Retrace every step …
Death always visited his familiar haunts. Blood-damp stretches of battlefields, sage-sharp mats of midwives’ huts, rain-slick rocks of riverbeds. But maybe there was another place he would go. A place that, once, had meant something to us.
I fished out the onyx stone filled with two memories. I could use it to find my way back to Amar. Back to the Night Bazaar. Back to Nritti and her ice and honey words. Back … to myself.
Airavata batted his ears. “And what do you expect me to do?”
“We need that cloud bridge.” I turned to Kamala. “When we get back, there’s something I must do, and I hope that will tell us at least where the Dharma Raja will be. And then we can use your … talents … to get us all the way.”
“Delightful,” murmured Kamala. “I have not been so excited since a massacre twelve years ago. All those bodies. So delicious.”
Airavata bowed his head in assent.
Hooking a cloud between his curved tusks, he began to comb it. A billowy vapor formed a mist over the ocean before flattening into a uniform stretch of white, dotted here and there with iron and purple storm clouds. I reached for Kamala and swung myself onto her back.
Gently, I kicked my heels into her side and we took off onto the cloud bridge. I had thought the cloudy material would be soft, like running on sand or fresh grass, but the cloud bridge was as hard as stone. Airavata walked beside us, sinking ever deeper into the waves until only his head was visible. His eyes twinkled, a knowing glint in his eye. But if he had a secret to tell or a thought to give voice to, he would not share it with me.
And with that, he sunk beneath the water. As Kamala raced over the bridge, I leaned over, reveling in the occasional spray of seawater. Tears burned in my eyes, but I wouldn’t let this failure set me back. I had to succeed. I clutched my mother’s necklace tight around my throat, praying it would give me strength, and looked around me. On my left, I could see what the ocean looked like at night. Its waves were higher, the crests of its ripples stretching far onto the shore. I caught glimpses of luminescent creatures bobbing just under the surface. Occasionally, a dorsal fin cut the water. On my right, sunshine capped the waves gold. Fish as green as parrots wriggled by the cloud bridge and twice I saw a limpid pink jellyfish.
Where was Amar? I turned back to the shore. Already the beach seemed like a distant gray line. I drew out the bracelet of my hair. With my memories came the love I had always felt for Amar leaving me heavy and weightless at once. I hated that I didn’t tell him that I love him. And I hated how those memories—though fleeting—felt like wounds reopened. But even then, I found hope. My heart had not been false and that knowledge was unshakable and scrawled on the secret joints of my soul, like a spell that kept it whole.
“Are you weeping, young queen?” asked Kamala.
“No,” I lied, “the salt is stinging my eyes.”
“Pity,” grumbled the horse. “I have not tasted tears.”
My whole body felt worn out from tension and I closed my eyes, my arms wrapped around Kamala’s neck as I fell asleep. In my dreams, I danced with Amar. We spun in circles to the heavenly music of the gandharvas. We danced around a wide courtyard filled with colorful birds until I stumbled forward, my arms spread out to brace my fall. I cried out loud and my eyes fluttered open—
“We are here,” said Kamala.
The ocean remained, but the sky above was a normal hazy gray-blue. Before us, a great jungle unfurled dark green leaves in invitation. I rolled my neck. Whatever peace I had found in sleep vanished. All I could feel now were my aching muscles. My skin reeked of salt water and my hair was whipped around my face. I glanced at Kamala and bit back a gasp. Her once thin flanks bulged with muscle and her coat gleamed with soft white hairs. Even her eyes were now a dark crimson instead of the rheumy white from earlier. Kamala plodded forward carefully, occasionally warning about low branches.
“Is death nearby? Is that why you look—” I faltered, gesturing at her dramatically different body.
“We are fully in the human world, so death is always nearby. You should see me when we are truly close, false queen. Then, I am a sight to be reckoned with. Sometimes I have lulled away beautiful maids and handsome youths just with my borrowed glory alone.”
I didn’t ask what happened next.
“Now what?” asked Kamala.
I took the small onyx stone and pressed it to my lips. The memories shifted under my gaze, translucent and wispy.
“Now I find out where he will be.”
I sank myself into that memory, into the moment where we first met, bending my whole body into a single event captured within one of those glittering pinpricks.
* * *
I had been walking through the Chakara Forest. Fat moths the size of palms wreathed my hair like pearls and moonstones. And then, as I had done since before language burgeoned in the velvet clefts of the mind—I danced.
Not a slow dance, but sharp, punctual movements. My dance organized the shadows of trees, canceled the cloying plumes of wind-fallen fruit, aligned the moonbeams themselves. My back arced gracefully as I moved, neck extended like an oryx, fingers conjuring sharp kathas of rhythm, when a sound crunched not far from me.
I spun around. “Who’s there?”
From beneath the heart-shaped leaves of a peepal tree, something rustled. And a voice, so lush it made ambrosia acrid, answered me.
“Only the lowly painter who tries each night, in vain, to capture evening herself.”
“What do you want? Show yourself.”
The stranger stepped out of the peepal tree. He was broad-shouldered, his features as severely beautiful as a strike of lightning. He wore a crown of blackbuck horns that arced in graceful whorls of onyx, catching the light. But it was his gaze that robbed the clamoring rhythm in my chest.
His stare slipped beneath my skin. And when he saw my eyes widen, he smiled. And in that moment, his smile banished my loneliness and limned the hollows of my anima with starlight, pure and bright. He moved toward me, grasping my hand, and his touch hummed in my bones like an aria. A song to my dance. The beginning of a promise.
* * *
I pulled myself out of the memory. My breathing was ragged. I couldn’t push out the feeling that the memory left. Something so whole that my body craved and curled around it. I thought my soul was leaning toward the stone, wishing desperately to cling to a truth, a beacon that could guide me back to myself. That raw tenderness. That kiss that said goodbye, come back, and I love you all at once. This memory showed me hope. And that was something I could chase to the ends of the earth.
“We need to get to the Chakara Forest,” I said, turning to Kamala.
She had not moved once since I sank into that memory. She had not laughed, nor gnashed her awful teeth, claggy with blood.
“You changed,” she said slowly.
“What?”
Kamala whinnied. “You looked different. Shade-play, shadow-play against my eyes. Trust me, false queen”—she paused—“maybe queen, I know shadows.”
“What did I look like?”
“Like ink-spills and umbra, cloudless nights and winter mornings. Lovely, lovely,” said Kamala in her singsong voice. “But you wore no crown of blackbuck horns and something swirled across your skin. I almost tried to taste it, but I did not want to get swatted by a maybe-deity. Maybe-deity! Maybe-deity! Oh, what a song.”
I glanced at my arm, ignoring Kamala as she pranced about in a circle, tossing her head and singing maybe-deity so loudly it might summon thunder. There was nothing on me but the crust of sea-salt and dried ash. I dusted it off. Kamala’s words put flesh on the bones of my hope. Still, that didn’t give me as much comfort as I’d like. I was asking a flesh-eating demon for comfort.
“You wish to go to the Chakara Forest?” asked Kamala when she was done dancing. Pearly sweat left a sheen on her coat.
“Yes. But there’s something I must do first.”
My hand closed around my mothe
r’s necklace and I tried to swallow down all those past hurts that had hardened into iron knots.
“I need to bury this in the place where its last owner lived.”
Even through my grief of losing Gauri, Airavata’s words rang true. To enter the Otherworld and save Amar, I had to release the ghosts of my past. Kamala jutted her nose against my neck and snuffled the necklace before loudly snorting.
“That necklace lived in a kingdom that smelled of stone. It is kinder to sadhus and sadhvis than its own people and its turrets are fat with mango blossoms. It is on the way to the Chakara Forest.”
My heart clenched. Somehow, I felt like Gauri had given me her blessing.
“Bharata?” I guessed.
“I suppose that is the name it goes by now. Cities shed names like maidens their tears. Does its Raja look like a toad in a golden jacket?”
Skanda had never been … athletic.
“Perhaps,” I said, then thought for a moment. “Probably.”
“Then it is so. It is Bharata.”
“We have to go through it?”
“It is the only way.”
“Then perhaps the stars are on our side.” I hauled myself back onto her saddle and we took off through the jungle.
The moon turned motes of pollen into drowsy glimmers. I watched them drift past me, snatching them out of the air. They looked like the wishes from Naraka’s glass garden. I closed my eyes, letting myself sink into the quiet of it all. In the silence, I wished for all the things I had lost—love, lives, memories. Myself. And I wept for those things as I wept for the dead. And then like the dead, I released them and hoped with all that was left of me that I could give them new life.
I faced the tree-blurred horizon. Somewhere behind that tangle was Bharata. The same Bharata I had abandoned to warfare. Or was it? Guilt slid up my spine.
I would soon find out.
21
THE WARRIOR OF BHARATA
The jungle zoomed past us, a flurry of brown and green branches with slants of scattered sunlight. Within an hour, Kamala slowed to a trot. Up ahead shined the familiar gates of Bharata. It was missing some stones, but remained sturdy nonetheless. I squinted, leaning forward; there were more guards than I remembered. An outdoor pavilion that I had never seen towered above us, strung with pennants and bearing a strange crest.
My father’s sigil, a lion and an elephant—for strength and wisdom—had been replaced with a fire bird arcing its way toward the sky, while below it was a small golden city. It was superficially lovely. I imagined Skanda thought it meant something meaningful, perhaps an envisioning of a kingdom soaring into the ranks of legend. But to me, it reeked of arrogance. It said, Let me abandon this city and leave it forgotten in a quest of borrowed greatness.
A crowd had formed outside the city gates, people cursing under their breath and exchanging pointed glances. We stopped some distance away from them, and as I jumped off Kamala’s back, clouds of dust coated my ankles. I never thought I would be here again. It was strange, like moving through a dream. I held out my hand, closing my eyes to feel the sun beam down on me and wash my skin in bright gold.
Hundreds of people crowded the city, but when they saw me and Kamala, they fell silent. My palms turned sweaty beneath their gaze. What was it that sadhus and sadhvis did? Did they utter blessings or stay silent?
This thought, however, didn’t seem to cross Kamala’s mind. She lunged forward, baring her teeth and shaking her mane. Half the crowd scattered.
“Effective,” I said, patting her neck.
“You’re most certainly not a sadhvi,” huffed Kamala. “You can go up to them, you know. You can ask for anything you want, and they’ll probably give it to you. Nobody wants your curses.”
“How do I curse them?” Wouldn’t be a useless skill to have, all things considered.
“Oh, I don’t know. You could set me on them?” Kamala smiled and her eyes flashed red.
I cringed. Horses should not smile.
“Can we get around them to the palace?”
All I wanted was to bury the necklace in peace.
“I can rend flesh,” Kamala huffed. “I can’t fly.”
The crowd had re-formed around the gates, still chanting. Their sweat smelled sour, their eyes were bloodshot. And their clothes … tattered things. No better than the ascetic garb I wore around my body. My father would have never let his people dress in such a manner.
“I can smell their hunger,” said Kamala softly.
I took in their hollowed stomachs and cheeks, the yellow tinge to their skin.
“I believe you.”
“It is the scent of drought and famine. An imbalance, no doubt.”
“Of what?”
“Of the worlds,” said Kamala.
The memory of the tapestry loomed in my mind. The texture of the tear that rent down the middle. Threads writhing, blackened and burning beneath them. The tapestry stretched out, engulfing and weaving the patterns of an infinite number of stories. It’s what kept the worlds in balance. The flicker of memories from my time in Naraka rushed through me. I remembered my feet sliding into the reincarnation pool and the dull warning in the back of my mind … that fleeing would leave behind a horrible tear. A chronic rift. And what better evidence than the threads in the tapestry? I looked at the crowd of people in front of the gates. I didn’t want to know how far the consequences of my actions had gone, but I was beginning to get an idea.
I couldn’t simply bury Gauri’s necklace and run. Bharata had once been my home. This earth, now dry and cracked as parched lips, had once hid me from danger. I owed it more than a casual run across its surface. I owed it whatever help I could give. My home may have been broken and shadowed, but it was mine all the same.
“Come on.” I pulled on Kamala’s reins.
“What about the Otherworld?” Kamala’s ears swiveled. “I thought you wished only to cover your cold stone in colder dirt?”
“It won’t crumble away in the time it takes us to know why everyone is furious,” I said. But my voice trembled. I knew I was gambling against time.
Amar’s plea—save me—was an urgent thing. But I had to trust my instinct to tell me what was right and wrong. I heard his voice, echoing and filtered through lifetimes. I remembered when I saw the tapestry for the first time, the gut-wrenching nausea of fighting its pull to rearrange the threads. I remembered when Amar had left me alone in its company. Then, his parting words were simple, unfettered: Trust yourself. And I would.
“Do you know when the Dharma Raja will come to the mortal world again?”
“Oh, anywhere between an eon and a blink.”
“That’s not even a remotely useful range,” I pointed out.
“It is what it is.”
“Well, would you be able to tell when he is here?”
“Yes.”
“And we could get to him in time from Bharata?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Are you just saying yes?”
“… Yes.”
Kamala snorted and laughed.
“What’s the real answer? And tell me the truth this time, don’t forget our deal.” I placed my arm against her muzzle, sliding it across her nose like it was a piece of salted corn. Drool, at least I hope it was drool, fell with a thick splash on the ground. Kamala stared at my arm hungrily.
“Maybe. It all depends. That is how things are. Perhaps my first answer was the truth. Anytime between an eon and a blink.”
I rolled my eyes. “Then I suppose that will have to do. But the moment he’s here, you need to tell me and we’ll go.”
Kamala nodded begrudgingly. I kept my head low as we pushed through the crowd.
“Act like you’re chanting a prayer,” hissed Kamala in my ear.
“Like what?”
“Mutter something,” said Kamala. “Do you know how many sadhus I’ve listened to? Let alone eaten? If you don’t start muttering s
omething, they will turn on you. And I don’t want to eat them. They look like they’d taste horrible.”
“I—”
“A list or something.”
“Uh,” I stammered, trying to draw out the sound into the beginning of a chant. The people of Bharata were beginning to frown at me. Some had even stopped hurling shouts at the gates to watch me fail.
“Skies … fingers … teeth…”
Kamala nodded approvingly.
“Can they hear you?” I hissed.
“No, not at all. Continue talking to me. That will definitely make you seem crazy. Very convincing for a holy person.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite,” said Kamala. “You are like me. Half a thing. Mildly insane. A little of the Otherworld.”
“How comforting,” I muttered, continuing with my ridiculous list as we shouldered through people. I held my hand open, smiling and grinning when fat coins were dropped into my palms. But it didn’t feel right to take them. Especially when the people who were giving the most seemed to have the least to give.
So I gave the coins back.
And that’s when things started getting strange.
“The sadhvi has returned our offerings!”
“She is a saint!”
“It is a sign that the world has forsaken us!”
Kamala was laughing again.
“The horse is also holy! Make way! Make way!”
“The first holy sadhu among us is here!”
“We are not forsaken. Make way!”
“Hear what she prophesies!”
The crowd around us parted. People’s hands were outstretched, running their fingers through my hair, across my collarbones, along my arms. They tried to touch Kamala, but she took it less kindly and snapped her teeth.
“You’re a holy horse now,” I chastised. “None of that.”
Kamala growled at me. “Don’t forget that I get to take a bite of your arm when all of this is through.”
We stopped short of the iron gates of Bharata. My father had never closed them. From what I remembered, they were just symbolic and never meant to keep anyone out. In the distance, I could see Skanda sitting on a pavilion wreathed in lotus blossoms and flanked with serving girls. He was, as I had guessed, fat. And in his golden jacket, he indeed looked like a toad.
The Star-Touched Queen Page 18