“Sounds exactly like something Rani Shayla would do,” I whisper to a grim Kali.
“An army mutiny at Amirgarh?” Amar, who had been exhausted throughout today’s council meeting, is suddenly alert. “Who was the leader, Roda ji?”
A giggle. Roda clearly loves having an honorific placed after her name. “His name is Brigadier Moolchand, Raja Amar. Apparently, he’s the brother of some zamindar from Dukal. The brigadier and Rani Shayla talked about the zamindar as well. He accused the rani of killing him unfairly.”
I suppress the chill that goes through me. From somewhere in the recesses of my brain, I recall another night in a village, more than two years ago, when Zamindar Moolchand flashed an oily smile at three strange women, offering them shelter in his haveli. My only brother is in the army and no longer lives here, the zamindar said.
“It isn’t surprising that the army is growing restless,” Sarpanch Parvez tells us. “I’ve news from many non-magus loadbearers who have been languishing for months now without any pay, since before Raja Lohar died. They were planning to head to Ambarvadi, too, to talk to someone at the Ministry of War.”
“She had them burned alive.” Roda’s disembodied voice is eerily casual about this. Or probably desensitized by the number of people Shayla has killed so far. “They got a little too excited, those loadbearers—killing one of her Sky Warriors and nailing him to the ministry wall.”
Grim faces around me turn grimmer. “If she thinks executions are going to stop us, she needs to think again,” Sarpanch Parvez proclaims to loud cheers and applause.
Only Amar continues to frown, and I wonder if he feels as uneasy as I do about this. “I suppose the incident could work in our favor,” he says. “If Shayla continues to oppress every dissenting voice, she’ll turn the fearful ones angry as well.”
“Not everyone is dissenting, Raja ji.” Roda’s tone turns snide. “He’s on her side, isn’t he? The Star Warrior’s discard. The one whom people call the half magus traitor. He goes wherever she takes him to kiss her behind and lick her boots—when he isn’t kissing or licking her elsewhere.”
The specter’s voice cuts off as a streak of green light splices the sky—a spell I shoot with my daggers before Kali grips hold of my arm, pulling me down.
“He isn’t a discard!” I snap, hating the fact that I can’t see the snickering specter. “And neither is he a traitor!”
“Any other news, Roda? Once you’re finished taunting Gul, of course,” Subodh says.
There must have been a warning embedded somewhere in that calm voice, because when Roda speaks again, she’s oddly subdued. “Bounty hunters were spotted near Sur recently. They were asking the villagers questions about the southern tenements. Too many questions.”
“The damn barrier must have drawn attention,” someone grumbles.
“Yes, but at least it keeps us safe.” We turn to the speaker—Councilor Maya, who scowls at us. “What are you looking at me for? It’s the truth. Raja Amar may be magus, but he’s not all bad.”
Amar’s mouth twitches under his beard.
“Anything else, Roda?” Subodh asks.
“Nothing, Pashuraj. Unless you want to know about the exact way Acharya Damak likes to pluck out his nose hairs—”
“That’s everything for today,” Amar cuts in. “Thank you, Roda ji.”
A whiff of cold air passes by, indicating the specter’s exit from the reservoir. Soon after, I leap to my feet, leaving my partially eaten food on my plate. Kali’s and Falak’s voices steam my ears as I walk to the training ground.
“You do realize she’s making most of those things up, right?” Kali says. “She’s doing this to rile you and you know it!”
“I can’t help it!” I force myself to take a deep breath. “It has been more than two months since I’ve been able to see Cavas or talk to him!”
“Roda likes to stir trouble, Gul,” Falak says. “She was like that even when alive.”
I breathe deep, trying to cleanse my brain of images of Cavas and Shayla. I find some relief moments later, sparring with a few non-magi who arrive for extra practice on our training ground. But when the time comes to settle back in our tent, sleep eludes me.
It gets worse when, next to me, Kali and Sami first begin whispering to each other, giggling, and then—unmistakably—kissing.
On a normal day, I’d be amused by this development, ready to tease Kali about it the next day. Tonight, all I want to do is storm out of the tent. I force myself to stay put.
“We should sleep,” Sami whispers finally. “We’ll wake Gul.”
I wait in silence until their breaths turn deep, until all I can hear is the sound of stray dogs barking in the distance. Minutes trickle by. Perhaps an hour.
I can’t take this anymore. Once snores begin rising from Kali and Sami’s end of the tent, I slip out.
The camp is quiet, everyone slumbering after a long day of activity. Subodh’s long body is in repose, silhouetted against the moonlit reservoir. I glance around warily, wondering if Latif is around, lurking somewhere, watching me the way Subodh asked him to.
If so, the specter doesn’t stop me as I tiptoe out of camp and make my way through the tenements’ winding lanes, past the darkened buildings and ruined havelis, around a few men snoring peacefully on netted cots outside, to a small, makeshift shed behind the vegetable garden. Inside the shed, I find Agni—not asleep, as I anticipated, but wide awake. She snorts, her ears perking up the moment she sees me. I raise my finger to my lips.
Quiet, I tell her through our bond. We don’t want anyone else waking up.
Agni does as I ask, her body vibrating with the same sort of restlessness that I feel. Soundlessly, I lead her out of the shed, away from the buildings, to the stretch of land where we train in the mornings. I don’t bother with a saddle, sliding onto her bareback the way I did as a novice at the Sisterhood whenever we went off on our nighttime jaunts, my seaglass daggers secure against my hips.
The barrier prickles my cheeks—a warning—but in this moment, I don’t care. I simply want to get away for a short while—away from the rumors and conjecture, from the many curious gazes, from the living specters I’m forced to rely on for information but can never really trust.
Soon we are off on a gallop against the dark, barren land, nothing ahead of us except an endless starry sky.
Finally. Agni’s voice is a sigh in my head. I can run again.
“Me too,” I gasp out loud. My heart races. There are no magical barriers here. No protection against wild animals, spies, or bounty hunters. In fact, what I’m doing now is equally dangerous, possibly more so than trying to communicate with Cavas. “Tell me if you see or sense anything strange,” I tell Agni.
Don’t worry. I don’t smell any humans nearby.
After a while, we slow down, pausing seemingly in the middle of nowhere, thhor plants and honeyweed bushes our only companions, along with a full yellow moon.
“I’m so tired, Agni,” I say as I dismount. “I don’t know what’s really happening there. What Cavas is doing. What she’s doing to him. Amar keeps saying we need to wait. That we can’t attack Ambarvadi yet. And I know it’s logical. Many non-magi aren’t trained soldiers, and Shayla has armies above and beyond the Sky Warriors. I…” My voice trails off.
Do you love Cavas?
Agni’s question—so strangely human in nature—sends my heart racing. “Why do you ask?”
If you love him, then you should trust him.
“I trust Cavas,” I insist, annoyed by the comment. “I don’t trust her.”
Loving someone means you worry for them, Agni comments. I worried for you when you were at the flesh market. I wanted to come get you. But I waited. I trusted Juhi to get you out. Now you must trust yourself to get Cavas out.
I wrap my arms around Agni’s neck and press my cheek against her velvety skin. “I’m sorry I worried you.”
Agni snorts, as if laughing at me. Come now. We have been here too l
ong.
I say nothing more. I climb on Agni’s back without complaint, staying as silent as possible as we head back to the tenements.
And find the way back in to be blocked.
* * *
Two men on horses stand before us, the ends of their turbans covering their faces, talwars glinting in their hands. I unsheathe my own daggers without thinking, my body humming with magic and anxiety.
“Look at what we have here,” one of them says.
“A girl on a horse. Alone.”
“Looks like she has gold eyes, too.” The first man’s mask falls off, revealing a grim, weather-beaten face. “Like Rani Shayla said in her reward proclamation.”
Bounty hunters.
I bite my tongue to curb my rising fear. It would be easy to kill them. To call on the sky goddess again, to channel her power through my daggers, letting it emerge in the form of an unforgiving red chakra.
But this isn’t something I want to do. Not unless I absolutely need to.
“Stay away,” I tell them in a hard voice. “Unless you want me to blow you up.”
The men say nothing, but I can sense their wariness, see the way their gazes flicker repeatedly to my green daggers, now sparking at the tips. I know I need to play upon every myth about the Star Warrior, to keep bluffing for as long as possible, until I can find a way past them and through the barrier.
Feint left, I tell Agni through our bond—which she does, instantly making one of the men move in that direction, before galloping right instead.
The first man, however, is smarter. Expecting the move, he blocks my way again, this time slicing at me with his glowing red talwar.
Protect, I think, raising my arms, but the bounty hunter’s spell is stronger than I anticipated and my shield barely deflects the sword’s deadly red edge. Working the whole day without a break has done me no favors, either. Soon my temples begin to pulse, and I grit my teeth against the pain. We parry for a while in this way, my shield spells growing weaker each time.
Get off, Agni says suddenly. Get off now.
“What?” I am so exhausted that I forget to keep my voice contained to my head. “What are you talking about?”
“Talking to ghosts, girl?” the man sneers. “Or perhaps a living specter?”
“You mean me?” a disembodied voice says out loud.
Latif!
Several things happen at once:
Off! Agni bucks, the action startling me enough to slide off her back.
As the bounty hunters converge, their horses begin bucking in the same exact way, as if being drawn by an invisible force. Or possibly a living specter.
“Hurry, girl!” Latif shouts.
“Don’t let her get away!” the first bounty hunter hollers, trying to control his horse. His companion is thrown off, landing on the ground with a thud.
“I think I broke something!” he groans.
“Fool!” the remaining bounty hunter snarls, leaping off his horse the way I did and landing on his feet.
Run, Gul! Agni screams before charging at the bounty hunter to block his way.
I run, though I hate leaving Agni.
I run, forcing myself to ignore the awful sounds that rise behind me—mingled shrieks of human and horse, a cracking sound that might very well be someone’s bones.
I’m nearly at the barrier to the tenements when pain sears across my ribs, so sharp that I fall to my knees. But no blood comes off on my hands, nor is there a single cut on my skin.
My headache spikes. I felt like this only once before. Inside a stable in Dukal, when a Samudra woman with black eyes tried to silence a mare for trying to protect me.
“Agni!” I wail. “Agni, no!”
But as I double back to get to her, someone begins dragging me in the opposite direction, toward the barrier. The hands that grip my ankles are like ice and inhumanly strong. The southern tenements’ barrier cloaks my skin—a curtain of air and sound that blocks everything, except the final sight of Agni rearing on her hind legs, blood running down her flank.
Latif holds on to me, pulling me farther as I continue making futile attempts to shoot him.
“Stop, girl!” Latif says in a harsh voice. “Stop screaming!”
In my head, something snaps—the tether, I realize, that has always joined my mind to Agni’s.
“Agni!” I shout, though nothing answers me now except silence. “Agni!”
My fists pound the earth, over and over until I collapse, grief searing my chest, my knuckles bruised and throbbing.
“She’s gone,” Latif says softly. “But she protected you. She killed them both.”
“I should have died,” I say, my voice raw. “Not Agni.”
He does not protest this, nor does he try to comfort me.
I’m not aware he has left until I feel another presence by my side. A shadow that’s too big, too tall to be anyone except the Pashu king. Next to him is another presence—a human, whose hands gently sit me up.
Amar’s yellow eyes, so hard and serious during the day, are full of compassion. “What happened?” he asks.
The story pours out of me, haltingly at first and then in a torrent. The moment they hear that Agni’s body is outside the barrier, Subodh and Amar exchange quick glances. Without another word, Subodh stalks away, disappearing through the barrier.
“He’ll be fine,” Amar tells me when I grow tense.
I say nothing, my gaze focused on the expanse of plains that shows me nothing of what is really on the other side.
Eventually, a limb appears, followed by a mane, Subodh gently drawing back Agni into the tenements with his forepaws.
“I buried the men,” he says. “Made sure they went deep into the earth where no one will find them. The horses are gone. Perhaps they’ll find better owners.”
Agni’s lovely red coat glistens with sweat and dark patches of blood. Subodh carefully closes her bulging eyes.
“I want to wash her,” I say. “I don’t want her looking like that.”
A bucket appears in the air before me, water sloshing within. Latif’s cold touch brushes my fingers as he hands me a cloth that I use to gently, carefully clean Agni’s body. We bury her here, in this space where I train, marking the grave with a small, horse-shaped stone that Amar conjures out of thin air. I think I hear Amar say my name a few times, before sensing what feels like a pair of invisible fingers brushing my mind—Subodh, I realize, attempting to create a bond.
Not now, I beg. Please.
Eventually, their voices and footsteps fade, and I’m left on my own, my fingers smelling of dirt, of the sweat and blood of the only creature in this world whose love I never doubted.
32
GUL
The next day, Kali asks me if I want to spend the morning in our tent.
“What for?” I ask.
“To mourn,” she says. There’s now a permanent indent between her brows that wasn’t there before.
“One day won’t be enough,” I tell her, strapping my daggers to my waist. “And I can’t mourn when there is still so much work to do.”
“If you say so. I won’t be at practice today; Raja Amar has called me to the temple for some work. Will you be all right?”
“I will.”
It’s easier said than done. The whole day, I carry the knowledge of Agni’s death, feel the iron grip of it tightening my ribs whenever I unsheathe a dagger during training and go deep within to produce an attacking spell.
Halfway through practice, a small boy comes racing toward us.
“Star Warrior,” he gasps, nearly out of breath. “You’re wanted at the temple.”
Falak and I glance at each other and I nod. “Go through the regular drills. I’ll go see what’s going on.”
A crowd has gathered outside the temple, murmurs rising to questions as they see me climb the stairs, still wearing my sweaty practice uniform.
And soon I see why.
Two strangers stand at the threshold, talking to
Amar. Men from northern Ambar, their vibrantly patterned turbans wound in tight coils around their heads, making them stand out here amid the southerners, who stick to plain colors and a more relaxed style of wrap. As I approach, both men fall silent and gape at me, probably startled by my disheveled appearance.
“Gul, this is Sarpanch Alok and Councilor Cama.” Amar’s voice breaks our staring game. “They’re delegates from the northern tenements.”
Non-magi. That explains how they got through Amar’s barrier. I turn to face the men who lived where Cavas once did and say, “How do we know they aren’t spies? Or bounty hunters?”
“I had Kali question them,” Amar says calmly. “Raja Subodh helped.”
“I think we should take this inside,” Councilor Maya abruptly cuts in. She turns to the gaping crowd. “Brothers and sisters, we are among friends here. Please, go about your work, and do not worry.”
Though her voice is kind, there’s a firmness that brooks no argument. Soon the crowd begins to disperse, and after ensuring that no one remains lurking, we head into the temple’s inner chambers.
“I suppose Latif and the specters are stationed outside?” I ask Subodh.
“The way they are during every meeting,” he replies.
A day earlier I might have asked a question about Roda or mockingly suggested that she be put on guard duty. But now, with Agni gone, my grievances against the former Legion warrior feel petty. Pointless.
Trust me, Cavas said the last time I saw him. I hold on to those words, encasing them with every happy and safe memory I’ve ever had.
Cavas is not yet a memory. He’s still alive.
The ferocity of that final thought must reflect on my face and in my eyes, because the two non-magi councilors from the north, who have been staring at me since I got here, look away.
“Thank you, brothers, for making this perilous journey here,” Sarpanch Parvez begins once we’re settled. “We know how bad the roads have become—with Sky Warriors on the loose, shooting anyone without impunity, and now bounty hunters and thieves, who have taken it upon themselves to loot villages and towns in the name of unearthing the Star Warrior.”
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