Third Daughter (The Dharian Affairs, Book One) (38 page)

Aniri frowned. The Queen was more than prepared to address her court and could certainly do so in any state she wished. But the prince did not appear surprised in the least. Aniri had a feeling they had arranged this little delay ahead of time. But for what purpose?

“Of course, your majesty.” He bowed again. “Please take your time and let us know when you are ready. There is no rush.”

The Queen smiled broadly and patted the prince’s arm as she swept past him. “Thank you, dear boy.”

Aniri was nonplussed by her mother’s sudden exit. The room’s heavy wooden door clicked solidly behind her. That left the prince and her alone together.

“Well, that was… interesting,” Aniri offered. “But I’m happy for you, Ash. You have the alliance you wanted all along.”

Ash took a few slow steps toward her, seeming to choose his words as carefully as his footfalls. “Your mother has agreed to build a new rail line to connect our countries.”

“Something that should have been done long ago.” She clasped her hands in front of her and glanced down at them. The half-Dharian, half-Sik crest leftover from the Bajiran tinker’s kindly help was oddly symbolic of the new treaty.

“And this new trade agreement we’ve signed…” Ash was only a couple steps away and still inching toward her. “…will include transport by skyship as well as rail.”

Aniri looked into his eyes. “It’s just what your brother would have wanted.”

He stood next to her. “We have the beginnings of a lasting peace between our countries.”

“Nisha will be so pleased. And I think your mother would be incredibly proud of you.” She decided not to mention that hers would accept him as a son in a heartbeat.

He had continued to inch closer and now stood very still and close. She could smell the freshly washed garments her mother’s court had given him and the faint tang of the ink clinging to his fingers.

“My business here is done.” His eyes peered into hers, solemn and expectant. He was saying goodbye—she could feel it in every minute movement of his body. He had the peace he needed, and she had nothing to offer him but her thanks… and even with that, she had done a poor job.

“You’re not quite done, Prince Malik,” she said softly, looking up into his eyes. “I believe I still owe you a proper thank-you for saving my life.”

She took his cheeks in her hands—now free of bandages, so she could feel the roughness of his unshaven face—and pulled his face down for a kiss. Her fingers slipped into his hair, and she tried to show with her lips what she couldn’t put into words. He met her kiss with a tenderness that made her heart race.

She stretched the moment as long as she dared and still have the guise of it being a measure of thanks and not an offer of more. Pulling away was much harder than she expected.

But she didn’t get far. Ash’s hand found the small of her back and brought her tight against him. His other hand cupped the back of her head, and his lips found hers again. Only his kiss was no small press of lips, but deep and demanding. He crushed her body to his, bending it back with the fierce need of his lips for hers. She allowed it to consume her, stunned and absorbed completely by his desire.

When he gentled his kiss, retreating from the demands he had just placed, she nearly clutched at him to bring him back, even though their bodies were separated only by a whisper. When her arms didn’t move, she realized they hung at her sides, shocked into limpness.

His breath was hot on her lips, still kissing her with their closeness.

“That,” she said, equally breathless, “wasn’t very proper.”

His lips curved, and he kissed her again, soft touches this time, on her lips and cheeks. The hand that held her head skimmed forward, his fingertips drawing lines across her cheek and down her neck, sending sparks racing across her body and setting brushfires in her heart.

When he pulled back, his eyes were blazing with an amber fire.

“Third Daughter of Dharia.” His voice was softer than his kiss. “Is there any possibility I may convince you to marry me for love?”

Breath escaped her.

Images flashed in her mind. The biting winter cold of the Jungali mountains. The breathlessness of its air. The pulsing dancers and their barefooted celebration of love. The heart-breaking kindness of an old woman who saw through her lies. And their prince, a barbarian more noble than any man she’d ever known. A man who had saved her, and her people, from the worst among them.

Her heart soared. “It
is
my birthday. I may marry whoever I wish.”

His eyes went slightly wide, and he ducked his head to whisper against her ear, “Name your conditions, Princess.”

Conditions?
Was he teasing her? She drew back to look at him. Did he misunderstand? But no, the soft mirth in his eyes was tempered with a look of disbelief, as if holding her in his arms wasn’t something he ever expected, but he wasn’t about to let go.

“I will need to have Priya by my side.” She scrambled to think of something that would say this wasn’t an alliance of nations, but of hearts.

Ash smiled. “But of course. Where would we be without her?”

“And Janak as well,” she said, then thought better of it. “If he’s not otherwise disposed.”

“Granted.” Ash trailed a finger along her jaw, then chased it with his lips. When they touched her neck, her skin inflamed once more, and her heart spasmed as if it might actually stop.

She pulled back so she could breathe again. “I reserve the right to make further demands.”

Ash grinned. “I cannot even picture a time when that would not be true.”

She nudged him away, then thought better of it, and pulled him in for another kiss. This time she was the one making demands: on his lips, on his attention, upon his very heart. That was what she truly wanted.

When they broke apart, she whispered, “And I insist that you never, ever, take another lover.”

“Understood.” This time, his look alone set her skin on fire.

“And there may be children,” she said, suddenly timid under the heat of his look.

His gaze didn’t waver. “And they will be as beautiful as their mother.”

His words stole what breath she had left. “Then, Prince Malik,” she said, her voice soft with emotion, “I agree to your proposal to marry for love.”

He crushed her again with his kiss.

It felt as though their marriage occurred at that moment, as if their hearts were melded together by sheer want. It was a kind of joy she’d never felt before, so strong it nearly burst out of her body and danced around the room. All her plans, all her daydreams of escaping Dharia, had never included a barbarian prince’s kiss in her mother’s antechamber. Ash was something entirely new. Something she’d never expected. But his kiss made her forget everything but his lips on hers, his hands holding her like he would never let go.

The sun streamed through the windows of the captain’s quarters, throwing spots of light that jittered with each bump in the skyship’s flight. Each jostle felt like they had run into some physical thing in the air that made the ship rumble along like the carriage of a train, even though Aniri knew it was only the currents that caused them. She bent over the wind maps on the captain’s desk, hoping to glean some understanding from them. If she was to be Queen of Jungali, and the skyship was their latest technological innovation, she wanted to understand more about it. Next to the maps sat the
Aerophysiks
book she had swung at Ash earlier—perhaps it would better serve her now. She wasn’t brilliant like her sister, First Daughter Nahali, but she might manage a basic understanding. Maybe Karan could tutor her if he wasn’t too busy with his duties as Master Tinker for the united Jungali provinces.

She glanced over her shoulder. Ash stared out the window. She joined him in watching the capital city of her homeland retreat into the hazy distance below.

“Do you think the flight back to Jungali will be rough?” she asked.

He brushed back a long strand of her hair, trailing his fingers through it. “It can’t possibly be any worse than the ride here.”

She smiled at his humor, then returned her gaze to her home. At any moment, it would be lost over the horizon.

“Are you quite sure you won’t miss it?” he asked softly.

“The capital?”

“The city. Your family. Your homeland. It has a way of weaving into your heart so deep such that you don’t miss it until it’s gone.”

She smiled and slipped her arms around the military uniform he now wore to command the skyship. “You’ve been reading too much poetry again.”

“Perhaps.” He kissed her lightly, toying with her hair, taking his time to wind the strand around his finger, then let it slip through again. “I just want you to be sure.”

“I’m sure.” And she was. Of all the bad decisions she had made, this wasn’t one of them. It felt right in a way none of her other longings ever had. She grinned playfully and escaped his grasp. Before, when Garesh held her captive in the captain’s quarters, the room had been stripped bare. Now, it was filled with all kinds of things—stacks of books on shelves, boxes of gadgets, heaps of tinker tools.

“I would like to know more about Jungali’s newest technology,” she said, examining the objects on the shelves. “Your alliance with Samir—”

“
Our
alliance with Samir,” he challenged her from where he leaned against the window, watching her.

“
Our
alliance with Samir,” she echoed with a smile, “will surely suffer now that Garesh is gone.”

“I’m not exactly mourning the loss of our General. And I would willingly throw the Samirian ambassador off a skyship as well, but I hear she has already fled.”

Aniri prayed the ambassador had taken Devesh with her. While he had betrayed her and broken her heart, she had loved him too much to wish him jailed. Or worse. If he or the ambassador had remained in Jungali, it would have gone badly for them.

“She won’t find much refuge in Samir,” Aniri said, examining the row of leather-bound volumes on the shelf. She wondered where Devesh would go as well.

“I wouldn’t be too certain of that.”

She threw him an arched look to match his tone. “You don’t believe the Samirians when they say the ambassador acted without authorization? Seledri is married to the prince heir-apparent. She would know if the attack on Dharia was authorized by the crown. She insists it wasn’t.”

Seledri had returned to Samir even before the skyship arrived in Kartavya, but her communiques said the ambassador—and Devesh—would not be welcomed back to court. And that she had no knowledge of Devesh returning to their country. It wouldn’t surprise Aniri if he had lied about the Samirians planning war with Dharia, along with everything else.

“I’m sure your sister is telling the truth,” Ash said softly. “But the burning glass didn’t invent itself, Aniri.”

She frowned but didn’t reply. He was right, of course. Someone created the weapon, and as beautiful as it was, there was no peaceful use for it that she could discern. And it was certainly possible her sister wouldn’t know everything that went on in her husband’s court. Aniri lifted one of the many clockwork devices haphazardly set on the shelf. “Where did all this come from?”

“Karan has been cleaning out the engine room and bridge. I told him he could use this room for extra storage.”

Aniri put the device back and trailed her hand along the bookshelf. “I know Karan worked with your brother on the original skyship design plans, but Samir provided so much of your technology. Will it be difficult to carry forward with your plans for the skyship if…” Her voice trailed off as she came to an ironclad box sitting on the bookshelf: a Samirian aetheroceiver, just like Devesh’s. She flashed a look to Ash. “Where did this come from?”

“
That
was tucked away on the bridge,” Ash said. “The captain won’t give us the code, and Karan’s engineers haven’t the tools to break it open until we return to Bajir.”

She lifted the heavy box from the shelf and brought it to the desk. She ran her hand over it, checking for the symbols. They were there, same as before. This had to be the same box that was in the ambassador’s office. She pressed the three symbols all at once: a tinker, a crown, and a ship. The aetheroceiver whirred and unfolded before them.

Ash’s eyes went wide. “How did you do that?”

“My lover was a Samirian spy, remember?”

“Ah. Yes.” Ash seemed less than pleased about the reminder, drifting back to the window to stare out of it again, arms crossed. Aniri shook her head and ignored him.

The aetheroceiver contained the same pencil drawing of the skyship she had seen before. Now that she had time to examine it, she noticed the tiny lettering in a box in the corner.

“You know,” Aniri said conversationally, hoping to distract Ash from the brooding looks he was casting out the window, “I always thought of the ship as just
the skyship
. I didn’t realize she had a name.”

“The
HMS Samirdi
.” Ash turned from the window. “My brother named it early on. It means Prosperity.”

Aniri frowned. “The skyship is named Prosperity?”

“
Her Majesty’s Ship Samirdi
, but yes, Prosperity.”