The Heartless Divine

by Varsha Ravi

  “What were you thinking?” he asked sharply.

  She exhaled. There would be no easing into it, then.

  When he spoke, his voice held not the coal-black acerbity of the boy king’s, nor the heavy disappointment that underlaid Anyu’s when Suri stepped out of line. It was fire, clean and destructive. “Do I even want to know how you’re going to attempt to justify this?”

  “Why are you so angry?” she asked, less out of provocation and more out of curiosity. Nonetheless, it was not the correct question to ask—he gave a small, hard laugh.

  “How do you think it would reflect on Viro,” he asked, “If his bride were found fighting, for money—and in Praghama, no less?”

  “I wasn’t going to get caught,” she said, but it came out small. She looked up and caught his gaze, defiant. “I wasn’t.”

  The words were a drop of water on a sea of fire. His mouth twisted, voice serrated. “No, you didn’t get caught. That does not mean you could not have gotten caught tomorrow, or the night after, or the night after that. And what of safety? You could’ve gotten hurt. Killed. Do you think they care what state you end the fight in? It only matters that it ends. That is the only condition required for a payout.”

  Now it was her turn to sneer. “Do you really think I can’t take care of myself? I was winning, before you showed up.”

  He shook his head, incredulous. He had not tied his hair back, and in the faint summer breeze, it whipped around his face. Coupled with the shadows of the alley around them, it rendered him something of shadow and ash, less boy and more boy-shaped. “You could not have won forever. You are not a god.”

  “You would know,” she snapped. Remorse rushed through her, immediate and nauseating. But the remark had not struck him—his expression was calculating, the fire from before dissipated save for a low heat in his gaze.

  “Why were you there, Suri?” he asked. He rarely said her name, if only to avoid drawing attention to them in public. The lilt of it unsteadied her.

  Suri exhaled. What was there left to say? The truth. But that had never been an option. She tore her gaze away, looking into the flickering candlelight that wound around the edges of the night market. Her mouth twisted bitterly. “I suppose I got lost.”

  “You won’t say?” It was barely a question, his voice soft, bone-dry.

  She crossed her arms, faintly defensive. The truth would expose her absolutely, she knew. And even if she had been foolish, she was allowed her secrets. He had his own, after all. “Why should I?”

  After a long pause, Kiran smiled, a flash of white in the darkness. “I suppose you’re right. But try not to get killed, or caught. The effort would put me at ease.” The smile sharpened a little as he turned back into the shadows. “And, a little bit of parting advice—pick a name that suits you next time. The rumors spread slower that way.”

  It was sound advice, and she might’ve taken it. But the next day, she pulled up the bundles of money from under her floorboards, rewrapped them for delivery, and didn’t return to the fighting house—not that night, nor any that followed.

  Initially, he’d thought it was an execution.

  Viro had never witnessed an execution before, but he’d heard stories from the scullery maids. They told him in hushed tones of the bloodied stone block, the way the axe glittered against the midday sun before it fell, the silence that swallowed the square at the center of the angadi for entire minutes afterward.

  Too young to fully understand yet wholly awed by the spectacle of it, he’d waited until the following night to ask Radha what ‘entrails’ referred to. She’d shut the story book she’d been reading from and pulled him by his ear over to the water basin, cleaning his mouth out with neem soap.

  They were something of a bygone era—public executions had gone out of fashion in the years since his father, a civilized man if not a kind one, had taken power. But peering out the window of his tutor’s cramped suite in the upper city, he was reminded of those old stories. The streets were choked with quiet, the skies shining coldly even in the late spring heat.

  He watched the covered cart trundle down the packed dirt streets as the city stood silently aside and let it pass. If it hadn’t been for the cart, he would’ve assumed the passenger was a noble—the harsh quiet was a little overblown, but it wasn’t uncommon for foreign highborn to demand extravagant respect from the citizens of the capital. But the palmyra wood was crudely carved and etched with the scars of time, and a canvas covering had been hastily drawn over the top of the cart to hide the driver and passenger from sight—even from the window, Viro could see wooden poles jutting out unevenly from the sides, causing the canvas to slope awkwardly over their heads.

  And so, inevitably, he came to the conclusion that the passenger was a criminal, the dangerous sort who might lash out if someone dared to pull up the veil of the canvas without permission. But his tutor just shook his head a little sadly, the corner of his mouth crooked sharply down. He watched the cart disappear from sight, then sighed and shook his head again before shutting embroidered curtains and returning to his desk.

  “Such a pity,” he murmured, shuffling the olai chuvadi with funereal solemnity. He raised his eyebrows at Viro, nodding at the armchair beside him. “The procession is no excuse for distraction, Your Highness.”

  That evening, his parents sent for him and Radha, and they gathered in the sitting room with Tarak and threw out childish guesses about why they were there. Tarak passed around a loaf of sweet bread, and they tore off little pieces and nibbled at them while they came up with catastrophes, each one more extravagant than the last. Wars, natural disasters, gods rattling the land, divine quests for them to undertake. When the door to the northern gardens eventually swung open, the bread was finished, and they watched his parents escort the high priestess and two children inside.

  One, he knew, was the daughter of the temple, a year or two older than him. He stared at the slightly younger one with undisguised curiosity. A soft-eyed peasant boy with soot streaked across his cheekbones haphazardly, as if he’d slept in a brazier.

  Viro noted with delight that the boy did not look away—his black gaze held no defensive fierceness, only a mild appraisal, but even at the tender age of five, he was already used to most kids looking away awkwardly when he made eye contact. He was not sure whether it was brazen disrespect or a distinct lack of awareness that motivated the other boy, but he was pleased by the outcome regardless.

  Without waiting for formalities to pass, he twisted around the back of the settee and stuck out his hand, in an informal western gesture he’d observed at the markets one day. “My name’s Viro. Who are you?”

  The boy glanced hesitantly at the high priestess, but at her amused nod, he tentatively took a few of Viro’s fingers in his own and squeezed them in a rural greeting. His voice, accented by the dialects of the far side of the mountains, was oddly quiet. “My name is Kiran. I am…” he broke off, looking to the high priestess first, and then to the king and queen, as if he was not entirely sure who he was.

  Fortunately, Viro’s father finished smoothly, “Kiran is going to be living at the palace. He is under the tutelage of the main temple, but I expect all three of you to treat him with the same respect as you would any of your peers. Is that clear?”

  They all nodded in solemn unison, but continued to scrutinize the strange boy with the artless inquisitiveness of the young and gullible.

  He was difficult to pin down—at times, he took lessons with them, while other times he went to the temple. His bedroom was slotted between Viro’s and Tarak’s, but often he would steal away to the aviary and sleep on the stone floor, cushioned by bushels of vetiver grass. He approached every conversation that Viro started with earnest inexperience, with a hesitant kind of warmth that endeared the prince to him at once.

  Viro knew there was a reason why he’d been brought to the palace, but he’d never explained, and after a while, he assumed it was some kind of diplomatic reason—he was a di
stant relative or an orphan given into the care of the crown, nothing to properly worry about. But the maids and manservants—the same ones who had told him of the old executions, the cutting inflection that came with the Athrian word for terror—shared new stories with each other, and, this time, those stories were about Kiran.

  They said that the king and queen had taken him in because he’d killed every other foster family he’d ever had. Because his parents were dead and burned, ashes spread in an endless field, because he crawled out of his crib and slept in dry grass and in paddy fields, because snakes slithered away from him, because he was fire and he was a weapon and Athri was a kingdom on the cusp of war.

  He had no idea of knowing which of the stories were true and which were not, and so he sought out Kiran after one of their lessons in the upper city. At the very beginning, he would flinch away from the gazes of nobles and curious citizens, curling in on himself with timid reserve. Quickly, though, he learned to hide himself away in the shadows, and on more than one occasion, Viro lost track of him on their walk from the palace to the houses of the tutors, and again on the walk back. After the young prince found the north gardens deserted, he left Tarak behind with a promise to return quickly and climbed up the twisting staircase to the aviary. The other boy was sitting on the edge of the open platform, legs dangling between the bars of the iron balustrade.

  Kiran regarded Viro without guile. “Your Highness.”

  “Hello,” Viro said, taking a seat beside him before cuffing him on the back of his head. “Do not call me that, ever. Are your parents dead?”

  He blinked at him, startled. Then he said, “Yes.”

  “Are you afraid of snakes?” he asked next. “Have you ever killed someone?”

  “A little,” the other boy answered, pulling his legs up through the columns so he could hug them to his chest. Even in the chill of the mid-autumn afternoon, he looked flushed, sable eyes shining in the faint light. “And I do not think I have.”

  Viro made a hmm sound that he had heard his mother use in contemplation. “I have one last question. Do you have any family left?”

  He held his gaze, unsettlingly old, a child god aged beyond his years. Finally, Kiran simply shook his head, the corner of his mouth twisting sharply. “No.”

  For a moment, Viro considered the repercussions of such actions—these sorts of vows were not to be taken lightly, after all. But the temporary reluctance passed, and he held out his hand palm up, in the beginnings of an old ritual. “I have always wanted a brother. I have a sister, instead, and I love her very much, but I also wanted a brother. Have you ever felt like that?” At the other boy’s resounding, bemused silence, he continued, “Do you want to be brothers, then? We can be family.”

  Silently, he watched Kiran. Shock traced the lines of his face in subtle, strange ways that Viro had learned after months of living with him—brows raised and furrowed slightly, the line of his mouth uneven and sharp, chin tipped a little toward the sky as if in supplication, in remembrance of Nila. After a while, an uncertain smile flickered on his face, faint enough to be illusory, and he held out his hand, palm up.

  Viro found a piece of jagged rock on the railing, and in an act of puerile recklessness that would infuriate his parents and the healers after the wound went septic, he cut his palm open with the rock before handing it to Kiran. He did the same, setting the stone aside and clasping Viro’s hand tightly. The contact stung, though Viro could not be sure whether that was from the burn of the cut or the warmth of the other boy’s skin.

  But it was a pleasant kind of pain, and he wrapped it up in grass and gold as he would a proper gift, and held it close to his chest, tucking it between soft, unmarked heartstrings.

  8

  Lyne

  Autumn thickened, decorations of falling leaves transitioning into smiling pumpkins and dancing skeletons. Every day, Dai walked over to Beanzzz with Suri and drew out the next day’s special drinks in orange and white chalk. Sometimes, he dragged along Aza, and Aza dragged along Miya, who ended up dragging along Ellis, who had become oddly reticent as of late.

  He’d always been quiet, but recently there was a pensive agitation to it. When Suri worked up the courage to ask him if he was feeling okay, he simply explained it away with sleep deprivation or a bad lunch.

  The latest season of Heartbreak Hotel had finished in early October, so Kiran had turned his attention to Halloween. Everything about it intrigued and repulsed him in equal measure, a reasonable depiction of his feelings toward humanity. He called it All Hallows’ Eve with his faded, shifting accent, and binge-watched spooky old movies and read thick, musty books on the history of the holiday. From the beginning, he nagged Suri about getting a pumpkin to carve.

  “I don’t trust you with a knife,” she had said flatly. “And if we forget to throw it out, it’ll rot and attract flies. It’s gross. And unnecessary.”

  “First of all,” he had said, genuinely affronted. “I am exceedingly good with a knife. Far better than you were, mind you. Second of all, I’ll throw it out.”

  She had given him one of his own looks—mild, faintly incredulous. He had recognized it, ears paling with blood, but hadn’t budged.

  She turned him down that day, but finally relented under the sole condition that he handle everything from the carving to the disposal, and bought him one roughly the size of his head. He’d spent an entire day carving it, detailing a faintly sinister expression with shocking care. He really was quite good with knives.

  On Halloween, he placed it beside the welcome mat he’d bled on, along with a decorated bowl of mini chocolate bars. He inclined his head toward her as she pulled on a pair of plastic white wings. “A bird?”

  “An angel,” she corrected. “It’s low maintenance, and easy to run with.”

  Aza had first come up with the idea when they were sixteen, years after they’d stopped trick or treating in the residential sector. When Kiran had asked why—his research had led him to believe adults turned to alcohol instead of candy—Miya had shrugged and said, “We don’t do it for the candy. We do it for the chaos. It’s a matter of principle.”

  Kiran, carved from chaos and blade-sharp all the same, had immediately been delighted by the idea. Suri had been in favor when they’d first started, allured by the prospect of tangible rebellion. Now, it was more that the rhythm of the routine soothed her, the familiarity of sour candy and smoke.

  Suri’s phone buzzed, letting her know that Aza and Dai were on their way over. She folded her arms and narrowed her eyes at Kiran. “Are you not dressing up? I thought you were excited.”

  “I am,” he said, gesturing toward his T-shirt with a flourish. Strangely, she missed his old clothes, his leather jackets and blouses and pajama pants. “I’m dressed as a human.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “Just last night, you went off on a tirade about how all Halloween costumes must invoke some kind of fear, or they’re not ‘real’.”

  “Oh, I know,” he replied, eyes glittering. “But humans are the most terrifying creatures of all, don’t you think?”

  Suri held his gaze for a moment, unamused, before dropping into the armchair. Her eyes fell on the small garden on the balcony. In the fading light of dusk, the white jasmine flowers shone. “Why do you hate us so much? You were human once, too, right?”

  “Yes,” he said, with no inflection; the shift in his voice was startling, caustic and barren. “And I was a fool. A terrible, cruel fool.”

  She tilted her head up, but there was a sharp knock at the door, and he turned away to open it. Miya stood silhouetted against the darkness in front of them, Ellis standing behind her with his hands shoved in his pockets. Miya was wearing a black dress and a cheap, shiny, black cloak, a drop of blood painted on her tawny skin. Plastic fangs shone in the dim light when she opened her mouth to grin at them, holding up a plastic bag filled with bottles. “Happy Halloween!”

  “All Hallows’ Eve,” Kiran corrected insufferably, but smiled and step
ped to the side to let her in.

  Ellis, wearing a sheet with a cutout for his head, followed her in. The skin under his eyes was faintly bruised, and his glasses were smudged, but he made an attempt at a smile and said, “Boo.”

  “You’re not wearing a costume,” Miya said, horrified, and Suri turned to find her staring at Kiran.

  He glanced over at Suri, an amused tilt to his mouth, but there was no way for him to explain it to Miya, and so he simply said, “I suppose I’m not.”

  “Well,” she said, holding up her plastic bag; a red headband stuck out of the corner. “You’re lucky I brought extras.”

  And then she was dragging him into the bathroom, and Suri and Ellis were getting out glasses and and mugs from the dishwasher in silence. She risked a glance at him. There was a sickly cast to his dark skin, and he seemed withdrawn, faraway.

  Aza and Dai showed up a few minutes later. Aza was dressed as a witch, with a black headband and a lace dress that came up to her knees. Dai had dressed regularly, with only slight rips in his clothes, but would be exempt from Miya’s wrath—he’d painted gaping wounds across his forehead and cheekbone, droplets of blood doodled across the inside of his wrist.

  Aza threw another venomous glance at the crowded city below, swollen with the holiday, and tucked herself into the couch, tilting one of Miya’s bottles directly into her mouth.

  Miya whistled low as she reentered the room, and Aza’s cheeks colored from chagrin. She held up her hands. “Oh, don’t stop on my account, Hayashi.”

  “I hate you,” Aza said, pulling back from the bottle. She wiped her mouth with a ferocious intensity.

  “Do you?” she returned, arching an eyebrow. Kiran ducked out of the hallway behind her, the light from the kitchenette streaming in through gaps in the drywall and casting him in shadows.

  He was wearing a red headband with devil horns on it and a pointed wireframe tail pinned onto the back of his jeans, curled upward. Miya had dusted his cheeks with red glitter. He smiled at her, mouthing we match in the midst of Aza’s tipsy rant.