Rajasthani Moon Read Online Free PDF

healthy and prosperous.
    The scene did not look much like the impoverished, energy-starved country Cecily had expected. Clearly someone was defying the embargo, supplying the Rajah with viridium in defiance of the Empire.
    The carriage swung around a sharp curve and began to climb. In the distance, upon a bare promontory, stood a massive fortress. Its sheer stone walls appeared rooted in the bedrock, rising a hundred feet or more to loom over the town. Windowless, cylindrical donjons clung to the cliff-like walls. The enormous citadel looked as though it had been built by giants from the misty past. Nevertheless, Cecily noted a cloud of nimble aerocopters, swooping and hovering like silvery honeybees at the far left of the edifice, while the metal fretwork of a com tower spiked up above the domes and minarets on the closer corner.
    “Mehrangarh Fort.” Pratan’s voice issued from the control panel, as though he’d read her wondering mind. “The royal seat and abode of His Highness Amir Pratihar Rajput, the ruler of Rajasthan.” He chuckled. Cecily easily pictured his mocking grin. “My brother. Who is most eager to meet you, madam.”
    “I fear that he’ll find me a sore disappointment,” she replied. “Dirty and unkempt, without even the ability to comb my hair. And surely you don’t intend to present me to a king trussed up like a pig carried to market.”
    “Oh, I doubt Amir would mind that. He shares my fondness for restraints. Knowing him, however, I suspect he will have devised a more elegant solution for preventing your escape.”
    From a distance, the fortress walls appeared impenetrable, but as they approached, a gate became visible, hewn into the rock. Pratan paused to confer with the red-clad sentries, then piloted the vehicle through a tunnel lit by golden glow-bowls and out into a broad plaza ringed by towers and balconies of pink-hued marble.
    The coach rolled to a halt. Pratan threw open the door and leaned in. “I’ll untie your ankles so you can climb down from the carriage, but do not get the notion that you can run. If you make the slightest move that suggests flight, you’ll be as riddled with arrows as a pin cushion with pins. Our soldiers train from birth”—he gestured towards a dozen or more men fanned around the carriage with bows drawn—“and they never miss.”
    One glance at the force arrayed against her convinced Cecily to cooperate, for the moment at least. In an edifice of this size and complexity, surely she’d have an opportunity to slip from her captors’ clutches at some point.
    Awkward because of her bound wrists, she clambered out of the vehicle, almost tumbling onto the flagstone pavement. Pratan steadied her, his powerful hand clamping around one arm. She resolutely ignored the heat that flowed from that hand, through her body and down to her centre, but she knew she was dampening her borrowed trousers.
    As she struggled to regain her balance, the mass of soldiers parted, creating a clear path for a slender female figure to approach. The men offered respectful bows as the woman passed through their ranks. She ignored them, her gaze focused on Cecily and Pratan.
    She looked to be about Cecily’s age, but there the resemblance ended. Her complexion was ivory, almost as fair as the ladies Cecily knew in London, though with less pink in the mix. Certainly her skin was shades lighter than Cecily’s own. In contrast to Cecily’s solidity, the woman’s limbs were delicate as a faun’s, and the swell of her modest breasts barely distorted her regal purple sari. Her waist-length plait was a deep red-brown, though that might have been the effect of henna. A gold diadem traversed her forehead, with an opal centred above her almond-shaped eyes. Cecily read contempt and suspicion in those lovely orbs.
    “Lady Sarita.” Pratan bowed nearly as low as the guards, though he didn’t relax his iron grip on Cecily’s flesh. “Allow me to present Miss Cecily