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.”
I stare at my sister, mouth agape, unable to decide what’s more surprising. That my sister no longer looks like my sister, or that she’s made allies of someone skilled in performing such a task.
But then her gaze takes me in, really takes me in, for the first time, and that sisterly concern swarms her face, giving away just who she is.
“Asha, I’m so sorry this has happened,” she says, as if it’s somehow her fault.
She closes the space between us, falling to her knees and wrapping me in an embrace. I melt into it. It occurs to me that this is the first form of welcome physical touch I’ve had since returning to the palace with Az, the first I don’t cringe away from.
“You shouldn’t have come,” I say, but the words lacked vigor.
Dinah pulls back and smiles at me. “Don’t lie to yourself. You’re glad I’m here.”
The tears that stain my cheek confirm as much.
This isn’t the rescue mission I had hoped for.
“I argued to get you out of here,” Dinah says, twirling nervously with her braid, “but everyone else pointed out that it wouldn’t do much good to rescue you if the entire world was going to end up like the Nether.”
“I have to say I agree with that,” I say. “I’m not fond of the idea of having to whisper the rest of my life.”
“It would be torture,” Dinah adds. “But I do have a message for you, from Blaise.”
“Blaise?” I practically rear back. “Tell me you don’t trust her.”
“Well, I wasn’t particularly inclined to, to be honest.” My sister blushes, as if it betrays a character flaw that she actually held a less than favorable opinion of someone. “But Kiran—”
“You’ve seen Kiran,” I breathe.
Dinah nods, though cautiously.
“How is he?”
Sorrow lines Dinah’s eyes, but something else, too. Something like hope. “It’s honestly probably a good thing he doesn’t have his Flame right now. He really misses you, Asha. And blames himself for what happened.”
I grunt. “He should be blaming Blaise. Not trusting her.”
“Well, he did almost kill her, if that’s any consolation.”
It was, sort of. “So what’s her message?”
“She says Piper—you’ll know who she is, though I thought she was from some of the Old Magic’s stories when I first heard about her—has a way to lure the Others back to the Rip. Apparently, being at the location of the Rip enhances her powers, and she thinks she can call to them, even from that far away. But she can’t do it so long as Az controls them.”
