32
A blanket of stunned silence falls over the amphitheater.
Lakia storms into the center of the battle ring and repeats her declaration. “I challenge the viraji to a duel!”
Her voice drives a spear of dread through my heart. Usually Lakia does not bother with her husband’s lesser-ranked women, but she let her pride override her caution once before, when she challenged Mathura. That battle ended in Lakia’s triumph but left the courtesan lame. I had thought that my securing the throne might draw Lakia back into the ring, but now that it has, I question my ability to see this through.
The spectators stomp their feet in support of prolonging the tournament, but I cannot tell if Tarek’s mind is muddied enough with apong to allow me to fight. Lakia wants me gone from her husband’s palace, and her desire is so strong that she is willing to risk her rank as kindred. I have no doubt that she challenged me with full confidence that she will defeat me, as she did Mathura. Lakia plans to win, maintain her rank, and be rid of me for good.
“You wish to fight my viraji?” Tarek calls down to his number one wife.
“As kindred, it is within my power to challenge any wife or courtesan to a duel.”
“And it is within the viraji’s right to decline,” Tarek reminds her.
Mathura could have declined the kindred’s challenge, but she did not. Neither will I. “I accept,” I exclaim. “On two conditions. The kindred and I will battle hand to hand—no weapons—and if I win, your courtesans may go free.”
Lakia calls out her reply. “I agree to those terms, but I have my own condition. If the viraji loses, your courtesans die.”
I curse her under my breath. Tarek was already planning to kill the courtesans, but this way, he can murder them with the backing of every spectator here, and I will wear the blame.
The rajah’s courtesans cry with outrage. They do not know that Tarek already aims to be rid of them. I look for Mathura in the group of those protesting and find her staring at me in silence. She is too far away for me to read her expression, but I pray that she knows that I will defend her life.
The rajah raises his hand for quiet. His infuriated courtesans are the last to hush. Natesa and Anjali hold on to me as we wait in tense silence for his decision. Tarek’s vanity at having selected me as his champion has been compromised by the concession of my contenders. The only way to confirm that he chose a warrior befitting of the status of Enlil’s hundredth rani is for me to shed sufficient blood this day, but he may not want to let me compete now that he has me locked in as his bride.
“You have my support,” he says, lowering his arm in finality. “The battle ends when one of you concedes.”
Panic crowds in around me. I am to battle the kindred. Great Anu, I hope I made the right choice.
Tarek returns to his throne, and Natesa and Anjali press close to my side.
“Did you know Lakia would challenge you?” Natesa asks.
“I thought she might. She’s as vain as Tarek.”
Anjali frowns up at the rajah. “I hope you have a plan,” she says.
My deal with Lakia has threatened their lives, but I suspect that Anjali is displeased for another reason. My agreement with her father had been going as planned, but now I am risking his ability to retrieve the Zhaleh.
For me, this is not about the book. Hastin and the bhutas left Deven to be executed. I no longer trust that they will free the courtesans.
Natesa wraps my cut arm with a piece of cloth provided by a healer. “Do you know what you’re doing?” she says.
“I’m doing what Ki would have me do. Pray for me.”
She ties off the bandage with a solemn frown. “I already have.”
Lakia waits for me in the battle ring. The blood of the thief she killed speckles her trousers. My uniform has gone brown with dust. I join her, straining to stand tall against my fear. I have lost favor with the crowd; fewer chant my name than they do hers.
She needles me with a smirk. “You naive girl. You really think you can defeat me?”
“Afraid I might?” I hunker down into my fighting stance.
“You better pray you do.” She glares with the heat of a thousand suns.
The gongs ring. Lakia lunges and seizes a fistful of my hair. She swings me around by the head, and lights explode in my vision.
“I am the only wife Tarek needs,” she says. She knees me in the back, pushing me forward.
I stumble away and turn back to her. “He doesn’t love you or me. He has only ever loved Yasmin.” I somersault forward. My feet connect with her lower abdomen. She lurches but stays on her feet.
“I am the kindred. No one, especially not Yasmin’s daughter, will steal my rank from me.”
She swings, but I am so startled by her words that I do not duck. Her right fist connects with my chin, and her left fist drives into my belly. I double over, robbed of breath. She locks an arm around my head.
“You didn’t know.” She punches me in the side, crunching my rib cage. “The second I saw the dead infant boy next to Yasmin’s body, I knew he wasn’t hers.”
Lakia knees me in the face. I fall on all fours, my nose gushing blood. She kicks me in the side. Pain shoots through my torso and into my lungs. Every breath is like inhaling shards of iron.
“The midwife said the child was a healthy girl when she fetched Tarek and me, but by the time we reached Yasmin’s room, the baby was a dead boy. The midwife claimed she was confused, but I knew she was lying. I could not be so fortunate as to lose my sister and Tarek’s heir.” She kicks my ribs again.
I roll onto my side, wheezing.
“I knew you would return,” she says, “and when you walked in looking like Yasmin, with your long hair”—she tugs my braid so hard that stars shoot across my vision—“I knew the time had come to defend what is mine.”
Lakia stomps on my forearm, where Natesa sliced me. My arm explodes with agony. The kindred shoves me onto my back and sits on my chest. I grunt under her weight.
“I told Tarek you are Yasmin’s daughter—his daughter—but he refused to listen.” Her knee digs into my side, pressing on the injured ribs. My head reels as though I am rolling downhill. “He refuses to see what is plainly before him, the lovesick fool.”
Lakia squeezes down on my windpipe, sealing off my air. I clutch her bare shoulders and try to push her off, but she is immovable. My chest burns for air. I burrow my fingers into her skin, reaching for her inner fire. I tug gently, threading out her light. Her fingers cramp, letting up on my neck, and I gasp a cleansing breath.
“If you’re right that I’m Yasmin’s daughter, you’re wrong about one thing.” I wrap my powers around Lakia’s soul-fire. She sags closer, her color graying. “I am not Tarek’s daughter. I am the daughter of a bhuta.”
I release her, and Lakia falls on her back, groaning. I straddle her hips and hold her down.
“Concede and I let you live. Speak a word about who I am and I will use your bones as kindling.”
Lakia spits at me. “Never.”
I place my hands on her face and push my inner fire into her. Her eyes go wide, the rims drying. Her lips crack, the skin peeling. My hands tremble from the effort of holding back the full force of my powers.
“Concede.”
I cannot push any more fire into her without scorching her, but I hold her as close to my blazing inner flame as possible.
Still, she does not relent. She stinks of singed hair, and her skin goes papery. My fingers start to glow. I have to pull back, or I will kill her, and everyone will see what I am.
“Concede,” I half plead, half demand.
Lakia nods in surrender.
I shove myself off her and rise to the people’s applause. Dizziness pummels me. I bend forward and clutch my knees. My head pulses with a headache of sharp needles digging into my eyes. I shut them and beg for unconsciousness to come.
“Behind you!” Natesa shouts.
I turn to see Lakia flying at me with a dagger. I grab her wrist and grapple against her. My legs quake, and I sink under her might. She steadily lowers the pointed tip toward my jugular. I have no powers left to parch her. The effort it took to restrain myself from scorching her has depleted my fuel, lowering my soul-fire to shrunken warmth.
My knees meet the dirt. Ki, help me.
Lakia looms over me, lowering her face to mine. The tip of the knife pricks my throat, releasing a warm stream of blood down my neckline. “Time for you to join Yasmin.”
And Jaya and Deven.
I am tempted to let her end this, to let her send me to the Beyond with those I love, but I will not go yet. I cannot leave this life until I finish my godly purpose.
I reach inside myself for the last of my dwindling strength, and I push back at Lakia. I straighten and slam my forehead into hers, stunning her. Then I twist the blade around and plunge it into her chest.
Lakia’s eyes bulge. My own eyes brim with tears. Her blood seeps around our hands between us, hot and slick. If her words were true, she is more than the rajah’s kindred. She is my kindred. My mother’s sister. The last of my family.
She pitches forward. I catch her and totter to my knees, laying her on her back. She rasps, her breaths loosening to watery rattles, and then she breathes no more.
Roaring ovations drift over me. I look up at the imperial box and see Tarek clapping hardest. Lakia would be devastated to see him applaud her defeat. All she had ever wanted was for him to love her, to be his one and only. His true kindred.
I sit heavily beside the fallen rani. Resting my hand on her still chest, I send up a prayer of thanks to the gods for sparing my life. I have gotten what I came for. I am to wed the monster of the Tarachand Empire. I am to be the rajah’s one hundredth queen.