The Tiger at Midnight (The Tiger at Midnight Trilogy #1)(27)

She had been prepared. She had been planning every single moment.

Kunal was left standing, unmoving, crumpling her uttariya in his hand, the ends of it flapping in the gale storm she had left in her wake.





Chapter 15


He made it back to camp in the light of the late morning by way of the knife marks in the bark, her uttariya a tight ball in his fist. The other soldiers looked up from their perches around the small campfire when he stormed back into camp.

The tightness in his heart relaxed a bit as he spotted Laksh and the others. They had agreed to stay together until they left the Tej, but he hadn’t been sure Rakesh would stick to it.

“Did you find the Viper hanging from a tree? Is that why you were gone an entire night for a leak?” Laksh teased. Kunal simply stared back at him, feeling a rise of fury in his blood, so hot his head ached. Laksh saw the change in Kunal and backed off, holding a hand out to Rakesh, who had lurched forward.

“He’s got that look, comrades,” Laksh said.

“I’m not scared of the Dhagan stare. As if he could scare me with those”—Rakesh waved his hand around—“eyes of his.” He did scoot back, though, tugging at a curl.

Kunal was reaching that breaking point his uncle warned him to never cross, and it felt welcoming.

Control.

Kunal tried to tamp down on his anger, but it flashed hot. He trampled through the ashes of the unsteady fire, making a straight path for his small bedroll. He stuffed the uttariya into his pack and sat down, staring moodily across the campfire.

He hadn’t felt this angry in many moons—years, even.

What an utter fool he was, thinking he could best the Viper.

“Now he just looks like someone stole his favorite sweet,” Laksh said with a smirk. Rakesh opened his mouth, a grin on his face, but Amir shook his head at him.

“Shut up, you lot. What have you all been up to? Spent the night huddled in your tents, scared of the glowing forest?” Kunal said.

Rakesh turned a wonderful shade of red as Laksh whistled, yelling at the others to start cleaning up camp. Kunal sat there, feeling his fury recede and transform.

It teetered on the edge of an emotion he hadn’t let himself feel in years—sadness.

He knew who the Viper was, a clear advantage in this game. He should feel determined or resolved.

As a soldier, his duty was to his general, his army, and then himself. That was the order of things. But Kunal had always held his own code of honor, and now the edges of it were fraying, the years in service weighing on his mind.

It wasn’t only that he had failed to catch her, but that he finally knew, without a doubt, that Esha was the Viper, and his sworn enemy.

And to become commander, he would have to capture her and take her back, even though she had saved his life. He might not be standing here, agonizing over what to do, if she hadn’t.

Or had that been premeditated as well?

A branch lay in his path and he stepped on it ferociously, startling the other soldiers.

Kunal picked up the broken branch and spun it in his hands, feeling the heft of the wood before he brought it down with force, cracking it sharply against his knee. What was left was a sharp, jagged stick. He whipped out his machete and began to strip away at the wood, sliver by sliver, bringing it to its sharpest point.

She was the key to his future as a commander.

That was all.

Kunal studied the pointed tip of the stick and dragged it across his forearm to test the sharpness.

Blood welled up over the parted skin.

Control.





Chapter 16


Esha fled as if the wind itself was chasing her, racing through the tangled web of branches and leaves. Her heart hammered in her chest with an unrelenting thrum, both from the forced exertion of her body and her narrow escape.

She slowed down, her body almost collapsing in confusion at the change in pace, before her knees gave out. She tumbled to the ground and landed hard on her shins, her sandals catching on a broken tree branch. The ground had lost its soft dirt here in the outskirts of the Tej, rising into the low rolling hills and valleys that made up central Jansa.

She had never pushed herself this much, covering enough ground for two days. Even now, after almost the entire day, she could feel how close he had been. The recognition and fear in his eyes as he had caught the uttariya. A part of her had loved it, reveling in her ability to play the role of the Viper again after weeks of traveling in secret.

Esha picked off the stones imprinted into her palms, dusting her hands on her sooty, torn pants. The water from her flask was a treat, the one part of her plan she had managed to execute without a problem. It was lucky that she had gotten back in time to see the soldier descend.

And leaving her pack there, exposed.

Esha could curse herself a thousand moons over for such a careless act. If it had been anyone on her rebel team, she would have made them run loops around the city walls of Mathur till they were blue in the face.

She had stood there, frozen, watching the realization hit his face. The metal wire had been for the tiger, but had been an unexpected help. If not for it, she wouldn’t have had the distraction to recover her pack.

Bracing herself with her hands, she looked out at the faint outline of the town ahead of her, nestled into the hills above the Tej. At least another day’s walk, and at a steep upward slope.