Rajah Tarek’s white teeth flash predatorily in my darkened room. “I’ve missed you, love.”
I try to jerk away, but my hands and legs are pinned.
“Shh,” he croons. “We’re going to have the wedding night the gods intended for us.” He lies beside me, turns his body into mine, and buries his face in my hair.
I wrench at my bindings, struggling to kick free, but my ankles are tied to the bedposts and my arms are stretched over my head. I reach inward for my powers to burn away the straps—and find a well of emptiness. No soul-fire flickers within me.
“What did you do?” I ask, my voice hitching on terror.
Tarek answers while kissing a trail across my cheek. “I poisoned you as you did me.”
His hands roam down my body. A wild, hot scream rises up my throat. Tarek slams a palm over my mouth.
“Don’t fight me, love. You are my wife”—he kisses my cramping neck—“and I am your husband. The gods have bound our souls in matrimony. You’re mine, forever and always.”
I struggle against my bindings, tears flooding my sight. Tarek presses his hand harder over my mouth to muffle my screams.
“Kali.”
My head jerks up, my breath thrashing against my rib cage. I am not in my bedchamber. The Turquoise Palace is far away. And Rajah Tarek . . . Tarek is dead.
Brac is sitting beside me, his honey eyes shimmering with worry. Mathura, Natesa, and Deven finish a supper of dried fruit and toasted nuts across the campfire. Yatin stands guard on the outcropping overlooking the valley, a shadow against a starlit night.
“Are you all right?” Brac asks.
I wrap my arms around myself to suppress a shiver. “I drifted off.”
“Did you dream of him again?”
“Yes.”
Brac curses under his breath and glances across the campfire at his brother. “You should tell him.”
“No,” I answer with finality. Deven can hardly stand to speak of my marriage to Tarek, let alone hear that the rajah dominates my dreams. Neither Natesa nor Mathura have asked what privately took place between Tarek and me on our wedding night, and Yatin only sends me glances of sympathy from time to time. Brac was on guard when I first woke from a night terror in a cold sweat and confided in him. He already knew that I had been poisoned—he had burned the toxins from my body when he and Deven found me—but he did not know how. After my explanation, I swore I would not tell anyone else that I used poison-laced lotion to kill Tarek, or that I was prepared to die with him.
I stare into the crackling fire, fatigue wearing a path down my spine. I wish I could sketch to alleviate my mind, but those days of quiet pleasure are on hold until after we find Prince Ashwin and determine what to do with the Zhaleh resting in my satchel. We have not discussed where best to secure the bhutas’ sacred book, but that is a concern for after I am free from my throne.
Brac gazes into the campfire and speaks, his tone thoughtful. “It’s said that when a Burner looks into the heart of a fire, they can see the reflection of their soul. I used to spend hours watching for mine, waiting for my blood to sing to the flames and reveal my inner self.”