by Varsha Ravi
“It has been nine years.”
“Even now, Kiran,” he repeated, his fingers pale and clenched on the wood.
A brief, dragging silence followed, as the other occupants of the table held themselves still and prayed for the meeting to end as quickly as possible. Despite their anger, Suri felt as though she was seeing an argument between siblings. It was something of the petulant, bitter timbre in their voices, the familiar tension.
Kiran spoke first, flat and unyielding. “Then move the troops north of Marai.”
Suri did not understand the meaning of his words, not at first, but the king’s mouth thinned. His voice could’ve melted iron. “And then who will guard the northern entrance to the city? Who will guard the mountains?”
“Who else?” It was a touch self-deprecating, but his expression was smooth. Only his eyes burned. “Was it not you who said I do not fight for our people?”
The boy king shook his head, a caustic incredulity animating him. His gaze was bright with scorn. “You already have a purpose. Fulfill it.” Kiran narrowed his eyes, but before he could respond, the king nodded at Tarak and stood. “This meeting is adjourned.”
But even the blessed and the powerful could not bend fate to their wills. The door swung open and smacked against the other wall, revealing a winded messenger. She clutched a scroll in her fingers, the cloth torn and wrinkled from the tightness of her grip. The king’s gaze had zeroed in on it nearly immediately, and he crooked his hand in silent request.
She crossed the room, managing a faint, “It’s Naja. There’s been an attack on a village along the borderlands. They hit not a day after the troops had moved out.”
The king scanned the scroll carefully, his previous anger smoothed out to something stony and dark. A storm in flux. He dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Let the chief know I’ve received his message immediately.”
The messenger nodded and bowed deeply before shutting the door behind herself. The sound seemed to snap the others out of the shocked trance the news had dropped over the room, and the ministers and chiefs began to murmur—worry and fear coloring their words. The boy king placed the flattened scroll on the table, taking a second to smooth it out while the chatter around him grew and grew.
Suri heard none of it. White noise had become something hungry, and it consumed her from the inside out—fear slid over her heart, oil slick and darker still. It was fear for herself, to be sure—but she was distantly aware of the fact that it was also fear for others, those of the city. For Tarak, and Isa, and Kita, and Mohini, and Lucius, and Kiran.
Suri knew she was the immediate suspect, though she had been—publicly—privy to the inner workings of the nation for a little less than an hour. She thought to look at the king, to parse and dissect the ramifications of the anger and doubt she knew would have already colored his expression. But instead, she turned to look at Kiran, an ingrained response.
He was already looking at her. Because he suspects you, a voice in her head whispered. She swallowed hard, leaned forward to whisper something, but he shook his head slightly. Later, he mouthed. Despite everything, he did not look angry—the fury had melted from his expression, replaced with a pensive grimness.
“The movement of troops from Karur to Sakal was not publicized,” the king said, once it was clear enough that the room would not calm naturally. His voice cut through the noise, soft but venomous. “There is no natural way that information could have spread.”
“A mole?” a chief suggested. Suri ignored the sharp glance he pointedly sent her way.
The boy king did as well, which was far more of a surprise. He turned to Tarak and said something inaudible, to which the captain nodded and rose. Directing his attention back to the table, he said, “As I said before, this meeting is adjourned. Further measures to address the attacks will be discussed privately. Until the mole is found and punished, we will have to convene irregularly.”
The silence in the air dissipated as the king got to his feet and left the room. Tarak stayed for a bit longer, addressing instructions to specific people before following him out. His words were unintelligible to Suri—her grip on the table was too tight, tight enough that she could see her veins. The strain was faraway, unimportant.
“Suri,” Kiran said quietly, wearily. She looked up, and he looked back. Guilt sparked through her heart—that was not the first time he had called her name, only the first time she had heard it. “Princess. Are you ready to leave?”
She nodded, her voice something jagged and fearful curled up in the hollow of her throat. He held out his hand, and she took it. It was overwarm to the touch, a strange kind of familiarity in the midst of the tumult.
Kiran exhaled slowly as they reentered the west stoa. The sun was rising, washing the horizon in shades of fuchsia and gold. The air was crisp, sweet, but Suri was still far away, trapped in her own mind. The beauty of the sight in front of her was a jewel that dangled a hundred feet away, and she was chained and staked to dry, hard soil.
They stood in silence for a moment, and then Kiran turned to her. Her lips were a forest, a graveyard, of everything she wished to say and everything she could not. He tugged on her hand, a startling reminder that he had not let it go, and nodded toward the north tower. “Come with me.”
Though it had been hours since she’d awoken, since the meeting had begun, the corridors of the palace were still mostly empty, and their steps echoed as they ascended the stairwell. Suri caught a glimpse of the temple from one of the staggered windows, a stream of hazy smoke floating up from the brazier and disappearing into the sky. Kiran saw her looking and gave her a strange, pinched look. “What are you thinking about?”
“Do you live there?”
He didn’t answer at first, unlocking the aviary door with a key he’d procured from the folds of his robes. The kaghas began to cry at the mere sound, a shrill, piercing cacophony that ceased the moment that Kiran himself entered the room. Without looking at her, he said, “Close. I used to, but there are a few household responsibilities that cannot be fulfilled without a roof.”
“A few?”
He grinned, a garish, youthful tilt to his mouth that dislodged the knot of anxiety in her chest. “The rest can be accomplished. With a little creativity.” He turned fully, dropping her hand as well as the smile. “Princess—”
“I didn’t do it,” she said, and the hysteric edge to her words shocked even her. If he believed she had betrayed them, he would tell the king, and she would die—and so it was a matter of common sense, but somehow she knew that this strange, chaotic fear belonged to another world of thought entirely. “It wasn’t me—I swear, on Idhrishti’s grave—”
Kiran took her hands again, held them tight. Her fingers shook in his grip, bloodless and fear-worn as he unclenched them slowly, rolling each digit out. He cupped her palms, his thumbs pressed against her lifelines. “Suri.”
She exhaled, felt it like a crackling shift in the stone below.
“I know it wasn’t you,” he said steadily. His expression caught, shifted, and he squeezed her hands before letting them go. “You forget I’ve been beside you this past month. I would have noticed if you had sent word to your family.”
There was a spark of something strange and hollowing in her chest at the simple logic of his words, even if they were wrong. She recalled all the letters she’d sent without his knowledge, and looked away. “Then who was it?”
He carded a hand through his hair, blowing out a sigh of frustration. “That is the question I suppose we will have to answer. For his sake, if nothing else.” He looked back at her and raised his eyebrows. “What is it?”
“What?”
A crooked smile played on his lips. “I can tell you are holding yourself back from a question.”
Suri frowned. “What are you to the king?”
He held out a hand, and one of the kaghas flew out and landed on his wrist silently. Gently, he stroked its neck. “An advisor of sorts, like I said. I see
things, and thus, my counsel is valuable. He rarely heeds it, but that’s little concern of mine.”
She disagreed—she’d seen the sharp, real anger burning between them, the disappointment. But when she opened her mouth, she found herself saying, “He hates you.”
The smile twisted with derision. “He can afford to. I will keep him alive, whether he cares to stay that way or not.”
“You think he’s going to look for the spy,” she guessed.
Kiran nodded, murmuring something to the bird that made it fly away, up into the rafters. “Viro won’t forget this. The possibility of a spy, of an attack—it will consume him. It is not something I want to see upon this city again either, nor does Tarak, but it will wreck him worst. We must find them first. If he does… it will not end well.”
His use of the collective ‘we’ unsettled and emboldened her; it was the sharp, biting knowledge that she would kill the king in the end paired with the unmooring feeling of purpose. She had only ever known duty when it meant a knife pressed into her hands.
I see things, he’d said. “Is that a prophecy?”
“It’s inevitable, Suri,” he said, tracing the groove in his wrist where the kagha had landed. His eyes still glittered with old vitriol. “I suppose you could call it fate.”
After the missive arrived, Kiran disappeared again. It wasn’t particularly surprising—the festival was approaching, and there was always work to be done. But she could not forget the strained, too-sharp angles of his face, anger that simmered and sunk. The third morning after, she woke up a little after dawn and traced the well-worn path up to the temple.
The brazier was lit, incense burning—her misplaced anxiety faded a little, unraveling. Then she noticed a slender path leading away from the far end of the temple, hugging the edges of the mountain. It was wide enough that she could follow it comfortably, but narrow enough that small bits of the cliff would intermittently crumble away and fall to the earth below.
Eventually the path fanned out, widening into a small clearing that hung off the edge of the mountain. It was a little higher than the temple had been, and already Suri could feel the air beginning to thin. A fence made of old, worn lumber, most likely from the forest below, delineated the borders of a small garden. Another path led out from the edge of the garden, snaking around a few empty wicker baskets and a water pump to feed into a small cottage.
Kiran knelt with his back to her, his hands and face streaked with dark soil. Even before she spoke, he turned to look at her, brows furrowed in bemusement. “Suri? Why are you here?”
She might’ve been annoyed if she hadn’t been so relieved. He was paler than usual, but the circles around his eyes had faded slightly. Pulling her cloak tighter around her shoulders, she slipped through the open gates, indicating the garden with her free hand. “This is yours.”
He held her gaze for a moment, inscrutable, before nodding and patting the soft grass beside him. Carefully, she knelt, examining the sloping land around her. It was not as grand as any of the palace gardens—little more than a square plot of land split into different regions by plant type. But there was something intensely personal about this garden, something tender and loved.
Her eyes settled on the clumps of flowers on the far side. Kiran followed the line of her gaze and drew himself up, walking around to the flowers. He’d planted peonies and wild jasmine, and the air was sugar-sweet. She crouched beside the jasmine, admiring the bright white buds.
“I’ve never learned how to garden,” she said. It came out hushed, even though there was no one else there to hear her.
“I could teach you.” His gaze was fixed on the small white blooms. “If you want. I’ve been doing this for some time.”
Suri glanced up at him, but there was no hint of humor in his expression. He was serious. She pulled her hands back, curling them into the fabric of the cloak. “I would like that.”
He smiled faintly, his coal-black eyes shining with the reflection of the white flowers. “I would’ve expected you to refuse. On the grounds of my overworking myself.”
She laughed, pulling herself to her feet. “I know better now. You will overwork yourself regardless. I have no say in the matter.”
He looked as if he wanted to protest, but he simply shook his head. “Wait here for a moment.”
Kiran returned with a small jasmine sapling in a clay pot, which he then held out to her. “I meant to plant it today. Would you like to do the honors?”
She felt dazed, upset for some distant, abstruse reason. But she took the pot and sat down on the grass. It was faintly damp under her dress, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. He knelt beside her, placing a small tub of dark material next to the flowers, as well as a metal spade.
She did most of the planting herself, but he guided her through it. Mostly through instructions, but he would often reach over and place his fingers on her own, showing her where to plant the sapling, how to cover the base with soil so that it stood straight. The instructions themselves were airy and impermanent in her mind, her conscious knowledge of the situation paling in comparison to the simple peace of it.
She patted the soil down, clapping her hands together to get rid of the excess. Her fingernails were dark, moons of dirt hidden under them. Kiran pulled out a flask of water and took her hands gently, washing out the soil from under her nails. The drops fell on the black dirt below, disappearing into the ground. “Will it take a long time to bloom?
There was a smudge of dirt on his cheek, and she raised a hand to wipe it off before deciding against it. “You are always welcome to check on it.”
“Perhaps I will,” she said, smiling despite it all. It was a very foolish thing, she knew, to smile in a world so quiet and so loved, and even more foolish to admire the sweetness of that love. Adoration was a foreign language to her; she spoke it clumsily, childlike and earnest. “It’s a beautiful garden.”
She said it because she knew it would please him, and it did. His mouth curved in a small, boyish smile. He gestured toward the city, the smile flickering and fading. “I’ve taken up enough of your time. I’m sure you have more important things to do.”
Suri hesitated, but then rose. She looked back only once, after she’d descended the foothills and crossed the path to the north gardens, but from there, she could not see the cottage—could not see the garden and the boy it had birthed. Only the thin path that led through the mountains and the smoke of the morning’s fire, ash-gray as it disappeared into the sky above.
The winter sun shone, all frosted warmth and a pale semblance of light. Athri never got cold enough to warrant true snow, not even in the peaks of the mountains, but it had been a cold year, and the edges of the grass bordering the gardens were tipped white.
It was Viro’s turn to look for them—he hated it, always had. There was something eerie and lonely about searching for them in the early morning chill, knowing they could see him but unaware of where they were hidden. But it was Kiran’s favorite game—gods knew why—and the preparations for the solstice festival had fatigued of late.
“You owe me,” Viro muttered under his breath, nearly inaudible. A small shriek of laughter sounded in the air and he spun on his heel. Found you.
He followed the sound of laughter—though it had long since dissipated—to a fallen kino at the edge of the tree line. Viro toed the tree tentatively, ducking under the branches of another. But he could not see their shadows in the forest, no matter how hard he looked.
A branch snapped in the distance, and he looked up. He navigated the frosted forest floor as nimbly as he could—though he had never been as good as Kiran at keeping himself quiet—until he got to the broken branch. He crouched beside it, but as far as he could see, it was deserted. A chill ran down his neck. He wasn’t supposed to be out here, technically—even in the game, there was an unspoken promise never to hide in the forest. But calling for help would likely land him in trouble with his sister, or worse, his mother.
Vir
o pulled himself to his feet, steadying himself against a nearby tree. The bark was cold and dry, rough under his fingers.
He heard it before he saw it.
It was the crackle of ice under calloused hands, a hiss too far away to matter and suddenly too close for comfort. He looked down and found a coiled black snake slowly It was the crackle of ice under calloused hands, a hiss too far away to matter and suddenly too close for comfort. He looked down and found a coiled black snake slowly ambling toward him. It flicked out its tongue, tasting the air, and then continued on, languorous.
Viro did not move.
The snake slithered over the branch, winding around Viro’s feet. Its gaze, clear and unblinking, did not falter. It had not bitten him yet, but he felt paralyzed somehow, electric with fear.
He watched it open his mouth. Distantly, he was lost in a sea of emotions, roiling and hopeless. But it was too far away to matter. Faintly, he thought, I’m only eight.
Its fangs glittered white. Viro counted his last breaths as they puffed out into the air. Its head reared back, and then fell.
Viro looked up. Tarak was kneeling in front of him, panting. A wooden mallet was clutched in his small, calloused hands. His gaze was focused on the head of the fallen snake, as if waiting for it to rise again. It twitched once, twice, and then its grip on Viro’s ankle loosened and it fell away.
Kiran stood beside him. It was impossible to know how long he had been there, how much he had seen. He did not spare a glance for the dead snake, choosing to keep his gaze on Viro instead.
“It’s dead,” he said softly. Strangely, the words were what finally loosened the tightness in his chest, unwound the dread that had wrapped around his heart.
“I thought I heard you,” Viro whispered, a half-hearted explanation.