The Star-Touched Queen

by Roshani Chokshi

  “No matter where we are, we’ll always share the same sky. We can always find each other in the same constellation.”

  Gauri sniffed. “Which?”

  “The loveliest of them all,” I said, pointing at a slight angle in the stars. I may have hated the rest of them, but not this one. This constellation was far from the rest, a lonely cluster of lights. “The Solitary Star. That will be our constellation. Legend says it was built by the celestial architect who made the golden city of Lanka.”

  “Real gold?” repeated Gauri. “Maybe I’ll go there too.”

  I laughed and pulled her into one last hug. It was better this way, better to go without saying goodbye. After shutting the door behind me, I pulled out the heaps of clothes and set to work scuffing the hems of the saris and cutting holes into silks. I would need to blend in once I was in the city.

  Doubt crept up on me. Sneaking out of the harem wasn’t the problem. It was what would come next. All those hours spent above my father’s inner sanctum, listening and watching. Whatever small hopes I had amassed over the years—to be significant in the eyes of this court, to rule, to possess a voice that others would listen to rather than shrink from—now lay bruised and trampled in my mind. If I left, I would live forever as a fugitive. Or perhaps no one would come looking for me. Either fate struck a blow.

  Suddenly the small diyas that had lit my room extinguished all at once. Even the light from the moon seemed to have swiftly stuttered off into a pitch-black veil, plunging the room into impenetrable black. I crawled blindly along the floor, when a scratching sound stopped me.

  Someone else was in the room.

  “Gauri?” I called.

  Heart racing, I edged closer along the wall. A sharp sound dragged across the floor—a blade. Panic leeched cold into my bones. I held my breath, trying to peer through the blot of darkness that swelled the room. I ran my fingers along the counters, hoping for something sharp, but finding nothing but polished wood.

  “Who’s there? Show yourself!” I called, trying to keep the tremor from my voice. “Don’t stalk me in the shadows like a coward.”

  A cold laugh rumbled from the middle of the room. High-pitched. Female. I frowned. A harem wife? No. There’s no way they would be able to find a weapon. And even if they did, how would they know what to do with it?

  “Is that any way to greet me after all this time?” said a voice.

  Something tugged at my core. The voice had a life of its own and it conjured some wordless secret deep in my mind. Something in me hummed with recognition. I leaned toward the sound of her voice.

  “What do you want? Reveal yourself or I will call the guards.”

  The woman laughed and my arms prickled. “Go ahead and try.”

  And so I did. But my voice never rose. No matter how much I strained, silence clogged the air. The dark absorbed my screams until the only sound I heard was the frantic beat of my own heart.

  “I had no idea where you went, until today. Strange how men can be so unwittingly helpful,” snarled the voice. A shiver ran down my spine. The voice came at me from a thousand different directions. I could hear her beside my ear, at the nape of my neck, at the corner of the room. The sound ensnared me. Distantly, I heard her voice, muddled as if it had crossed lifetimes to echo in my head. For a moment, I thought I knew her and the truth of it stirred something bone-deep. But the feeling passed, replaced with panic as a blade growled, dragging across the floor.

  A gust of air brushed against my legs. She was near.

  “I don’t know who you are, but don’t come any closer.”

  “Or what?” laughed the voice. “What can you do in that feeble mortal body of yours?”

  Icicle skin brushed against mine and without thinking, I kicked.

  Thud.

  My foot connected with her chest. I had a half-second to grin before I was forced to the ground.

  “Not yet,” crooned the voice. “Now I know. I see you. I’ve seen this … home … of yours. I need you to lead me.”

  “I’m not leading you anywhere,” I spat. I tried to grasp hold of her, but failed. I tried to scream, but the sound bounded back and all sense of direction spiraled and fell.

  A hand closed on my wrist and the touch was iron and ice, so cold I could feel it clattering in my teeth. Cold set in, frosting over my thoughts. I couldn’t scream. Panic tore at me. No. I will not die within these walls. Not this way.

  I pushed through the numbing sensation, willing my body not to snap. It was nothing more than a shift, but I felt it, keyed into it like a groove in a tile. I held on to that small feeling, the faintest specter of warmth. I forced myself to step past the cold, and the pain of it ripped a hundred screams from my throat.

  The darkness that glommed around the woman parted. The strength of my screams bounded around me, forcing me backward.

  I heard a gasp, the barest muffle of surprise and then—

  Nothing.

  The silence enveloping the room had lifted. The woman was gone and she had taken all her cold with her. I rubbed my hands together, but my palms were warm and ruddy, as if the cold had been nothing more than a blanket now yanked away.

  I couldn’t shake out the sound of her voice. I wanted to follow it as much as I wanted to smother it. The familiarity of her voice recalled an old hurt I couldn’t place.

  Faint light leaked into the room and I cursed. It was dawn already where moments ago my room was plunged in the thick of night. My breathing was still ragged, but I heaved myself to my feet, marching across the room. Just as I reached for the door, a faint clicking sound echoed. It was the sound of a lock falling into place. I thudded my palms against the wood as panic, sharp and acrid, burned in my chest.

  “Open this door! Who has locked this entrance?”

  A voice no less chilling than the unknown assailant’s greeted me.

  “Calm yourself, Mayavati,” came Mother Dhina’s crocodile croon.

  I blanched and stepped back. “Someone just tried to invade my room. I need to speak to the guards.”

  Mother Dhina laughed. “What lies you tell, child. I have half a mind to compliment your imagination. No one can get past the Raja’s sentinels—”

  “But someone was here!” I protested. “Let me out! I demand to speak—”

  “Demand?” repeated Mother Dhina. “You are not in a position to make demands. It’s a lesson you should learn now before your wedding. The Raja sent me to tell you that the swayamvara will be held in two days. Given your past conduct, the realm thought it best to ensure that you stay in one place and not hurt yourself.”

  “You mean escape?”

  “It is also best that you stay away from Gauri,” continued Mother Dhina as if I hadn’t uttered a single word. “No more meetings until the swayamvara. It is best not to infect her with your bad fortune and deplorable manners. Stop spreading ridiculous ideas in her head.”

  “I’d rather spread ideas than legs,” I hissed back. “But I doubt you would agree—”

  “Silence, you mongrel,” said Mother Dhina. “All your life, all I have done is try to be merciful to you and bring you stability. To give you a home.”

  “You hid me away and shunned me from anyone who might get to know me. You call this mercy?”

  “I do. I spared anyone the shame of being in your presence,” she said. “The least you could have done was die. But you kept selfishly clinging to life.”

  “Do you expect me to apologize?”

  Mother Dhina laughed and it was a cold, cruel thing.

  “When the sickness claimed eight of the wives, I prayed you were next.”

  She fell quiet and her next words were soft, but no less fierce. “Do you know how many children I have buried because of you? Strong, healthy babies. Ten fingers, ten toes. A full head of hair. They just wouldn’t breathe. Because of you.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Your shadow touched mine. You poisoned me. You killed them. Your horoscope has only att
racted darkness to our court. It’s your fault.”

  “You’re—”

  “Enough,” cut in Mother Dhina. “You have no place here. Your mother didn’t either. At least she had the good sense to die young.”

  Mother Dhina cleared her throat and this time when she spoke, it was in the cool and practiced monotone of someone who could watch you burn alive and not blink. “In keeping with Bharata’s bridal traditions, you will be isolated to maintain the utmost purity.”

  “You can’t do that!” I screamed, slamming my fists against the door. “I am telling you someone was in here. If you’re truly merciful, let me out, let me speak to the Raja.”

  Footsteps resounded in the distance. I screamed after her, but my sounds chased nothing but echoes. Mother Dhina had left. The panels of wood chaffed, scuffed and scratched beneath my fists, but they never budged. Again and again, I threw myself against the door. I screamed until voice was an echo of something I once knew. I yelled until I felt unspooled and even whispering made me wince. I slid against the door, cradling my bloodied knuckles to my chest.

  Perhaps this was a dream, some horrible illusion that would soon collapse into shards of nightmare. I had heard of something like this once. When my father swore to the envoys of the rebel kingdoms that not a single hand would be laid upon the prisoners of war, he had found other means to torture them. Sleep deprivation. But he kept his word. No one touched them. No one needed to. I had listened in the rafters to their horrible testimony, to the nightmare of ears forever ringing, eyes hollow with sleeplessness. The mind was its own escape artist, and who knew what it would concoct in the absence of rest.

  That had to be what I was seeing. I was tired, I whispered to myself. That was all. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. I rocked myself back and forth, muttering the words into the cupped hollow of my palms like they were sacred. I closed my eyes and let my body curl around my hurt until eventually, sleep claimed me.

  5

  A GIFT TO FREE

  The next morning, I woke to the other wives assembling in the halls. I stared at my hands, saw the scabs and scrapes, felt the crust of tears along my jaw and knew this had been no dream. Even then, my reality was a muddled thing. In the space of a day my room had become alien and unfamiliar. The voice of my intruder roped around me, tight as a noose. Had she even been there? I didn’t know. Or was it like the tutor from yesterday whose stretched form had been nothing more than shadow play?

  I pulled my hands through my hair, shivering in my empty room. The air was watery and thin with pale morning light. No matter where I looked, everything bore the telltale signs of a trap. If the sky had ever hinted its secrets in the past, it yielded none now. Twice, I had tried to lift the bars from my windows. I had sawed at them with a rock and dug at their foundations until my fingers were bloody. But there was no escape.

  Outside, the wives lined up in front of my door, preparing to recite the wedded tales of their mothers and sisters and selves. The tradition was meant to be joyful, but they would give me no such false hopes. I wasn’t sure whether I should be grateful or horrified. I couldn’t separate one voice from the other, each one melded into the other, until it swelled into a chorus of pain. The wives told me of sisters murdered by vengeful husbands to safeguard their honor, of wives sewn up to guard their virtue when their husbands left for battle, of the torrent of blood on the first night of marriage. They told me of bruises covered beneath golden bangles, veils meant to hide dislocated jaws, the fear of raised voices. I tried to shut them out. I tried to convince myself that their stories were only meant to scare me. But each time I closed my eyes, all I saw was a menacing man with unforgiving eyes and a cruel mouth.

  * * *

  Night tugged a starless blanket over the palace. I had hardly moved all day. Even when the harem wives’ stories burned, even when Gauri slipped drawings under the door, nothing moved me. I tried to imagine the whole of the universe leaning forward to test me. Was this what it wanted? I could conjure fearlessness like a veil. Maybe if I just kept at the illusion, I would fool myself too.

  When the kingdom fell silent, I finally moved to light the diyas in my room. Near the corner of my room, a pillar carved in the shape of the lion-headed Narasimha grinned wickedly. It was a gruesome tale, of blood and angry gods, but for some reason it gave me hope. The flames flickered bright in the lion-headed statue’s eyes, but they yielded no warmth. Everything was a spell of cold. To make matters worse, I had no way of knowing whether my assailant would return. I had gone over her words, but none of it made sense. I need you to lead me. Lead where? For all I knew, she was nothing more than a nightmare conjured from stress.

  But if she wasn’t, I would be ready. From the drawer beside my bed, I pulled out a blunt shard of flint. I set my puny weapon beside me and stared at the balcony, willing her to make herself known. Something about her voice had filled me with regret.

  A scratching sound startled me out of my thoughts. I lunged for the rock when a voice cut across the room—

  “Mayavati, come to the door.”

  I tensed, my arm still raised. A heavy feeling settled in my gut. I had heard that voice a hundred times, listened for it from my spying place and imagined it saying kinder words. Father.

  The door gave way with a sigh and my father’s silhouette loomed into the room, a blot against the darkness. He stood alone, no familiar retinue of guards flanking his side. At once, I bolted upright. He wasn’t one to flout tradition and yet he’d gone to the trouble of visiting me in secret. For a half-moment, I wondered whether some unknowable power had answered my wishes and freed me. But experience told me otherwise. Father was far too cunning for sentiment.

  “I have come with a gift,” he said, extending a hand toward me. “One to free you from this marriage.”

  From the folds of his robe, he withdrew a small violet flask. I took the flask and removed the stopper, careful not to spill its contents before taking a whiff. All the blood slipped from my face. I knew that scent. My breath came in a rasp and a dead chill swam under my skin. It was mandrake soaked in milk—poison.

  “No matter who you marry, they will wage war against us. My spies have heard it, my councilors suspect it and my instincts know it,” said the Raja, his voice calm and even. “The best chances for the realm are to bring the war to us, instead of letting it play out on the outskirts of our borders. Their attendance at your swayamvara is critical in bringing them here. Your death will nullify the bonds of guest hospitality and we may dispatch the rebels on the spot. Your sacrifice would ensure the safety of all our people.”

  I shook my head, my mouth bone dry. I was no bride. I was bait. The walls stretched above me. An invisible thread running from my head to my feet yanked me, threatening to topple me onto the ground. I inhaled a shuddering breath, but it felt clammy in my lungs.

  I hoped that by letting you see, you might forgive what I must take from you.

  He wasn’t just taking away my independence. Or home.

  When I spoke, my voice was hollow, scraped—

  “You want me dead.”

  6

  THE WEDDING

  Seconds collided into hours, decades, centuries. Eternity itself moved through me, stretching the moments after I’d spoken. In a whirl, I saw my life compressed, folded and distilled into the vial of mandrake poison in my hands.

  Clearing his throat, my father clasped his hands behind his back.

  “It is not a question of want,” he said. “It is a matter of need. If this is what it will take to keep the realm safe for our people, then I have no choice.”

  Our people. My stomach knotted. Only the thump of my heart told me I was alive. Not yet a corpse. I glanced at the frail vial. If I wanted, I could throw it in his face, pour it on the ground or smash the vial altogether. But of course I couldn’t. The vial was Bharata’s hope distorted, and I held it in my hand.

  “You must understand that your contribution to the realm will exceed that of any of your sibling
s and any of my councilors. What I am asking of you—”

  “What you’re asking requires no great sacrifice on my part,” I said, my voice shaking. “I am expendable.”

  “We must show strength,” said the Raja. “If any of your rejected suitors believed that your choice was politically motivated, we would be destroyed. Our kingdom would be gone. They know your sisters are betrothed and that you remain a maiden. They also know that we cannot lay siege to their kingdoms if they married a princess of Bharata. The only way to protect ourselves is to have no marriage at all.”

  His shoulders fell. I looked sharply at him, wild hope pulling at my heart. Maybe he is changing his mind.

  A half-breath passed before his arm tensed and then his hands fell limply to his sides. A death warrant. Panic rasped in my lungs. My whole body gathered like one frenzied breath. Before he could step back, I lunged forward, grabbing his wrist—

  “Please,” I said. “Give me a different draught, something that will make it seem like I have died. But not this. There must be another way.”

  He pulled back his hand. This time when he spoke, there was no hint of doubt, no sign of succor or mercy, or remorse.

  “Do you think I have not thoroughly reviewed every option?” his voice thundered. “They would verify your death with their own physicians. The moment they see through our deception, Bharata would be doomed. Would you rather die by your own hand or by the enemy? Trust me, daughter. One is worse than the other.”

  I set my jaw, my eyes narrowing to slits. “I will not die for you.”

  He smiled and in that moment I knew I had lost.

  “I am no fool. I would not expect you to die for me. But for your sister?” He paused and my heart turned cold. Gauri. “Would you condemn her life so quickly? Or those of your people?”

  His words hung in the air, coiling around me like a noose. This time when the Raja stepped back, I made no move toward him. And when he turned to face me—his eyes shadowed and face drawn—no hope glimmered in my heart.