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I huff a laugh. “Don’t worry. Asha’s never said an impolite thing about you.”
“She thinks I’m soft. That being soft makes me weak,” says Dinah.
I shrug. “Is she wrong?”
She blinks. “Not about the soft part. But I suppose if I tell you I’m not weak, I’ll just make myself sound less credible.”
I take in the girl, assessing whether she’s up to the task. “I need you to get a message to your sister.”
Her perfect brow shoots up. “That we’re coming for her?”
“Yes. But something else, too.”
Dinah’s perfect features go blank for a moment. “Why did you wait to get me alone before asking me?”
I take another sip from her glass. “I think you already know the answer to that.”
Her eyes turn steely. “If it’s because Kiran won’t like it, that means it’s putting Asha in danger, which means I won’t like it either.”
I shake my head. “There’s nothing more dangerous than going in and making decisions without all the relevant information.”
Dinah narrows her eyes. “What is it you think Asha will do with the information?”
I swallow. “I think she’ll make her own decisions. And that those aren’t for any of the rest of us to make.”
CHAPTER 96
ASHA
“Asha.”
My name is an echo from the hall, a whisper underneath a shadow of a veil.
Kind and familiar and…
“Dinah?” I rasp, jolting from my place in the corner, where I’ve been… well, I’m not exactly sure what I was doing. The hours, days—they’re all melding into one another around here.
My sister is disguised as a servant girl, her luxurious hair covered in a crimson veil that stretches from head to foot.
Servants, male and female alike, are not allowed to cover their faces, something Az ensures as a precaution, in case anyone thinks to sneak an assassin inside the palace unnoticed.
But other than that, Dinah doesn’t look like my sister at all.
She’s packed muscle onto her slight frame since the last time I saw her, like she’s been out hauling crates in the desert. But that isn’t what awes me. It’s her face, smudged with dirt under her lids that makes her look sickly. Paint smooths out her normally almond-shaped eyes, giving them a rounder look. More paint, a few shades darker and lighter than her skin, has been applied to various features, dulling her beautiful cheekbones and making her look rather ordinary.
This is not the breathtaking girl I’d once been so confident the cruel king would take to be his beautiful human bride, only to slaughter her the next morning.
This girl is a servant. At least, she looks the part. Able to slip in and out without turning anyone’s head.
“Do you like my paint?” she asks, her soothing voice as familiar as ever. So familiar that it’s almost unnerving to hear my sister’s voice echo from a mouth so much thinner than her own.
“You don’t even look like yourself,” I whisper.
This is the point when her eyes would normally twinkle, but even they seem duller. How had she managed that? “Well, that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?”
“How?” I whisper.
Dinah shrugs. “I’ve made some new…colleagues over the past few months. Some of them have marvelous skill sets that come quite in handy.”
