Safiyya inhaled sharply, her eyes blowing wide at the piece of jewelry in my hand.
“That cannot be what I think it is.”
Instead of responding, Imet Nani’s searing gaze, the one that always knew what I was thinking, no matter how I tried to hide it.
I wasn’t hiding now.
“You did it,” Nani said, her voice filled with awe. Something warm flooded my chest at the reverence and pride in her tone. “I thought you might.”
“Eh?” Safiyya whirled on her. “You thought she might steal an ancient fae haath phool from the Citadel and sentence us all to death? You might have let us know sooner, then. We could have all packed our bags earlier.”
“Hush, Safiyya,” Nani chided. “We have more important things to do than bicker. You always have conflict with Yaseema, but she is not the enemy. You must save your energy and ire for those truly at fault, like the Citadel.”
“Trust me, I have enough ire for the both of them,” she muttered while rolling her eyes.
“This isn’t something to joke about, Safiyya!” I cried, advancing on her. “You know what they’ll do when they discover one of their most important relics is gone.”
She curled her lips in a vicious smile. “Why did you steal it, then?”
I gestured to Nani’s shriveled garden patch outside, that had nothing but a few onions left. Then to the rotting mango trees in the orchard.
“You don’t think there’s a reason for all this? Our food isn’t growing anymore. Astolans are getting weaker and the Empire stronger. With every fae artifact they take, with every piece of fae gold removed from Astola, we lose our life magic that the land depends on. But what if there’s a way we could get it all back?”
Safiyya stared at me. “Now you grow a spine?”
Nani put her hands on my shoulders, her eyes bright and wet. She was a frail woman, but her arms still had weight, as if she were a statuesque queen and not a starving Astolan, watching her life drain away.
Safiyya whirled on her. “I supposeyou’regoing to say it’s Yaseema’s destiny? To follow her mother across the River, even though she never came back for her own daughter.”
“Go and pack, Safiyya,” my grandmother said abruptly, censure lacing her tone.
Safiyya scowled, but didn’t seem upset by what she said.
Just like I wasn’t offended with Safiyya’s words to me.
It was true.
My mother had crossed the Basrol River; she had left me and waded into the fae lands looking for a way to destroy the wall. And she had likely ended up dead. I knew that was the only way she wouldn’t have come back for me.
And now I was going to finish what she started.
A cool calm settled over me, the feeling I got when I found exactly the right book I’d been searching for. This was the right choice.
I met my cousin’s rageful gaze and knew my own contained a quiet resolve.
I was doing this for my mother, and I was doing this for Astola.
“This is about more than my mother, Safiyya, and you know it. And this is about more than us. Nani is right, we are not each other’s enemies. We want the same things.”
Safiyya’s lips tightened. Then she stood up on shaky legs, the effects of her illness still impacting her. She shook off her blanket and staggered to the kitchen, her steps growing stronger with each one. She pulled something out of the cupboard and tossed it at me. I caught it in midair.
“I’ll let you have the last edible mango.”
A shocked laugh bubbled out of me. Safiyya threw me a tight smile and then went to her room. I followed her, watching as she rummaged around her closet, throwing clothes into a bag. Then she slung a rusted rifle over her shoulder that I didn’t even know she had.
Safiyya looked me up and down, taking in my torn skirt and bruised arm, and then finally resting on the fae Queen’s bracelet I still held.
“Finally, you’re acting like a Nazir.”
