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

to her and said, “Your handmaidens have done their work well, Mother. I’ve never seen my wife-to-be look so beautiful.”

“It’s your fine gifts that have highlighted her beauty,” his mother replied. She was beaming at the pair of us, like we were a happy couple deeply in love, and not enemies brought together by conquest and political machinations. To me, she said, “Daughter-in-law, you are looking so lovely that I think perhaps it would please us all if you would dance for us this evening. I know my son would appreciate it, and it would give you a chance to try out your new dancing shoes.”

“Dancing shoes?” I wrinkled my nose, wondering what she was talking about.

Even Karim laughed. “Mother, I know you’re not familiar with courtesans, but they never wear shoes when they dance. It’s always performed barefoot.”

“Oh!” Asma exclaimed, holding a hand to her mouth, her cheeks reddening. “Forgive me, I feel so stupid . . .”

“No,” I rushed to say, “it’s a common enough mistake.” It wasn’t, but I wanted to smooth things over with her. I needed to keep things calm until the full moon.

“You’re such a sweet girl,” Asma told me, but her tone was all wrong. The embarrassment that I’d seen on her face had vanished in a flash. Her dark eyes seemed somehow harder and sharper. She snapped a finger and one of her servant girls came forward, producing from behind her back a pair of slippers with reinforced soles, giving them the curve needed to get good toeholds on boulders. They had wear marks, and were discolored from the waters of the lagoon, and they should have been hiding amid my clothes from Shikarpur.

Asma took the climbing shoes from her servant and held them up in front of my face. “If these aren’t dancing shoes, daughter-in-law, then what kind of shoes are they?”

I was too shocked to speak. This whole time I’d thought Asma was an idiot, that she was completely naive, and the truth was exactly the opposite. She’d been playing me for a fool all along.

Karim’s arm had tightened around my shoulders, but he was still plainly confused. He didn’t know what kind of shoes they were. If I could find some reasonable explanation for them, I might be able to get out of this alive.

Asma had been watching me closely, and she must have seen my decision to lie written across my face, because the moment I opened my mouth to speak, she cut me off. “You see, dear, I assumed they must have been dancing shoes, because the only time I’d ever seen their like before was many years ago, back home in the mountains of Yaruba, where shoes like these are sometimes used for scaling rocky cliffs. But I can’t for the life of me imagine what use you might have for climbing shoes here.” She looked pointedly at her son as she finished springing her trap. “And yet . . . they seem well-worn.” She tugged at the fraying fabric and worn leather on the toes with interest.

I glanced up at Karim, and one look at the black rage building behind his eyes told me that the full moon might as well have been a decade away. I wasn’t going to survive another week here. I might well not survive another hour.

CHAPTER 18

Your highness, I—”

Those were the only three words I managed to get out before Karim threw me up against the wall so hard that it drove the breath from my lungs. His hand flew up and clutched my throat, squeezing it shut just at the moment when I needed air most. My chest heaved and my body convulsed as I tried to breathe, but no air came. My vision was going gray at the edges and my legs were turning to jelly beneath me. If I didn’t do something fast, I was going to faint.

The trouble was, I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do. Oh, I knew how to fight, I knew where to hit him. I thought maybe I could make him let go, even though he was a lot bigger and stronger than I was, even though he was angry and ready for it. But if I did that, then what? I’d been roughed up by enough clients over the years to know that if I hit back it was always worse. They had the power, and I didn’t, and they never let me forget it. And Karim had power over my sisters, and Hina too. If I hit back, if I defended myself, he might punish them for my crime, and I couldn’t bear that.

And anyway, I’d waited too long. My knees went weak. The world started to get well and truly dim. I’d been counting on him to let go, but as I hung there by the neck, all of my weight supported by the bulging muscles of Karim’s arm, I realized that I’d miscalculated just how angry he was, just how cruel, just how willing to see me dead. I’d believed too much in my own value. I’d thought he wanted the throne of Nizam enough to spare my life, but maybe I’d been wrong about that too.

I woke up when I hit the floor, aware only then that I’d been unconscious. I was gasping for air, clutching my throat, which was so tender that it made it hard to breathe. I had barely managed to recover my senses when Karim grabbed me by the hair and jerked me to my feet. My scalp burned with pain, and I feared that he might tear my hair out in his rage. I kicked with my legs, getting them under me, standing on my tiptoes to take the pressure off.

He was shouting, bellowing really, sounding more like an angry beast than a man. He’d been shouting the whole time, but I’d been so disoriented that I hadn’t heard a word of