The Chariot at Dusk

by Swati Teerdhala

  Vilas punched back, more out of self-defense than anything else, but he didn’t know how to respond to her style of fighting. Reha rammed the man down to the ground and wrapped her arms around his neck, squeezing as hard as she could. His body went limp and she let go of him immediately and rose to her feet, brushing off her now mussed and ruined sari.

  She turned to face the others, triumph on her face when she was yanked to the ground.

  Vilas had grabbed at her feet and was dragging her backward. Mayank moved forward, but Esha stopped him. She knew what he was thinking, that this was too much for a princess.

  But Reha wasn’t any princess, and if they let her finish this, she’d be a leader to reckon with.

  More than anyone, Esha understood having to make your mark.

  Reha flipped over and scrambled away as Vilas rose to his feet. He ran at her and swiped a knife at her face. Reha dodged in time, crouching low and jabbing into the soft side of his stomach.

  “You . . .” The anger in his eyes was tinged with panic.

  Perhaps he had realized he had just tried to stab his future queen. But men weren’t particularly logical creatures in Esha’s experience. He kept coming at Reha, who ducked and dodged with a neatness that expressed practice.

  Reha kept her forearms up to protect her face and one of her exposed forearms caught Vilas’s knife. She yelped and stepped back, blood welling in the long gash.

  Vilas grinned, chancing a look at his fellow soldiers. Which meant he missed the low simmer of rage on Reha’s face. Esha had seen it enough to know the shift was pressing on Reha, and Reha couldn’t control it. Which might not be a bad thing.

  Reha made a growling noise in her throat, staring at the back of Vilas’s head with a feral rage that would have scared Esha if it didn’t make her smile.

  Her eyes flashed, green, gold, yellow, before settling on a russet-red color. Claws slashed through her skin and her body almost shimmered in the warm haze of the barracks.

  “Finally,” Esha whispered to Mayank, who looked a bit alarmed.

  Vilas turned around, his eyes growing wide, his grip on his sword faltering. The soldiers behind him stepped back and some of them whispered in awe about Naria coming back to life. A few dropped to their knees, swiping four fingers over their chest.

  Reha moved with such lightning speed that no one even registered what happened for a second. Vilas was standing, and then he was on the floor, blood spilling out of a wound to his side.

  Reha’s chest was still heaving and that ferocity was still in her eyes. Esha rushed over and put a hand on Reha. The girl grabbed her wrist at first, the strength in that one gesture enough that Esha was sure she’d be bruised later.

  But Esha’s touch on her skin seemed to bring her back into her body and Reha blinked up at her, her eyes returning to their normal light brown color.

  “See to him,” Esha said sharply, pointing at a few soldiers who were standing there, mouths agape.

  Reha nodded at her and Esha removed her hand and stepped back. The princess stepped forward, holding her bloody knife at waist height.

  “Anyone else?”

  A soldier came out of the fray and held out his spear in front of him, pointing at Reha. He took two steps forward and then dropped to his knees, his head bowed.

  “To the future Queen Reha,” he said.

  One by one the other soldiers followed until there were only a few stragglers. Queen Reha stood above them, her chin tilted proudly.

  Esha turned away, smiling. “An army,” she said to Mayank.

  “An army,” he confirmed, smiling.

  The both of them stepped back and let Reha take the lead. She was now stepping from soldier to soldier, talking to them, learning their names and positions. Esha could sense Reha’s powers lingering under her skin, alive and coursing through her blood.

  The powers in Reha went beyond what they’d seen before—what Kunal or Harun or even King Mahir could understand.

  And if the soldiers were smart at all, they would have noticed that too.

  Chapter 28

  The Great Library was quiet in the early morning, despite most of the scholars being awake and bustling about. They moved silently and Esha almost wanted to grab one of them and ask them how they did it. It would be a great method for training new recruits.

  Instead, Esha walked over to poke Farhan, who had fallen asleep atop a pile of scrolls.

  “What?” Farhan shot upright in his chair quickly. He saw her and then brushed the hair out of his face. Esha raised an eyebrow.

  “I made Alok get some sleep last night,” he responded.

  “Which meant you didn’t. That is, until now, right?”

  Farhan sighed. “Right.”

  “Have you eat—”

  Farhan pointed at a mostly empty tray, with crumbs and some leftover yogurt. “Yes, I ate. Why does no one think I know how to take care of myself?”

  Esha brushed a piece of flatbread out of his long hair. “Perhaps because you haven’t proven it, Farhan. And we all know how you get when you find something to research.”

  “Speaking of that,” Farhan said. “I think I’ve had a breakthrough in the location of the Drowned City of Gold.”

  Esha leaned in. “Show me.”

  “First, I had to go back and comb through the old texts. Something had gone wrong with the ritual for you to have broken the bond. I thought maybe there was another artifact but no. It wasn’t that.”

  Farhan waved her over to the other side of the desk where there was a large map, with several thin pieces of parchment laid over, each with their own scribbles and drawings. One didn’t look like his handwriting.

  “Kunal’s been helping me,” Farhan said when he caught her peering at the new handwriting. “He’s very adept at language translation.”

  “Of course he is,” she said, a bit unkindly. She wasn’t embarrassed by his reaction from the previous week, or so she kept telling herself. Esha knew Kunal had wanted her, that evidence had been clear, but he was too . . . Kunal to accept what was being given to him.

  Farhan gave her a look but seemed to decide that it was better not to get involved. He moved past her to point at the edge of the map where Gwali lay.

  “See how the other maps, when overlaid, all seem to point to something? I had thought the concentric circles were just to show how the original artifacts had been hidden, evenly across the land. But then—” Farhan pointed to the drawings of the Aifora Mountains on his map. “If you look here, you’ll see that the mountains are entirely out of the range of these circles. They’re not truly captured in the range.”

  Esha traced her fingers over the circles and then up to Mount Bangaar in the north of the Aiforas. “That’s why the ritual didn’t work? Because the mountain isn’t part of the original map. But why should that matter? Why are these circles so important?”

  “That’s what I was wondering too,” Farhan said excitedly. He shifted the overlying thin parchments so that the circles locked up together, ringing out across the lands of Jansa and Dharka. “And as Kunal and I began to map out where the artifacts had been found, we noticed a pattern. See here? If we work backward, the circles are emanating from somewhere. Here.”

  Farhan pointed to a small circle off the coast of Dharka, across from the port of the Red Fortress.

  “There?” Esha said.

  “There.” Farhan gave her an apologetic smile. “The Drowned City of Gold.”

  Moon Lord’s fists. Of course the drowned part of the title was literal. Things never got easier, did they?

  “Are you sure?”

  “Not at all,” Farhan said confidently. “It’ll take me another few hours to confirm that my calculations are correct and even then, it’s a guess. But Kunal said he’d be stopping in. In fact, he’s late. He should be here.”

  “Oh?” Her heart beat a little quicker.

  “You could stay and help too, if you want to. Kunal promised me the morning.”

  Esh
a ignored the mention of Kunal. But she could stay. She’d already met with Mayank in the morning to go over coronation plans and helping Farhan now might mean answers sooner. Her desire to find the City of Gold was slowly turning to desperation after her chat with Vardaan.

  “This is great work, Farhan.” Esha squeezed Farhan’s shoulder and he turned and looked up at her. He blinked rapidly and flushed.

  “It was nothing.”

  “Not nothing. Our most brilliant mind. You found us the answer—”

  “Only a potential answer. Don’t tell anyone else yet.” Farhan gave her a look. “Harun included.”

  “He’s at the healers anyway. How about I help you?”

  Farhan nodded happily. “We’ll be able to move much faster if I have two pairs of hands.”

  Esha nodded. “Tell me what I can do.”

  Farhan beamed, laying out so many scrolls and papers and chalk scribblings that, ten minutes later, Esha had still only gotten through one scroll and was somewhat regretting her decision to help.

  But she got to work.

  Kunal had found his way back to the library after another excursion into the city with Reha. This time, they had prepped in advance and he had made sure Reha was ready to receive the crowds.

  The Archer still couldn’t draw as big of an audience as the lost princess, that was for sure. And she was getting better at it, knowing who to talk to, where to spend time, whose baby to kiss. Kunal was proud of her, though he wouldn’t dare to tell her that. Reha was the epitome of a skittish colt.

  He had settled himself to the right of Farhan—Esha was to Farhan’s left and Kunal was not going there right now. A pot of ginger chai and plate of almond-pistachio cookies had made their way to the center of the table and Kunal grabbed one of the cookies as he continued his conversation with Farhan. They’d been like this for a while, despite Esha’s annoyed sighs. Farhan required somebody, or really something, to bounce his ideas off and Kunal didn’t mind volunteering.

  “No, look here,” Farhan said loudly. “I think if we just move this . . .”

  “Wait,” Kunal said, grabbing the scroll back from Farhan, who frowned on cue. “There. Do you see it?”

  Kunal traced his finger over the dot that landed squarely off the coast of Dharka near the rice paddies.

  Farhan nodded, coming closer. “Where I had thought. This confirms it.” He looked up in triumph. “The Drowned City of Gold. We have a location. Or an area, at least.”

  “How sure are you?” Esha said. It was clear she was resisting the urge to grab the carefully laid plans. Instead, she came around and sidled up to Kunal and peered over his shoulder as best she could. He leaned back and smiled to himself as he heard the way her breath changed.

  “Ninety-eight percent,” Farhan said.

  Esha’s eyebrows rose. “That’s high. Happy to hear it. We’ll send out a team to scout ahead if possible.”

  “It might not be possible to send out a scouting team. The City of Gold was once the ancient capital of the Southern Lands, the meeting place of the gods when they still walked the earth. It won’t be easily revealed to just anyone,” Farhan said. “There might be barriers, a requirement to entry.”

  “Royal blood,” Kunal asked.

  “Possibly,” Farhan said. “It was used to call down the other gods for their counsel. And it seems from these scrolls that the Ruby Temple inside the City of Gold is the first place the Ayana was done and the bond made. There’s a chance we could try to do the ritual again there.”

  “And disturb the sacred?” Laksh said, appearing from the doorway, Alok close behind.

  “It’s not really disturbing them,” Alok said, frowning.

  “If we don’t try and complete the ritual before Yamini, she could forge a new bond, one that could permanently change the Southern Lands and our way of life,” Esha said. “Remember, Yamini and the Yavar are disgruntled that they’ve been cut out of the bond. If their story is true, Vasu didn’t choose not to be part of the bond; he was refused. This could be their chance to get revenge on the rest of the Southern Lands, to harness the magic into a bond just for their land. Then we’ll have more than earthquakes to contend with.”

  Kunal had to admit that he agreed with Esha. He wasn’t keen on this idea of finding a lost, ancient city of the gods, but it didn’t seem like they had much choice.

  “Yamini mentioned something else, when she found me in the jungle.”

  Esha whipped around. “And you’re mentioning this only now?”

  “I’m sure Kunal had a reason,” Alok said, poking him in the ribs and nudging his head at the others insistently.

  “A lot has happened, and I honestly forgot. And, let me just say, this is all getting a bit old,” Kunal said. “Why would I have come back here if I were planning to betray you all?”

  “Oh, to win back our trust, lull us into a sense of security, and steal the other artifacts,” she said.

  “And why in the Sun Maiden’s name would I want to help the Yavar?” Kunal demanded.

  Esha opened her mouth a few times like a fish before letting out a humph. “Fine.”

  “Would you like to hear about it? Are you done with your tantrum?” Kunal said. By gods she could be infuriating.

  Laksh let out a loud cough, but it sounded suspiciously like laughter.

  Esha narrowed her eyes at him but gave a tight nod.

  “She found me, after that first attack in the jungle. She said she had just come to talk, so I let her talk. Yamini talked of a new world order and asked me if there was something so wrong in changing the world to become a better one,” Kunal said.

  “Like Vardaan was just trying to protect Jansa by overthrowing the queens and taking the throne?” Esha asked sweetly. Kunal winced.

  “A new world order,” Esha mused. “What could she mean?”

  “The country isn’t dying from drought,” Alok said. He walked over to the table with a thoughtful look on his face. “What we thought would happen, absolute catastrophe, hasn’t. Yes, there are political and economic upheaval to deal with, but the land? Magic has not destroyed it. It’s replenished it, without the bond.”

  “Until humans can no longer help themselves,” Kunal muttered.

  “What?” Esha said.

  Kunal sighed. “King Mahir told me the ancient history of the royals. Why the first bond was even made. It was to take away the burden, and power, from the people. In the ancient era, all humans had magic, but they quickly turned to using it for greed, instead of seeing it as a gift from the gods to ensure our connection to our land. It began to be abused. The gods threatened to take away humanity’s connection to the land—the magic—which would have meant catastrophe, and the ancient royals convinced them to give the burden to them instead. Only the new version of the bond was able to keep it together.”

  The group was silent at that. None of them had an answer to Kunal’s unspoken questions. How did they know this would hold? Was this the right option for their land?

  “It’s our best chance,” Esha said quietly. “We have to get there before Yamini. She didn’t happen to mention if this new world order of hers would only be for the Yavar, did she?”

  Kunal shook his head.

  “Didn’t think so. For all we know, if Yamini gets there first, she’ll forge a bond that lets the Southern Lands wither and die. Just as the magic has returned.”

  Esha didn’t need to say what the outcome of that would be for their countries. Devastation. On another level. This bond magic wasn’t to be trifled with. They were messing with the magic of the gods.

  “As I was saying before, we can’t just send out any scouting troops,” Farhan said, inserting his objection before it could be forgotten.

  “I’ll go,” Kunal said immediately. “I’ll see if I can find the Drowned City of Gold.” He needed to do something, anything, right now. The library was a start, but . . .

  “You can’t go alone,” Esha said. “There’s too much at risk.” She left the
rest unsaid, that letting Kunal go alone was not something she was willing to do, but it was obvious from her tone. Kunal bristled.

  “We can’t send a team,” Kunal said. “The location is at least a week’s ride at this time of year with the winds. You’ll have no choice but to make stops. Can Reha go—?”

  “No,” Esha said immediately, almost too quickly. “She’s still in royal training right now. I know she’ll jump at the opportunity to leave, so we’re not going to give it to her. I can go alone.”

  “Then I’ll come too. I can fly us there in under a week. The headwinds going east are much faster in Jansa,” Kunal said.

  There was an uneasy silence that settled on the room at his words.

  Esha cleared her throat. “Fine, that is the most practical choice. Laksh, we could use you on the mission too if you want to—”

  “No, no. Sounds like a great mission for two people,” he said, emphasizing the word two. Laksh gave them both a too-wide smile. “Two people only. You two people.”

  “Okay . . .” Esha didn’t look thrilled at the idea. “Alok?”

  “Nope!” He laughed nervously. “While I’m dying to meet the Viper out on a mission, I have no desire to get between the two of you—I mean the incredible dynamic between the two of you. Didn’t you both defeat ten Senaps together? So good . . .”

  Esha and Kunal looked at each other and there was a flicker of a moment between the two of them where they recognized what they were committing to: days together. He tried to give her a smile, to show her it would be nothing, but his own body betrayed the sudden worry that flooded him.

  “So glad to hear how eager you both are to not be on this mission,” Esha said drily, turning away from Kunal. “Looks like it’s just me and you, soldier.”

  “Till the end,” he said, returning the dry tone.

  She didn’t respond to that.

  Chapter 29

  Esha cleaned her weapons as the last dregs of the night faded above the palace rooftop. Kunal would be meeting her here at sunrise, but she’d snuck up here early to get time alone, a precious commodity recently.