The gold key was cold against my chest, alongside my sister’s ring, reminding me of what I needed to focus on.
But something about the way the girl had lured the beast away from the zulmi woman stopped me from leaving her. I’d spent too long killing and torturing peris for the Viceroy.
Seeing someonesavea life felt novel.
Perhaps helping an incredibly idiotic girl in the woods escape a halmasti would balance some of my sins.
Besides, my hands itched to fight the beast. It had been a long time since I’d been engaged in a fight where I didn’t have one hand tied behind my back or wasn’t enacting the orders of the Court of Salt.
I took a step forward as the girl pushed away from the boulder, at last realizing that the halmasti might realize she wasn’t in the tree anymore. She began walking backward, edging away from the tree she’d climbed, keeping her eye on the direction of the beast. It was a good plan, but she still wouldn’t escape.
She was a few feet from me, not realizing that I was behind her, standing in the shadows of the forest.
I waited until she pressed herself against me, feeling the shock flood through her body as I wrapped my arm around her stomach to prevent her from bolting and my hand over her mouth to stifle her scream. She struggled against me, but if she alerted the halmasti to our location now, it would be much more difficult.
She smelled... different.
Like mangoes, and dusty parchment, and spilled ink. There was something decidedly un-peri about her. I lifted my hand from her stomach to pull back her hair. I sucked in a breath at the sight of her rounded ear.
Human.
How could that be? A human this far east and outside of the Salt Court?
The girl didn’t seem to be enthralled, but it was sometimes difficult to tell.
She’d stiffened when I’d pulled back her hair and made another muffled scream into my hand.
Irritation rose up in my chest. She was going to get us both killed.
“Don’t. Make. A. Sound,” I said, my voice a low rumble as I glanced over at the halmasti by the tree. “Do you understand?”
She nodded against my hand, and I released her, drawing the dagger at my waist in case the halmasti heard us. At the very least, I wanted to be prepared. The girl turned to face me, and I blinked.
I hadn’t seen many humans—the few we had in River had been brought from Salt from before the time of the wall, enthralled by high peris who were amused by how malleable they were. They were usually frail, their skin drained of color, hair flat and oily, eyes glazed over.
But this female’s hair was dark and enormous, a riot of curls the color of deep tree bark, a heavy storm cloud behind her. Her eyes were just as big, and on her nose sat that gold contraption, which she kept nervously pushing up as she looked at me. It suited her, even if it was impractical to be wearing something over your eyes while running through the forest away from a halmasti.
She looked...alive.
Vibrant. Warm. Like a golden flower in the middle of a desolate wasteland.
“Who the fuck are you?” the girl demanded, her hands planting on her hips, the anger in her voice causing my own temper to flare up.
It seemed the flower had thorns.
I smiled at her, knowing it was not a reassuring one. I didn’t have to be here; I could let her get torn to shreds by a beast five times her size and not bother myself with any of this.
“I’m the one who’s going to save your fucking life.”
Chapter 14
I love you. Even when you’re not here and I have to imagine your hands in my hair, massaging hot mustard oil into my scalp. Even when I can’t remember your voice anymore. I love you, I love you, I love you.
—Excerpt from a letter from Mahira Nazir to Zimran Nazir, contained in the journal of Mahira Nazir
Yaseema
I could still feel his hand pressed to my skin, so tight it had likely left an imprint on my stomach. He’d held me in a vise, his body like a solid wall behind me, his voice so low it was almost a growl. When he released me, I half expected him to be another beast, ready to tear my head off when I looked at him.
