By the time Durkhanai made it back to the palace after a week of such conferences, she was agitated beyond patience. Feeling scattered and pulled thin, she went straight to the presence chamber, veins thick with emotion, face florid. Her people were right—Rukhsana-sahiba had to pay for what she had done.

Durkhanai would fight for her people.

She went to find her grandparents. They were alone in the war room. Agha-Jaan stood pensively before a map that covered the expanse of a table. Dhadi stood across from him, shifting pieces on the table.

“What is to be done with the Teerzai ambassador?” Durkhanai asked, stopping at the head of the table. Agha-Jaan did not look up. Dhadi sighed.

“She is leaving, today,” the Wali replied. “The preparations are nearly complete.”

Durkhanai stilled.

“Leaving?” she repeated. “That’s all?”

She waited for a reaction and received none. Not even her grandfather, so hot-headed, so swift and severe in punishment, had anything more to say. He shifted a piece on the map, then stood back to consider it.

“Agha-Jaan, she must be punished!” Durkhanai cried.

“She must,” the Badshah replied, not turning to her. “But she won’t be. This is the diplomatic solution.”

“Diplomacy?” Durkhanai wanted to scatter the entire table’s pieces, but she would not lash out as a child would. “The foreign woman who poisoned our own people in our lands goes free without penalty? Why the sudden recourse?”

“Durkhanai, enough,” Dhadi sounded tired.

“You’re the ones who said you must never give something in exchange for nothing,” Durkhanai snapped. “Yet you so willingly give this woman her freedom.”

“It is the best option,” Agha-Jaan replied, voice hard. He finally looked at her. “Teerza no longer has any good cause to quarrel with us, and for their transgressions, Teerza must send soldiers to help aid in the fight against the Luhgams. And besides, there is no hard evidence against her—just because that plant is popular in Teerza does not mean that is the only place it grows.”

“If there is no evidence, then this is the perfect cause for trial by tribunal,” Durkhanai said, satisfied with this punishment.

It was, after all, the custom of her people. She didn’t care if it was considered barbaric by their contemporaries. She was sure Rukhsana-sahiba would be torn apart by the cruelest lion for her transgressions.

“No. The ambassador had come to negotiate something from us; she will leave giving us something instead,” Dhadi explained.

“This is cause for tribunal,” Durkhanai argued, her blood still running hot like lava through her veins.

“No,” the Badshah replied, voice resolute. “We know her to be guilty, but her life is worth nothing. However, with the Teerzai soldiers, we can strike back at the blasted Luhgams and end this ceaseless war.”

Durkhanai held her tongue, not saying what she was thinking: that the war with the Luhgam Empire would never end, not even with a few more soldiers.