Which meant she had no intention of producing it.
She was going to steal it.
I reached in to pull it out from her skirt, but at the last moment stopped myself. She didn’t know I knew she had it, and Reza thought we’d lost it to the rebels.
It might be a good idea to keep it where it was.
She made an incoherent sound from the bed, and I placed her skirt back over the chair where she’d had it, careful to make it look undisturbed, draping the same blouse over the top. I knew she was keeping something from me, that there was something she wasn’t telling me. I just didn’t expect that she’d be able to fool me so thoroughly.
Never again.
Chapter 42
Dear Amma,
I wish I could talk to you about him, I feel like I don’t understand what’s happening between us. There is so much to worry about, so much to be afraid of and yet my heart refuses to listen and only wants to love.
—Letter from Yaseema Nazir to Mahira Nazir
Yaseema
The journey back to the palace was uneventful, but things between Kiyan and I were tenuous since we’d kissed, and since I’d healed him in my tent. Since he’d slept beside me again, and I’d felt his breathing like it was the pulse in my veins.
Occasionally I would reach up and touch my lips, reminding myself he’d been there. It was strange, I could still feel the imprint of his hands on my hips, still hear his whispered words about the colors in my hair, and yet I felt more distant from him than ever before.
It was a mistake. I knew that.
I should never have kissed him back, never touched him. I should never have closed my eyes beside him and felt safe.
The first thing I’d done when I woke up and saw him gone was check my skirt to make sure the crown was still there.
I’d cursed myself for not waking up before him, but he must have slipped out early, because the first rays of morning were still filtering through the tent and everything remained undisturbed. I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back on the edge of the bed that had been conjured with sticks and leaves. I just had to make it through the next few days, get close enough to the River so that I could use the crown to destroy the magical barrier.
Then I could go home.
And leave all this behind.
My rib cage felt tight when I thought about it.
Every step toward the palace was a step toward freedom, toward bringing the wall down. But for some reason my heart felt heavier when I imagined doing it. My fingers curled into the palm of my hand, remembering Kiyan’s heartbeat underneath my skin when I’d pulled the poison out of him and felt the steady thrum.
Healing him, experiencing that for the first time, had connected us more somehow. It had made me hyper aware of him—as if we were tethered together by the bangles, by my mother’s magic, by the fact that I’d saved his life with my power.
And then that kiss.
There was something between us that was more than attraction or circumstance, but a well inside me that he filled with his presence—safety, longing, hope. Why did it have to be him, and why now?
But my mother’s words filtered back to me, the ones I’d read over and over in the journal I no longer had.
I’m going across the River, Yaseema.And I’m going to save us all.
She hadn’t done it, and now it was up to me. It was my job to protect my family, to save Safiyya and my grandmother from the Empress.
It was my job to start the revolution in Astola.
I rode on my iron-legged steed at the back of the company, with Kiyan ahead staring determinedly forward. His coldness toward me this morning was confusing and something churned in my gut at not being able to speak to him.
But I reminded myself that it was for the best. I was leaving, and I couldn’t afford to give my heart to him before I went.
