"How is he?" Akshay stood by the bed, observing the healer's grim expression and immediately knew he wasn't about to be given a straight answer, or all of it.

"As I said, I believe his heart is strong, and the attack was an isolated problem from too much stress and fatigue. He should be able to resume his usual activities when he recovers," the healer replied as he busied himself with the rearrangement of medical supplies, avoiding eye contact.

"You mean if he recovers."

The old man's throat bobbed, only whatever he was trying to swallow didn't go down.

"Tell me what I need to know."

A breath taken, then a sigh. The man reeked with the smell of herbs and medicine, some of which he remembered hating as a child. "He is extremely weak, Captain. There are old wounds that hasn't fully healed, and numerous new ones that need a good rest and a lot of energy to heal. He's dehydrated and hasn't been able to drink much. He needs energy and hasn't been able to eat. He needs a rest and he's restless even in his sleep. The Salar has exhausted his body beyond the limits of a man half his age. If the fatigue doesn't kill him, this fever he's been battling will. His mind is not at rest, that is the root of the problem and no healer can fix it."

Akshay bit his lip to hear his worst fear confirmed. The Salar had been restless, even here, now, safe and protected inside a chamber with victory gained and him to keep things supervised. Every time his consciousness returned he'd dragged himself out of bed, yelling for an escort to get him out of the Barai. They'd forced sedatives and sleep remedies down his throat three times a day. It got him to rest for a few hours, before the cycle began again. And that was before the fever.

He picked up a random vial from the healer's case absentmindedly, rolled it in his hand as he turned several thoughts around on what to do next, then placed it back in when no solution presented itself. "Is there anything stronger? Something to keep him under deeper and for more hours?"

The healer shook his head. "There is, but it will also affect his ability to fight the fever and heal. There is a chance he may not wake up at all."

Akshay clenched his fists. There had to be a way out, or something that could be done. "You're telling me there's nothing we can do?"

The old man released a sigh. "If you can ease his mind on whatever has been bothering him, it might help. But you do not have much time, Captain. Whatever you need to do, do it quickly. He may only have a day or two to live if the fever doesn't go down."

Akshay nodded and dismissed the healer, then went to pour himself a drink. It would require him to find the woman, Zahara, and bring her to safety––a task he hadn't been able to accomplish. Since the Salar had collapsed, it was up to him to keep everything in order and under watch. The Barai had been completely closed off since that night to keep the news of Saracen's death and the Salar's return from leaking. The plan had been to keep things quiet for a day or two until the Salar decided how and when to make the next move. Three days had passed with no commands issued, and the men under him were beginning to ask questions. The governor Imam Raj, having seen the fire, had been sending messengers to the gate daily to inquire, and it was a matter of time before he reported it to his daughter, the former Salahari. Then his grandson, the prince regent, would send his own men to investigate. Decisions would have to be made then. Decisions too large for him to make on the Salar's behalf. Decisions that required the loyalty of men, in large number, to put into action.

He wasn't even sure he could control his own guards at the moment, not without the Salar's appearance to back it up. The night of the attack had ended with him being held at knifepoint for show, a deception that allowed him and the guards to appear loyal still to Azram as they were forced to surrender and later carry out the arrest of Saracen's men. The information the Salar had been meaning to give Azram, from what he'd gathered, was that he'd joined forces with the Rishi to storm the Barai, and the guards here were being held captive, which would save their families outside from being executed for their crimes of treachery. The news of his return with a sizable army would then spread and cause another riot––a larger one this time––by his supporters in Rasharwi, giving him a window to gain more allies and cripple Azram's power further.

No one knew, however, not even the men inside the Barai, that such an alliance with the Rishi had yet to be formed, that besides the reluctant guards under Akshay's command, the Salar had no army besides a handful of bandits and one pirate whose mother had now joined forces with Niroza Naeem––a former prisoner who had more than one valid reason to want him dead.

The Salar had been meaning to strike a deal with Sarasef, negotiate a truce with Niroza, and while stationed here, gain the loyalty of the men inside the Barai within the next few days or before Azram arrived with his troops. A task Eli himself might have found difficult, but if anyone in their lifetime could do it, it was this man who might or might not survive the next few days if they didn't find the woman in time, and time was running out.

The problem, however, was that he believed he knew where she was, judging from what the Salar had said before he collapsed. There was only one man who could trouble him that much, and there was only one man besides the Salar himself who could deal with that man.

It meant, however, that he would have to leave the Barai to speak to this man who should kill him on sight unless his intuition had been right. It was a gamble, to be sure, but he could see no other way.

He picked up the sword, checked on the Salar, and went out the door to address the guards.

"I want ten men here at all times, two at every entrance in this building leading to this room. Until I return, tell the men anything or anyone except the healer tries to come in, they are to kill on sight, keep the body, and report to me after."

The truth was, Akshay thought as he strode hurriedly down the hallway, something about that command didn't feel right, but then nothing had been feeling right since the Salar's return.

He turned to look at the door behind which the Salar was sleeping one last time, and decided it was only his anxiety speaking.

***

The oversized dining room was decorated with some of the most famous artists' paintings both on the ceiling and its silk covered walls. The antique Cakoran carpet under his feet must have been worth a small town's annual tax, and the chandelier above his head was said to have taken two and a half years to gather the correct colored crystals to put together. Akshay had known of the power its current owner possessed for a long time, but nothing underlined it as well as being able to witness this extravagance that once belonged to some of the greatest leaders in the peninsular's history. Farah island had been a winter retreat for every Salar of Rasharwi for hundreds of years before it was taken, and before that the headquarter of Eli's navy.

The island was about an hour ferry ride from the shores of Samarra. It housed an estate built for a king, a staff quarter that could hold five hundred, and a harbor large enough to accommodate thirty ships. Eli's vision, according to the journal, had been to expand the harbor to hold as many as a hundred vessels. The project had been abandoned after his death, and was said to have been picked up by this man who had muscled the island from the former Salar of Rasharwi some thirty years ago. Without a drop of blood spilled.

The man who, just days ago, had been held in the Barai's special prison cell reserved for members of the royal family without a designated end date on his term, and was now the only one seated behind a dining table made for twenty, covered entirely in Makena silk, hair freshly trimmed and fingernails clean enough to rival a lady at court.

"I must admit," said Niroza Naeem as the servants lined up to fill the dining table with a spread of food made for a Salar, maybe even Deo di Amarra, "I didn't expect to see you again so soon, Captain."

He shouldn't be here at all, as a matter of fact, and had been tied up upon arrival to make that point. "I would like a word, in private."

"Straight to business, as always." Niroza smiled. "What makes you think I would ruin my appetite for such a thing, or that I wouldn't kill you before that happens?"

"Your intelligence," he said.

Niroza's smile widened at the same time as his eyes. "That's a good one, Captain, but my scars still itch. You'll have to do better than that."

"It was prison protocol."

"There are also protocols for intruders on my island."

He nodded. "Chopped up alive and used for shark bait, the last time I checked."

Niroza raised a brow as he glanced at his sister, then turned back to him when Lucidra shrugged and looked away. "And yet you're here."

"And yet I am here." He raised the tied up hand and stepped forward, ignoring the steels Niroza's guards raised in unison for the movement. "Which should tell you why I'm so desperate, given your intelligence, as I said."

The intelligence was unmistakably there, written in the way his expression altered as soon as he dropped the word desperate. He was smiling still, however. Niroza Naeem was known for keeping a smile when he was pleased, when he was pissed, when he ordered wholesale slaughters, when he watched a shark devour his victims, which made him one of the most difficult men to read unless you knew how to decipher each smile. It just so happened, that he had supervised this man's time in prison for more than two decades, and therefore had seen enough shares of them to understand some, including the ones that had given his subordinates nightmares for weeks.

The serving girls were dismissed promptly, leaving only he, Niroza, and Lucidra Naeem who had been sitting next to her brother. The siblings had always been close, and he was not surprised she was to be included in every important discussion.

"Since you're here to negotiate on Ranveer's behalf," Niroza said, pouring himself another drink. "I take it he's either dying or being detained. Which is it?"

Quick, as expected. "The former."

Next to him, Lucidra shifted her weight.

"What happened?" asked the brother as he swirled the goblet.

"Fatigue. Exhaustion. Injuries made worse by prolonged restlessness. A heart condition that may or may not be recurring."

The swirling slowed. Niroza looked up from the wine. "And?"

"The Bharavi is missing."

"Ah." Niroza chuckled. "I told him he'd die because of a woman. This one is killing him twice. A soft heart, he always had. Apparently, that hasn't changed with age."

Soft wasn't a word Akshay would use to describe anything about the Salar, but he would remind himself that Niroza had been––and still was––someone Salar Muradi had the highest respect for besides Eli. It was also why he'd decided to gamble with this information. The woman was the Salar's greatest weakness but he seemed to trust this man, to a certain extent.

"I believe Deo di Amarra has her." A conclusion he'd drawn from what the Salar had said before he collapsed, and the fact that she had vanished without a trace in a city he controlled. No one else had that kind of power.

Niroza nodded. "And you want my help."

"Besides the Salar, you are the only one who can deal with the Red Mamba, and I need to find her before it's too late." Niroza had been the Salar's mentor, someone he had wanted as his advisor. Someone too dangerous to be left with freedom when that offer was declined. But he was also the only one besides the woman Salar Muradi cared about enough to leave alive, and the reason why Akshay had been specifically sent to the Barai to supervise his prison time personally. What he wasn't sure of was how Niroza felt about it.

An amused smile, this time. "And you're here on the presumption that I want him alive? That isn't like you, Captain."

"I have my intuition," he said, then turned to the sister who had been listening quietly, "and I have Leandras Naeem." Just in case his intuition was wrong.

Lucidra's hand went to the sword at her waist but kept it sheathed. Niroza just grinned, like someone pleased for being right. "Now, that's more like it. The Akshay I know doesn't take chances."

"I'll trade him for the Bharavi, if you can get her before he dies. We don't have much time."

Niroza rose from the table, filled another goblet with wine, and walked lazily toward him. "Before we get to that, let me tell you a story, Captain"

He offered Akshay the drink. He accepted it with his tied up hands, took a sip, and waited.

"One summer, when he was eighteen, Ranveer asked me for a ship to command. I told him I'd drop him off Selim's Rock, and if he could swim back here alive I'd give him a ship."

Akshay blinked. "In the summer?" Summer was breeding season for the seals at Selim's Rock. It was hunting season for the sharks. No one went on a swim near that islet in the summer.

"Late summer." Niroza's smile deepened. "The next morning he swam off with a coil of rope and three knives, came back two days later and told me I owed him two ships since he made two trips, there and back." He lifted the leather cord he always wore, held the two-inch white, scissored tooth to the light. "His right leg took thirty-two stitches to patch, but this is what was left of the shark. He never told me how."

He had seen the scars, but had never found out where they came from. The fact that Niroza was telling him this, revealing the history of the necklace he never took off even in prison in the process, said a lot about their relationship.

"Ranveer Borkan," said Niroza, leaning forward, as if to sniff something from his clothes, "is a thoughtful, suicidal, scheming bastard who learned how to hunt a shark in two days with preparation and planning. He knows his strength, knows what to do to stay alive, knows how to fight his battles, especially if he has something he must fight for. Your Salar is not dying because he's exhausted." A pause to grin, like he'd just concluded he was right. "Someone has been giving him Bayenne, and I can smell it the moment you walked through the door."

Akshay stopped breathing for a moment. "Bayenne?"

"A plant that only grows in the White Desert, used by Shakshi warriors on Raviyani and pit fighters before they entered a match," Lucidra stepped in to explain. "It keeps them alert, gets the heart pumping faster, makes you restless, more ready to fight."

Pit fighters...a smell he hated as a child coming off the healer's case.

Akshay sniffed his fingers. The vial he'd picked up absentmindedly seemed to have left a scent. How could he have forgotten all those times his father had brought him to the fighting pit? Why hadn't the smell alerted him to investigate? The healer was working for someone. Someone who would benefit from the Salar's death...or get into trouble if he was back in power. Someone still inside the Barai...while he was not. "I have to go back." Now. Immediately.

"I suggest you do," said Niroza. "And if you see him again, tell him I want my ships back, and he is to come to me prepared with the story of how he killed that shark."

***

"You should have kept him for leverage," Lucidra said as she watched Akshay leave the hall. "They sill have Leandras."

"Akshay is not a sufficient hostage." Niroza reached for an oyster, squeezed on it a generous amount of lemon, and closed his eyes as the tangy yet delicate seawater of Samarra touched his tongue. An inappropriate sound forced its way up his throat the moment he bit into the fragile firmness of the meat, bursting free the rich, full-bodied, buttery-sweet taste of the ocean that could shame a perfectly good orgasm as it melted in his mouth. He raised a finger to stall Lucidra when her lips twitched, and waited for the metallic, smoky finish to sink in before washing it down with the best of Cakora's white wine and letting her voice her protest. "Go on."

"They'll kill Leandras, or use him to negotiate, and we have nothing to bargain with."

"Your son is my nephew," he told her, wiping his fingers clean on a napkin. "Ranveer needs my fleet and my cooperation to win his throne back. I am all the leverage you need. Sit down. Have an oyster. Drink some wine. I have this under control."

"You said that the last time they dragged your ass off to prison."

"Language, Luce."

"Fuck language," she spat out the words, draining his appetite in the process. "The son of a bitch betrayed us, locked you up for two decades, and still you believe he can be trusted with a deal."

She had loved him, he'd almost forgotten, and had might not be the right word. "A betrayal is a break of promise, Luce. He has given none. That, and he did get me out of prison."

"I got you out of prison."

"You almost had me killed." He chuckled at the memory. By the time she'd arrived at the prisoner quarter, he'd already broken out with his crew. She had mistaken them for prison guards, had drawn up arms to fight. That was a good story.

"The opportunity––"

"Was given to me by Ranveer," he reminded her. "A kid I rescued off the streets, raised, fed, and trained into what he is. The same way I raised, fed, and trained you. The same way I raised, fed, and trained this crew. I know how to deal with him. Or do you doubt it?"

A small silence. A breath taken with some difficulty. A movement, that finally brought her down to the seat on the other side. "You're considering an alliance," she said, more respectfully, this time.

"I consider all opportunities."

"He gave you that opportunity," she said, pointedly. "You turned him down last time. What's different now?"

Niroza reached for another oyster, imagining the taste of it before repeating the process. Great things should always be enjoyed with patience, even when the process brings torture. "He hasn't learned his lesson then."

Lucidra snorted. "And you think he has now?"

The oyster exploded on his tongue. This one was even better than the last. "We shall see."

"What if he hasn't?"

"Then we stay enemies. And he will have to deal with me on top of Deo di Amarra." He sipped the wine, feeling the accompanying loss as it washed away the taste of something so exquisite. He missed that boy already, enemy or ally. "If he survives this incident, that is."

Lucidra eyed him suspiciously. "You want him to survive."

He shrugged. "I still want to know how he killed the shark."

She rolled her eyes and reached for an oyster, popping one into her mouth without ceremony. "You still love that son of a bitch, after all this time, admit it."

"Language, Luce."

She raised her brow, sucking her fingers clean as she did. "What? Love, you mean?"

***

"Is he still alive?" Yaran izr Naymar, Chief of Samarran City Guard grimaced at the weight of the pitcher. The wine was about to run out, and it was the only thing keeping his anxiety manageable.

"He is, Chief." The healer wiped the sweat from his brows with shaking hands, which didn't help his agitation. "But I put more Bayenne in the sleep remedy. It should keep him weak and restless for at least six to eight more hours. The Captain has also left the Barai and given me permission to check on the Salar. The guards will let me in if he needs another dose."

"Good." Yaran nodded. At least the old man had sense enough to carry out a simple task, if reluctant. Not that one could blame him. The guards might have appeared to surrender when they saw their Captain defeated and held at knifepoint, but most of them had not been happy with Azram's way of doing things, and given a safe opportunity, would support Muradi in a heartbeat. It meant that he would lose his position as soon as the former Salar reinstated himself and found out how he made Chief of Samarran City Guard. His hard work in the past few months and the sum he'd paid the governor to get this position would surely lead to his death, given how Muradi had dealt with corruption in the past. There would be mass execution when his return was made official, and his head wouldn't be the only one on a spike for other officials to see.

Yaran sipped his wine, hoping it would ease the sting of his own mistake. If he'd been awake and in charge during the attack of the Barai, this wouldn't have happened in the first place. He'd had too much to drink that night, and by the time he was awake, everyone, including Akshay had surrendered to the former Salar. The men, after all, didn't just prefer Muradi as their ruler, but were also more loyal to Akshay than him for how long the man had been holding his position. Real power lay in the hands of the scarred-face captain who––it was now clear from the information he'd been given by the healer––had been on Salar Muradi's side from the start. What happened on that roof had been no more than a clever performance for the public, and now the two of them were working together toward his doom.

It was still easy enough to fix, however. The Salar simply had to die, and things would return to normal again. That he had collapsed three nights ago was a sign from the gods for him to take action, he was sure of it. There were also enough people––powerful people––in and outside of the Barai who'd paid the governor for their position (his grandson being the Prince Regent now made everything possible), and as such they were his allies before he even called on them. Even if things were to go wrong, all he needed to do was escape the Barai and gather these men who now held power. But the best chance of survival was to kill him first, and kill him here.

He pulled out the drawer under the table, picked up a small bottle he'd been keeping for some time, and pushed it forward to the old man.

"Take this," he told the healer. "Give it to him instead of Bayenne. Do it before Akshay returns. It will make sure he doesn't wake up tomorrow morning."

The healer looked like he was about to object, remembered the stakes involved, and changed his mind. "My daughter..."

"Will be taken care of," he said. The man, apparently, was smart enough to know he might not survive after, as someone who poisoned the Salar. Azram will need to execute someone for show. "But you may survive yet, if you were to testify that it was Akshay who'd given you the order in secret. I'll see what I can do." It was the perfect chance to get rid of Akshay too, and control of the Barai would then truly belong to him.

"I understand," the healer replied, still reluctantly, as if such a display would somehow save him from this wrong he was about to commit. The old man had to be threatened with the life of his daughter to cooperate, but even now, knee-deep in the mess he knew was likely to get him killed, the guilt was still there.

Cowards, Yaran thought. He hated indecisive humans. People ought to stand by their own decisions and be willing to take consequences like a man. If you were going to do something bad, you might as well do it with some balls.

"You are dismissed," he told the old man, glad to be rid of his presence, which kind of reeked with Bayenne.

Yaran finished the last sip of wine and went to his writing desk. There was much to do tonight, and he would start with a letter to Azram outlining the events that happened here. It would be sent first thing in the morning, as soon as Muradi was dead and Akshay was executed for the assassination. The men would have no leader, they would feel betrayed by their captain, the prince regent would reward him for winning back the Barai, and everything would turn in his favor.

Yaran picked up the quill and allowed himself a grin before he began writing the letter that could change the outcome of the war. This was what he'd paid for, and he was beginning to like this god-like power too much for his own purse.

***

A/N: I know I've been absent for a long time, but again, this is because I needed to get a set of chapters right before I post. The good news is that I have 7 more chapters almost ready to post. I just need to go through and edit small errors for the rest. These chapters will be posted every week from now. And I'm currently writing a new one. Thanks for your patience and for being on this ride with me so far.