“Yes,” she said with a forced smile. “I’m perfectly fine, thank you.”

In truth, she wasn’t. She felt scrambled inside, her emotions skittering this way and that. But she knew one thing for certain, at least; finally some clarity: Rashid deserved better. She found her way to the edge of the courtyard, toward the end of the mountain face.

Durkhanai leaned her back against a tree, letting the music and chatter die away behind her. Taking a deep breath, Durkhanai looked out to the stars, waiting for the wind to pinch her skin.

But it was almost July. There was no breeze. It was hot, much too hot.

She was suffocating from the heat.

Chapter Twenty-One

Durkhanai began her walk back to the gathering, and as she did, she overheard Rukhsana-sahiba, loud as ever, speaking to a group of people.

“Yes, the plants in Teerza are truly astounding,” she drawled “Such variety! There are so many teas and medicinal herbs.” Her voice lowered. “Even something to slip to another if they’re bothering you too much, if you know what I mean.”

Rukhsana-sahiba winked, laughing along with the others. Such talk was ordinary among the nobles: they all kept their own personal arsenal of little plants and potions, just in case. Durkhanai herself knew how to poison people with at least thirty different plants, each with varying effects.

They were hidden on her person at all times, just in case: hidden little packets in her jewelry or sewn into her clothes or clipped into her elaborate updos. Just in case. She had never used any.

But from the way Rukhsana-sahiba talked, it was clear this was common in Teerza.

It got Durkhanai thinking, of how she herself had fallen so suddenly ill, how everyone had. Maybe, just maybe, it hadn’t just been ordinary sickness—but poisoning.

Illness hadn’t spread so far and so fast in a long, long while. Was it a coincidence it had occurred now, just after the ambassador’s arrival?

How had she gotten sick?

Durkhanai recalled that night, how she had interacted with no one but Asfandyar. The bandits had been there—but they hadn’t been ill, and neither had Asfandyar.

She had assumed she had gotten it from the man who had attacked her—he had been coughing—but she had scrubbed her body raw that night, and besides, she had only been near him for a moment.

What else?

Durkhanai pressed her mind to think, searching blindly for details in the memories of that night, despite the sharp pain that slit through her to think of how Asfandyar had comforted her, how he had brought her home. His arms around her . . .

She brushed the sensation away. There was something missing.