Gifting Fire Alina Boyden (romantic story to read .txt) 📖

the garden, followed by three acid zahhak riders whose mounts pranced like proud horses, their keen red eyes taking in the river zahhaks around me with a predatory eagerness that sent shivers down my spine. One glance at the river zahhaks told me that they were nervous. I wondered if they were often made prey for acid zahhaks in the wild, on account of their lack of breath, or if these river zahhaks just remembered their last encounter with the acid zahhaks of Mahisagar a few days ago.

Whatever the case, the hundred soldiers and seven zahhaks resembled not at all the usual welcoming party for a new bride arriving in her husband’s home. It was a completely unsubtle reminder of the fact that I was a prisoner, dragged here against my will, whatever pretty words Karim might try to spin to the contrary. But Sultan Ahmed of Mahisagar had never struck me as a particularly subtle man. I thought that was to my advantage, because I was going to need to outwit him if I was going to get myself out of this mess, and he was already starting the match with the deck stacked heavily in his favor.

I sat uneasily on Sultana’s back, waiting for Karim and his men to dismount, but they hadn’t yet.

The tension was broken by the arrival of about two dozen women dressed in chaniya cholis with bright embroidery and delicate shisheh mirror-work covering every inch of fabric. Their wrists and ankles were festooned with golden bangles and their faces hidden by the diaphanous silk of their dupattas. Like Hina’s celas, they were unarmed, and from the quality of their jewelry and the fine silk of their clothes, I suspected that these were the royal women of Mahisagar. Their arrival calmed some of the fears that had been gnawing at the back of my mind. I didn’t think the court women would have been present had Karim and his father intended to harm me.

Karim swung down from the saddle as the women approached, and he came forward to embrace one of them in particular. As her saffron dupatta was covering her face, I couldn’t make out her identity, but her words gave me the answer. “Welcome home, son.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Karim replied, with a politeness that I wasn’t used to seeing from him.

“How was the flight?” she asked, her tone suggesting that she was either totally oblivious to the presence of so many zahhaks and so many armed men, or so accustomed to it that it bothered her not in the slightest. Wasn’t she the least bit worried that I might use my thunder zahhak to murder her and her son? She couldn’t be ignorant of our history, could she?

“The air was smooth as glass,” Karim told her, “and we weren’t battling too much of a headwind. But it’s been a long day, and I’m sure that we’ll all be eager to get some rest before long.”

Karim’s mother turned to look at me, and made her way over, followed closely by her son and her handmaidens. She kept her dupatta covering the majority of her face for modesty’s sake, which made me feel a little exposed, as I had but loosely wrapped mine over my hair. I wasn’t used to hiding my face, not when it had always been part of what my clients had paid to see.

“There’s nothing to be frightened over, dear,” Karim’s mother said.

“Frightened?” I asked, wondering what had made her choose that word.

She gestured to me, still sitting atop my zahhak, and said, “It’s normal to be nervous when coming to a new home, but there’s nothing to be worried about. My husband and I are very happy to welcome you into our family. Karim has told me so much about you.”

“Has he?” I asked, wondering just what stories he’d told his mother about me. Had he forgotten to mention that I was a hijra and had spent years living as a courtesan? Those were typically not the qualifications most sought after in a primary wife. Most men would never consider marrying a courtesan, let alone a hijra.

“He has,” she assured me. “And so has my husband. He’s eager to see you again.”

Eager to see me again? Somehow I doubted that, but the woman’s smile, barely visible through the thin silk fabric of her dupatta, was enough to convince me that I wouldn’t be immediately murdered if I dismounted. I unstrapped myself from the saddle and slid down to the ground, taking a moment to smooth the wrinkles from my ajrak clothes.

As soon as I dismounted, Karim’s mother stepped forward, letting her dupatta slide just enough that I could make out her face, though it was still kept hidden from the men on account of Sultana and Sakina, the two zahhaks almost completely blocking us from view. She looked like Karim, after a fashion. Her eyes were the same nearly black color as his, the ideal sought after by so many courtesans even in Nizam, and their corners were creased with laugh lines that made it seem that she was accustomed to smiling—not the expression I typically associated with Karim and his father. Her skin was several shades darker than mine, a fine, deep brown that matched well with her lustrous hair, which was still a uniform black, without the slightest trace of gray, though I knew she must have been nearing forty.

“My name is Asma, but you may call me mother-in-law,” she said.

Though her words were mild, I felt like this was a test of sorts, and I was eager to pass it, to help take some of the suspicion off of myself, to help hide my true feelings after I’d done such a poor job of it back in Shikarpur. So I said, “Thank you for welcoming me into your home, mother-in-law.”

Asma’s ruby-red lips pulled back into a brilliant smile, suggesting that I’d given a suitable response. “No thanks are necessary; it is my pleasure and my honor to