by Varsha Ravi
Suri glared at Miya. She smiled sweetly back.
After a few drinks, Dai pulled out the annotated map, and they reviewed the places they’d hit up and the order of it. They all had another round of shots, for good measure, then locked the door behind them and filed down the stairs.
They always started at the far side of the city, close to the western edge. A good chunk of the people over there were a little surprised to see teenagers trick or treating, but for the most part, were encouraging of them “going out and having a good time.” It was where they got the majority of the candy.
Then they went down into the south city, and received dramatic door slams and the occasional pack of batteries. By the time they got to the east, they were tired and tipsy, and candy was less of a priority. They took photos with the statues in front of city hall, the building reflecting the night above.
Kiran took photos of Miya posed with the statues, though each one was a struggle against technology. He switched apps three times in succession, accidentally took multiple photos of himself in front-facing camera, and still thought the volume buttons were responsible for most functions on the phone. Even after he finally got the hang of it, Miya spent several minutes striking the most dramatic poses possible.
“Wait a second,” she called down from where she was wrapping her ankles around the mayor’s bicep. She leaned forward and made as if she were pressing a kiss to his silvery cheek. “Now take it.”
Kiran squinted up at her. “Lighting’s bad.”
“Turn on the flash,” she suggested.
He tapped at the phone for a moment, with the mild concern of a man lost in a widening desert. Then he glanced back up. “The screen says New Game or Resume on it. There are mushrooms in the background.”
“Suri,” Miya said, voice faintly strangled.
“I got it,” she said, taking the phone from Kiran and snapping the photo. She kept her eyes on the device, but in her periphery, she could see the glitter smeared on his cheeks, his dark hair tousled by the wind, gold eyes held in stark relief against the night. It took her five tries to get the shot right.
Miya heaved a sigh of relief and began to clamber down from the statue, a little too quickly for Suri’s liking. She landed on the ground safely, though, wearing a smug smile.
“Am I a badass or what?” she asked, words slightly slurred, tipping half her body weight onto Aza’s diminutive frame.
“You’re a pain in the ass,” Aza shot back, shoving her onto Ellis, who held out his arms to steady her.
Dai sighed wearily, but he was smiling. “Let’s get back, before these two send us to jail.”
They walked back in relative silence, until a patrolling cruiser recognized them from the Silly String incident earlier in the night and they had to sprint the rest of the way, tugging each other along when someone got too tired to run. They collapsed at the base of the door to Suri’s apartment. The bowl of chocolate was empty, the jack-o-lantern still burning merrily along. Suri watched the flame inside sway, enchanted.
Ellis nudged her, and she unlocked the door with shaking hands. They flooded in, taking up their regular spots—on the couch, armchair, and floor—with practiced, worn ease. Aza reached for a bottle of whisky and an empty cup, and Dai surreptitiously moved it out of her reach. She glared at him, but he shook his head firmly, cheeks flushed from the run.
“God,” Miya said, moaning into the throw pillow. “I can feel my teeth. I’m so drunk. I’m so tired. Why do we even do this?”
“’Chaos,’” Ellis quoted drily, but the word was muffled by the carpet directly below his face, so it lost a great deal of its weight.
Kiran was perched on the side of the armchair, listing to one side periodically. He was close enough that Suri could feel the dry heat of him; the run had not winded him at all, and he regarded them all with crudely hewn fondness.
“Can we stay here tonight?” Dai called after a moment, leaned back against the couch.
Suri waved a hand in acquiescence. “Yeah, sure. Who wants my bed?”
Aza and Miya both raised their hands, then glared at each other.
“You’ll vomit in it,” Aza told her, listing forward.
“So’ll you,” Miya retorted.
“Both of you, then,” Suri said cheerfully. Miya’s eyes snapped to her, round and pleading, but she was far beyond caring. “Dai, Ellis, you two take the couch and the armchair.”
“Mm,” Ellis said, words muffled against the carpet. He turned his head to the side and repeated, “Where are you and Kiran going to sleep?”
Suri nodded out at the terrace. “There’s a chair out there. I think. I’ll just bring out a blanket. Kiran can, uh—” They exchanged a glance, him amused and her uncertain about how she could explain his insomnia without sounding insensitive. “I don’t know. He can bring his own chair.”
Miya snorted at an unsaid joke, then turned her head back into the couch. It became very clear to Suri that she was going to have to carry all of them to bed.
Kiran did most of the carrying, but they were thankfully too drunk to question how he was strong enough to carry Miya and Aza over either shoulder. He dragged Ellis off the floor and propped him in a loose-limbed pile on the armchair, straightening Dai out on the couch before stepping aside and letting Suri slide pillows under their heads. She gave each one a fleece blanket from the storage closet.
By the time she’d retrieved her own—dark blue with yellow stars, like her baby blanket—it was near four in the morning. She nudged the glass doors open, breathing deeply. The night air was crisp and cold, sweet with autumn.
Wrapping the edges of the blanket around her, she tucked herself into the old wicker chair and pulled her knees up, leaning her head against a propped-up fist. The tipsiness of the early night had long since worn off, and now all that remained was the bright, distant memory.
Kiran followed her out silently. He took a seat on the cement across from her, supporting himself against the balcony rails. Tilting his blanket from side to side, he examined the soft blue pattern embroidered with pink flowers. The incongruity of it against his glitter-soaked skin was ridiculous and wonderful.
He pulled the headband off his head. “Your mortal delights are as alluring as you’ve all claimed them to be, I will give you that.”
It irked her for some reason; it was not so much the words themselves, but the way he said them, with practiced remoteness. He glanced up, and she forced herself to hold his gaze, even as her stomach dropped at the glint of his eyes. There was nothing human about those eyes, nothing kind. They were god-borne, through and through.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, and the words came out surprisingly steady. His eyebrows arched, slightly, in a silent question. She hesitated, reaching for the words, and continued, “I know you said I should be afraid of you. Because the gods aren’t kind.” She tilted her head, and her headband unsteadied in her hair. “Can’t you be the exception?”
“You misunderstood me.” His voice was low, empty; mountains carved into shells. “I’m not unkind because the gods are unkind. It is true enough that they are not kind, not a single one of them, but you must understand that I am the worst of them all.”
Suri watched him for a moment, traced the hard, jewel-sharp lines of his face. When he had first appeared, she’d often stolen occasional glances, not out of some kind of adoration, but out of simple curiosity. Even then, he was so clearly a relic of another world, something wrenched out of the viscous, saccharine flow of time. But now his face was something familiar, and the truth of it chilled her through.
She shifted in the chair, pulling the blanket tighter around her. She felt smudged and incorporeal in the night. Heaving a breath, she said, “I don’t believe you.”
“Two for two,” he said softly, voice lilting. “You didn’t believe I’d ever loved. Why do you not believe me this time?”
“That’s a secret,” she replied, echoing him, and his mouth slid upward in something that
nearly resembled a smile. But it was too sharp, saturated with heat.
“How can you presume to know me so well when we have only lived together for a few months?” he mused. His blanket fluttered around his shoulders, like wings. “You don’t know my past, all the things I’ve done and lost.”
“Neither do you,” she said, earning an amused glance from him. “So, technically, we’re on even ground.”
“Technically,” he agreed. His gaze was faraway, lost in some other time, some other world. He regarded her with wry thoughtfulness. “I suppose you want to hear the story.”
“No,” she said, curling against the arm of the chair. It was an uncomfortable position, all rough wicker and soft fleece and the distant smell of jasmine and smoke. “Leave the past behind for tonight. Stay here.”
For a moment, he was silent, and Suri wondered whether he would leave—whether he would step off the railing and disappear into the night, swallowed by darkness that smiled as if it had birthed him, bright-eyed and hard as a star. But he simply exhaled, leaning back against the wrought-iron bars.
“Okay,” he said, steady as flame, steady as blood. “I’ll stay.”
The next day, the second sankhili loosened.
9
Enesmat
Suri took the money up to the temple a couple evenings later—he would be able to distribute money to the city’s poor far more efficiently than her. With Kiran, there would be no suspicions of an ulterior motive, no uncomfortable grimaces when accepting the money. He was a saint in their eyes, after all. However afraid they were, a boon was a boon.
If it meant she could make sure he was still alive, then that was simply an added bonus.
But the temple was empty. The alcove at the head of the altar was alight, casting the decorated statue of Avya in shades of orange and gold, but Kiran was nowhere to be seen. The only sign that he’d been by recently was the fire and the scent of burning incense.
She tied the cloth straps of the bag in a knot and laid it down at the base of the inner sanctum. Hopefully he would come back before someone else arrived. But she had never seen anybody come up here, not even other priests.
He didn’t return that night—at least not until Suri had left—but the next morning, there was a knock at her door.
Suri had gotten into the habit of waking up long after sunrise; Mohini and Isa needed the extra sleep after spending nights out and were never ready until after the city had fully awoken. So she answered the door half-asleep, hair tied in a messy knot and strands framing her face in a staticky mess. She yawned. “Hello?”
Kiran was leaning against a column in the hallway, looking out over the city. He glanced up at the sound of her voice and raised his eyebrows. “Did I wake you?”
She nodded hazily. “What is it?”
His mouth twitched, as if to say something, but eventually he simply jerked his head downward. “Council meeting in fifteen minutes. I would not have expected Viro to involve you, though I suspect Tarak had something to do with it. He’s hopeful about you.”
The words pained and sickened her in equal amounts, immediately throwing off the remaining dregs of fatigue. She scrubbed a hand over her face, pushing her hair behind her ears. “I’ll be out in a few minutes, then.”
After freshening up, she slipped out of the room, mindful of her sleeping maids. Kiran had resumed looking out over the darkened city, gaze critical—troubled. Suri touched his shoulder probingly, and he blinked before offering a mild, contrived smile. “Sorry.”
“Do you have something on your mind?” Suri asked tentatively as they descended the stairs of the west tower. The watery lamplight that filtered in from the windows did little to reveal his expression, but even in the dimness, it was clear he had not been spending the few days away catching up on lost sleep.
“Nothing in particular,” he said, a blatant lie. He fiddled with the sleeve of his robes—he was dressed in formal clothes, a high priest’s wrap and loose robes draped over it. Unlike Kita’s all-white ensemble, his wrap was black, the robes a deep maroon. The golden pin glittered beside his neck. “These meetings can get… messy, that’s all.”
Suri remembered walking into the war room, seeing the boy king’s incendiary anger directed at someone who was no longer there. It seemed so distant, though it had happened only weeks ago.
They walked down the colonnade in silence before Kiran said, “You brought the money.”
She lifted her shoulders in a vague shrug. “You’ll have more use of it. The citizens will listen if you give it to them.”
He laughed, uncharacteristically bitter, examining his bitten fingernails. “You overestimate their opinions of me.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But I do not think I do.”
Kiran glanced over at her, gaze heavy and considering, lips parted as if he meant to say something more. But he just turned to the side and held the door to the war room open for her. She obligingly ducked into the room, finding it already full. Ministers dressed in black and gold and ambassadors marked with brassy pins sat around the long table in the center of the room. A handful of war chiefs in red and black sat with Tarak beside the head of the table, the seat of which lay empty. At the other side of the table lay two mirroring empty seats.
Upon seeing Suri, Tarak slipped out of his chair and moved to greet her. “You’re late.”
“Overslept,” she explained, unable to meet his gaze. He’s hopeful about you.
He smiled, warm. “Apologies for waking you up so early, then. Viro prefers meetings in the morning, for some odd reason.”
As if the mere mention of his name acted as a summons, the door swung open one last time. The boy king had dressed simply, save for his carved gold armband. He ignored Suri entirely and took his seat at the head of the table, affecting a neutral, vaguely pleasant expression she knew was completely contrived.
Tarak gave a brief mock salute before taking a seat beside him, and Suri reluctantly left to take the seat beside where Kiran sat at the other side of the table. Despite his position across from the king, he seemed more interested in the wood grain.
“Let’s begin,” the king said, before launching into a dry list of civil affairs. Suri struggled to pay attention, knowing if she ended up missing anything relevant, her next letter would be all the more useless.
Kiran was uncharacteristically silent throughout the meeting. It was nothing of discomfort—he was reclined comfortably in the high-backed chair, cheek leaned against one of his propped-up fists. He watched the proceedings with a hawk-eyed focus, but didn’t bother to volunteer his own thoughts. A young priest representing the main temple, perhaps a few years younger than Suri, sat a few places down the table from them. He glanced nervously at Kiran, before saying, “Avyakanth is in three weeks.”
The king turned coffee-dark eyes on the priest before flicking them over at Kiran. “And?”
“Preparations are underway,” he said, tracing whorls in the wood. “You know they do not change from year to year.”
“Without help?” The king’s features were narrowed with disdain.
Kiran caught his gaze for a moment. “Yes. Alone.”
The nobles and chiefs had gone still in their seats. The other priest had interlaced his fingers, examining them with an agitation Suri could feel from across the table. Only Tarak seemed unsurprised, if a little weary.
The tension dissipated quickly after, as Tarak began to discuss military matters—relevant information, finally. Suri mentally noted everything they covered, from army movements to locations of skirmishes.
“Bandits have been repeating pillaging a village on the other side of the mountains,” Tarak said, reading off one of the missives stacked in front of him. “Right off the western peaks, near the wastelands. We have no troops stationed there currently, since it’s far enough away from the border that the chance of attack from other troops is relatively low. I would suggest moving a unit from the troops at the border, since an invasion is unlikely at thi
s point in time.”
He tilted his head thoughtfully. “How frequently has this been occurring?”
“Once or twice a moon,” Tarak said. “According to the reports, they’ve become more frequent recently. It started a little over six moons ago.”
The boy king didn’t answer right away. Suri could feel the room warm, a subtle change noticeable only because she was so close to him. “Leave it for now.”
“For now,” Kiran echoed, after a few moments had passed. The words rang out in the near silence—Suri could have sworn she saw a few of the chiefs flinch. Kiran straightened in the chair, leaning forward across the table so his forearms were flat on the wood. His eyes were pools of dark oil, seconds from going up in flames. “And how long will you leave it?”
The king stared down the table, his mouth twisted in a brittle smile. “What?”
Tarak leaned forward to interfere, but Kiran spoke before he could. “Six moons. How much longer will they suffer before you decide your people are worth fighting for?”
The serrated, acrid fury of his words, and the familiarity with which he wielded them, were more surprising than the words themselves. There was an uncharacteristic volatility to both of them, as dangerous as flame. The king turned to look at him through slit eyes. “You speak of my people. The ones the troops at the borders fight to protect. That I fight to protect, while you pass judgment on us from above.”
Suri would not have caught it if she hadn’t been sitting beside him, closer from the anticipation of observing the argument, but Kiran flinched. It was a slight tremor, one that never resurfaced and didn’t show in his gaze or words, but she saw it—felt it—all the same. Softly, he said, “The villagers will die, by blade or famine, without help. There is no need for so many troops at the border. The war is over.”
The tenuous control the boy king had been exerting over his own anger fractured and snapped. His cheeks flushed crimson, and he pressed his palms flat against the table in a last-ditch effort to keep himself still. When he spoke, the words came slowly, as if each one stung. “The war will never be over. We cannot risk it, even now.”