Rising Like a Storm

by Tanaz Bhathena

  Silence fills the space between us. In the dim light, I see her frowning, as if mulling over what I said.

  “We’ll see,” she says.

  Then, with a final tug on Malti’s shoulders, both woman and girl sweep away.

  21

  CAVAS

  “Where is the girl named Gul, also called the Star Warrior?” General Alizeh asks me again the next day.

  Amba’s finger rests against the pulse on my wrist, her gaze focused somewhere on the stone wall behind me.

  I take a deep breath. “I don’t know,” I say honestly.

  “Truth.”

  I hear the snap of Alizeh’s neck turning to stare at the former queen. Her gray eyes narrow. Amba’s hand—the one that isn’t touching me—is upraised and glowing gold, the only way to know a truth seeker’s own truth.

  “He’s useless then,” says the Sky Warrior next to Alizeh. The one named Captain Shekhar.

  “I doubt it,” I say boldly. “I know Gul better than anyone else. I may not know exactly where she is, but I can make an educated guess.”

  Again, Amba says, “Truth.”

  “I want to get out of this dungeon,” I tell Alizeh. “For that, I’m willing to do anything.”

  “Truth,” Amba confirms.

  “Oh really?” Alizeh asks. “Are you willing to surrender? Pledge loyalty to Rani Shayla?”

  “I am.” For now.

  There’s a slight quiver against my skin. “Truth,” Amba says after a pause.

  General Alizeh doesn’t notice. She’s eyeing me the way a farmer would eye an old barrow that has suddenly become useful again. “Tell me then, dirt licker, where do you think she might head next? Whether or not we let you out of the prison depends on the information you give us.”

  I’m sorry, Juhi.

  “The last place Gul lived in was Javeribad, with the Sisterhood of the Golden Lotus,” I say. I hear a sharp intake of breath from the cell to my left. “It seems safe to say that’s where she would go, wouldn’t she? To get more support for her cause?”

  “Truth,” Amba says.

  General Alizeh’s mouth twists into the approximation of a smile. “Javeribad. You have been useful, dirt licker. In all this time, neither of the two witches imprisoned here gave a hint about where the Sisterhood is. Raise the wall,” she tells Captain Shekhar.

  The captain smartly taps his atashban against the wall dividing my cell from Juhi’s. So far, the only bits of Juhi I’ve seen have been her midnight eyes or a lock of blue hair against a bruised brown forehead. Today, as the stone wall lifts, I see a wild-eyed, blue-haired woman behind bars, a muddied tunic hanging off her emaciated body, fury lining every bit of her worn face.

  “Traitor!” she snarls, spittle flying everywhere. “You have betrayed her in the worst way possible!”

  I jerk back as she slams her forearms against the bars.

  “I’m going to kill you!” she screams, uncaring about the shackles glowing on her wrists and ankles. “Kill you!”

  “Oh look. She’s upset,” Alizeh says lazily. “Lower the wall, Captain.”

  The captain hastens to do exactly that, while Juhi continues to scream in the background. In the second before the stone shields her from view, the purported rage vanishes from Juhi’s face. She gives me a firm nod before shouting curses at me again. My heart slowly resumes beating normally. If I thought Juhi was angry, then surely that display must have convinced General Alizeh.

  It does. Without torturing me this time, the Sky Warriors exit the prison, Queen Amba following in their wake. Once their footsteps fade away, I attempt to reach Gul. The consecutives must have weakened me far more than I’d anticipated, because even with my eyes closed and Vaid Roshan’s healing, it’s difficult to reach sthirta, to grow calm the way I’m supposed to as the temple materializes around me.

  “Gul!” I call out as loudly as I can. “Gul, it’s me!”

  I shout over and over again until I think I feel a shift in the air, hear a distant, yet distinct reply.

  “Cavas? Cavas!”

  A spasm of pain takes over—aftershocks from the torture sessions, Vaid Roshan calls them. I force myself to focus on Gul’s voice, to hold on to the threads that still keep me in my meditative state.

  “Javeribad,” I spit out. “Create a diversion in Javeribad. Do it as soon as you can.”

  22

  GUL

  Create a diversion in Javeribad.

  The words rumble in my head as I jerk awake, my skin covered with goose bumps. Next to me, Sami snores, still fast asleep, but Kali is gone, her sheet tossed aside, her pallet still warm.

  Picking out voices rising from beyond the tent flap, I slip out, a blanket wrapped around my shoulders, the cold air nipping at my nose. The sky is still dark, the main fire long turned to ash. But a little farther away from the area where our tents are set up, I find Subodh and Amar standing on two sides of a small lightorb, tension clear on their faces. Kali wavers between the two, her hands held out as if to keep them apart.

  “What happened?” I ask, the strain of my dream showing up in my voice. “Why is everyone awake?” Is it morning already?

  “I’m glad you’re here, Savak-putri Gulnaz.” Subodh’s voice is little better than a growl. “We’re here to decide—once and for all—if I am trustworthy or not. Isn’t that so, Raja Amar? Perhaps then you will see no need to have me followed around by a small child—whom I frightened off, by the way, simply by shaking myself dry after a bath.”

  Amar scowls but does not deny this accusation.

  “You set a spy on Raja Subodh?” I say. I don’t know why I’m so shocked; Amar had been quite open about his suspicions. I just didn’t think he would go this far.

  “What else would you have me do?” Amar demands.

  “You could have, in the nature of the ancient rulers of Svapnalok, requested an audience with a truth seeker present,” Subodh says, his voice still a growl. “I would have accepted. But, instead, you have a ten-year-old human child spy on me. You compelled me to trouble Kali and wake her in the middle of the night so we could settle this.”

  “It’s no trouble,” Kali says quickly, her voice hoarse. “I’m happy to help however I can.”

  “Let’s get this over with,” Amar says coldly. “I have a truth seeker for a mother, Raja Subodh. It will be very hard to pull a veil over my eyes.”

  “Ask your questions, Raja Amar.” Subodh raises a forepaw, and Kali, bracing herself, places one hand on it. Amar, however, is watching Kali’s other hand, tattooed with the golden lotus, which is raised upright and glowing, revealing Kali’s own truths.

  “Why are you helping us in this war?” Amar asks Subodh.

  “For two reasons,” he replies. “First, to help the women of Tavan who are now like children to me.”

  “Truth,” Kali says.

  “Second,” Subodh continues, “I am hoping that, when you become king, Raja Amar, you will free all imprisoned Pashu in Ambar and let them return home to Aman—if they so wish.”

  “Truth,” Kali says.

  Amar, still staring at the truth seeker’s undimmed hand, falters during his next question. “So … so you really don’t have any ulterior motives?”

  “Do I have ulterior motives? Yes, of course, I do. But I told you exactly what they were,” Subodh says. “All of them.”

  “Truth,” Kali confirms.

  “You don’t want to rule Ambar yourself?” Amar presses.

  “Absolutely not,” Subodh says. “I have never been good at ruling, Raja Amar. I do not want that burden.”

  “Truth—all of it.”

  Amar’s shoulders sag, and he looks smaller all of a sudden. As if the anger and suspicion fueling him have vanished, leaving behind a husk.

  “Are you satisfied, Raja Amar?” Subodh asks wearily after a few moments.

  “I’m … satisfied.” Amar forces out the last word. But he’s no longer glaring at the Pashu king, and Subodh, too, no longer looks like he wa
nts to bite off Amar’s head.

  “Good,” Subodh says. “Then I think you should release Kali. She is clearly the one who suffers the most from the truth seeking.”

  Amar’s yellow eyes widen with shock. “Goddess, I completely forgot! Kali ji, you are free to go. I’m sorry I caused you pain.”

  “Thank you,” Kali whispers, dropping her hand to the side. I walk over to put an arm around my friend, whose lips are gray now, her body tremulous with cold. The hand she used to touch Subodh, however, is covered with tiny red wounds, as if the skin there were exposed to hot oil.

  “I’ll be fine,” she tells me when she catches my concerned look. “It happens sometimes—when questioning someone with exceptionally strong magic in their veins. Don’t look so worried, my girl. The magic we do best often takes the most out of us.”

  Her words make me shiver, reminding me why I woke up in the first place. But before I can say anything, a wooden cup of steaming tea, fragrant with lemongrass, floats in the air toward us—an offering from a contrite Amar.

  “I didn’t realize how quickly a lightorb could boil chai,” he says. “Would you like one, too, Gul? I’ve added masala to it and some conjured lemongrass—though I can’t vouch for the taste of the latter.”

  “I’d love a cup,” I say. Masala chai with fake lemongrass might help ward off the shivers that have taken over my body again as I recall the vision I had of Cavas.

  As Subodh, Kali, and Amar settle by the lightorb, their faces shrouded by firelight and shadow, I tell them about my dream, words spilling out in a rush.

  “It was strange,” I say. “I mean, I’ve been meditating each night, trying to reach Cavas, ever since we got here. Each time, I’ve been unsuccessful and have fallen into a dreamless sleep. But just now, it was different. I don’t know if it was a dream or simply wishful thinking.”

  “Perhaps it isn’t,” Subodh says, his eyes like molten firestones. “What did Cavas look like? What did he say?”

  “I couldn’t see him clearly. So many shadows were surrounding him; the look of them made me nauseated. He told me to create a diversion in Javeribad. To do it as soon as I can.”

  “Are you certain? Those were his exact words?”

  “Yes.”

  Flames lick at the lightorb, popping and crackling, the silence around us broken only by the distant crowing of landfowl. Morning will be here soon.

  “And you’re certain it was Cavas,” Amar says. The doubt in his tone makes me bristle. “Why would he tell you to go to Javeribad?”

  “I’m not sure, Raja Amar. I didn’t have time for an extended conversation.”

  Amar does not seem perturbed by my sarcasm. “I should write to Rani Ma. Ask her what exactly is happening at Ambar Fort. It would be a while before I got her answer, but that would still be more reliable.”

  More reliable than a sixteen-year-old girl’s fevered nightmare, you mean.

  I grit my teeth.

  “Actually, complements can communicate telepathically at great distances,” Subodh says. “It’s a fairly reliable system, when done awake. Try to reach Cavas again, Gul. See if he gives you the same message.”

  A part of me hesitates. I have communicated with Cavas telepathically but never successfully from miles away. However, Amar’s skeptical expression makes me change my mind. “All right,” I say, forcing myself to sound more confident than I am.

  Unwilling to chance my concentration being broken by any real-world distraction, I close my eyes and breathe the way Subodh taught us during our first lesson. I’m back again in the darkened temple, the sky goddess alone in the sanctum. There is no sign of Sant Javer.

  “Cavas?” I call out. “Cavas, can you hear me?”

  “He isn’t here, daughter.”

  I turn to the goddess and look into her eyes, which now reflect the dawn breaking outside the southern tenements.

  “I was dreaming, then.”

  “What is meditation if not dreaming? What is dreaming if not living on a higher plane of existence?” the goddess replies. “What do you think you saw, daughter? What do your instincts tell you?”

  My heart convulses now, too afraid to hope. “I want to believe what I saw. But you told me already that Cavas isn’t here.”

  “He isn’t here now, my child. But he was here before. And so were you.”

  I stare at the goddess, her smile cryptic. “You mean, it was real. I heard him.”

  “Yes, you did. But there are shadows around him,” the sky goddess warns. “He needs to get out of that kalkothri. The only way he can do so is by giving the right information about your movements. If the Sky Warriors don’t find you in Javeribad, I’m afraid he will not last much longer.”

  When I open my eyes, the sky is awash with color: an early-morning palette of pinks and yellows breaking through a gray sky. “Was I gone long?”

  “Not long,” Kali says. “Did you see Cavas?”

  “No,” I say. “But I saw the sky goddess. She was there the last time, too, when I heard him. She confirmed he was there.”

  “What if it’s a trap?” Amar demands. “You weren’t actively meditating when you heard Cavas. A living specter might have spoken to you in the night and you might have mistaken him for Cavas.”

  “That isn’t likely, Raja Amar,” Subodh says before I can retort. “Living specters can only disguise their voices to match the dead—not the living. Also, I know for a fact that Latif watches over Gul’s tent each night while she sleeps. He would have known if any mischief was afoot.”

  My eyes widen. Latif watches over me? I whisper to Subodh.

  As Cavas’s mother watches over him at Ambar Fort, he replies.

  Out loud, he says: “Latif, please come forward.”

  I frown, wondering how they communicated without the green swarna I always saw in Cavas’s hand—when I spot it glowing on the ground, right next to Subodh’s front paw.

  A moment later, a sly voice speaks: “You called, Pashuraj.”

  Even now, after so many days of living among specters, I can never quite get rid of that crawling sensation under my skin in the presence of one.

  “Please tell us about what’s happening at Ambar Fort,” Subodh says. “Or what the specters know.”

  “Harkha stays there to check on Cavas, of course,” Latif says. “She never leaves the place. She told me that the kalkothri is difficult, nearly impossible for her to access. Magic built into its walls prevents living specters from entering the space for more than a few seconds at a time. The only time Harkha can talk to Cavas is in a spectral dream—when his interrogators nearly beat him to death.”

  No one speaks for a long time after that statement, not even a frowning Amar.

  “The sky goddess told me that Cavas won’t survive if he stays imprisoned for much longer,” I say. “I have to go to Javeribad!”

  “Absolutely not!” Kali snaps. “You’ll only get captured or killed.”

  “But—”

  “Esther died to keep you safe,” Kali goes on brutally. “So did many others from the Legion. For someone so reluctant to put others’ lives at risk, you seem to have no concern for your own!”

  My face burns. I want to defend myself. I also want to sink through the ground.

  Surprisingly, Latif speaks up for me. “Come now, Kali. Going to Javeribad is dangerous, but surely, there must be ways to mitigate the risks and allow Gul to make an appearance—safely—before whisking her back here.”

  “There is no way.” Kali shakes her head. “It’s impossible!”

  “I imagine if Juhi ji had thought the same thing years ago, you and your friend, Amira, would still be languishing in that labor camp,” Latif’s soft voice continues. “Most likely you’d be dead by now—or living specters yourselves.”

  Now it’s Kali’s turn to be speechless and unable to look anyone else in the eye.

  “The other issue is Cavas himself,” Amar says, breaking the silence. “Let’s say—hypothetically—that your insane pla
n works and they let Cavas out. For our purposes, it will mean that he will become an informant. The question is: Will he still remain on our side?”

  “Of course he will!” I say. “Why would he ever switch over to Shayla’s side?”

  “Human desires are unpredictable. They shift, and with them so do prophecies. You should know that better than anyone else.”

  “I believe we can risk Cavas not turning on Gul so soon, Raja Amar,” Latif says—again coming to my defense. “Not unless he has developed a taste for sadists.”

  Amar’s head snaps sideways at being addressed so directly. He squints, as if that will make him capable of seeing the specter any better.

  “Also, Cavas might have used Javeribad as a ruse to get out of prison by hinting that Gul was going to the village to see someone there,” Latif continues.

  “The Sisterhood of the Golden Lotus,” I murmur. Or the Sisters who remain, anyway. “I need to warn them that the Sky Warriors are coming.”

  “You can do that by shvetpanchhi,” Amar points out. “Why go yourself and put everything at risk?”

  Everything meaning Ambar. His kingdom.

  “Because if the Sky Warriors don’t see me, they will kill Cavas,” I say sharply. “And I am not going to let that happen.”

  “You’ll only put yourself in unnecessary danger. If something happens to you, the entire rebellion will fall apart!”

  “We’re perpetually in danger now!” I also want to add that I don’t care about the rebellion if Cavas’s life is at stake. But Subodh’s thoughts brush mine, giving me pause.

  Savak-putri Gulnaz. The Pashu king’s voice in my head is calm, almost akin to a purr. Don’t lose your temper. Remember, Amar is still your king. There are ways to get what you want. Use your mind.

  I take a deep breath. “Ambarnaresh,” I address Amar by his future title. “I don’t mean to be insolent. Perhaps sending the Sisters a warning by shvetpanchhi is a smart idea. But I still need to go to Javeribad.” Do it as soon as you can. “Perhaps there is a way to do it—as Latif said? A safe way?”