag of the gun and its breechblocks, but she was still an exquisitely maneuverable animal, thanks to that forked tail of hers and those pointed wings,
