She frowned at me, and I nearly withered under her gaze. It was as if she were telling me exactly what she thought of someone who was favored by the Viceroy.
After a pause, she cleared her throat. “Thank you for what you did. For the kitchen girl.” She nodded stiffly, as if it were foreign to her to express thanks. “The staff will remember that.” Then as swiftly as it came, her sweet mood was gone.
At the mention of Mishah, my stomach tightened. It wasn’t for praise that I had fought the general. If I hadn’t helped her, I would no longer be able to look myself in the eye.
She laced up my red frock briskly, the long dress falling gently past my knees. Then she brushed out my wet hair and braided it down the side and over one shoulder, my curls looking much more manageable.
“Thank you,” I whispered softly. It had been a long time since anyone had braided my hair for me, and I touched the plait, thinking of my mother.
Gul snorted. “Do you think we’re finished? Wait until you have to go to the feast. It will take hours to get you ready.”
I shuddered at the thought of spending hours primping for a feast with the black-eyed Viceroy who looked as though he would enjoy torturing small animals. “Well, that sounds exciting.”
Gul rimmed my eyes with black kohl and put on a golden jewelry set with matching jhumka earrings and a choker.
I decided to test the waters and ask the one thing I desperately wanted to know. “Gul, I had personal items in my other room, and bangles when they’d arrested me—do you know where they are?” I tried to make my voice nonchalant, even though I could hear my heart hammering between us louder than thunder.
“The guards were ordered to bring them for you. They are on your bed.”
My heart slowed its panicked beat as I whipped my head around to see my satchel. I dove for it, unwrapping my mother’s journal and holding it to my chest. Her bangles were tucked inside the bag, but Queen Azari’s haath phool was gone.
Still, it was relieving to even hold my mother’s bangles, and to still have her words with me. I slipped the thick bangles on my wrist, tucking them under my sleeve and vowing never to take them off again.
The cool metal against my skin was a reminder of why I was still here, and how much I had to lose if I didn’t continue.
But why would they give them back? Perhaps the Viceroy didn’t think they were important like the haath phool was.
“I wouldn’t have thought the Viceroy would think of returning these,” I said to Gul, surveying the thick bangles gracing my arm.
From what I had seen of him, he was cruel and selfish. The type of man to completely ignore those he deemed lesser than him, and he certainly wouldn’t have her personal things sent to her room.
Gul stopped what she was doing and turned to face me. “It wasn’t him who thought of that. it was the captain. He is the one who ordered it.”
“Captain?” I frowned. “The fae with the silver hair? He’s the captain of the palace guard?”
She shook her head. “Captain of the Salt Guard. His job is to hunt rebels traitorous to the Empire and bring them to heel.” Her mouth grew thin. “You don’t want to get involved with him either.”
It sounded dangerously close to what the Citadel did to my family, hunted down those they’d deemed traitors to the Empire, even though we’d never once sworn our loyalty to them. “What’s his name?” I asked her, wanting to put a name to those dark eyes. He saved me in the forest, only for him to be my jailer at the palace. At least I should know more about him. “The captain I mean?”
Her brows dipped at my question. “Kiyan. Don’t know his family name. He’s one of us though, from the River Court, not like the Viceroy. That’s why the Viceroy promoted him to the position—the captain knows how to hunt the rebels because they are just like him.”
Safiyya would hate him.
He was just like every Astolan who worked at the Citadel, betraying his countrymen for the good of an Empire that would never sacrifice for them in return.
Just like you, Safiyya would say.
I thought of Kiyan’s dark eyes burning into me when I was in the dungeon, and of how they darkened when the Viceroy spoke of the relic.
Kiyan. Captain of the Salt Guard.
I’d stay as far away from him as I could, if only to stop him finding out all my secrets.
I smiled brightly at Gul, and our eyes met in the mirror. “Thank you, Gul.” She’d given me far more than a new dress and neat hair. And now, I had to take my measure of my new situation.
Chapter 24
Dear Amma,
