Instead of being exhausted enough to pass out, she lay like a lump on the bed, alternating thoughts of Dad and Rati’s offer whooshing through her head. Fan-freakin’-tastic.
A few feet over, Minal turned and murmured something, probably dreaming of starry ladies-in-waiting with jasmine blossoms in their hair.
Sheetal thought about waking her up but decided against it. What could Minal do? She knew who she was. She didn’t have to worry about silver hair spitting out dye or silver fire shooting up randomly from tingling palms.
She knew where she belonged, and right then, Sheetal really resented her for it.
Instead, she got up and moved to the window. She stared at the great dark sky that arced over everything like an infinite ocean, taking in the uncountable coruscating stars, and wished as hard as she could. Her palms pressed against the glass, she wished and wished, fiery desires that left her lips as soft song—a call to the sidereal melody.
She swam in the night’s glittering waves, feeling them flow in and out of her with each breath, nourishing her. It felt so good to sing for herself, with no one listening, no one judging.
As she watched, beyond the window, the faces of the stars became clear. Most were from outside the royal court, the commoners, if such a thing could be said of stars, but the court was present, too. Sheetal picked out Nani, Nana, Charumati, Padmini, Kaushal, and even Rati.
She pored over their features, all glorious, all serene. She took in the way they flared against the heavens, both person and ball of flame.
If she reached out, she could almost touch them. . . .
Their song came to her gradually, silence ripening into something more. She could be among them, could ascend to her rightful place in the constellation. In the sky. In the cosmos, where everything was born of the play of shine and shadow, fire and frost.
Here, there was no pain, no disappointment. No estranged boyfriends, no dying dads. No self-doubt.
Join us.
In that moment of dream and dance, Sheetal wanted nothing more.
She lifted a hand to the heavens. Someone, she wasn’t sure who, reached out in return, and once their fingers met, Sheetal stepped through a door dark as night. Her mortal eyes fluttered shut, and when she opened them again, she was the sky.
No, that was wrong. She wore the sky, had wrapped it about her like shadow-stained silk. She danced with it, within it, spinning softly, so softly, a sway here, a slow turn there. She whirled and floated, twirled and dipped, changed places with partners, and changed again.
She breathed her family, sang their story. Their flesh was her flesh, their skin her skin.
Here, there was no question of being liked, only of belonging.
The light, the song, laced itself through her, knitting her to the nakshatra. With luminescent eyes, she saw the spirits of the stars passing over the sky, blazing across millennia. She saw the beginning and the end, and she swirled past everything in between.
Stars were born; stars died. A sun blinked out; a black hole loomed. Below, in the mortal realm, a queen conquered; a fool felled a king. An artist painted; an assassin slew. How fast, how brief, these mortal lives. A twinkle of a star’s lifespan.
Yet they smoldered with a fire all their own, these humans. They raged with passion and creativity, nurtured by the dust of the stars, the glistening marrow of silver bones.
Humans needed stars, Sheetal thought as she watched her mother in orbit, and stars needed humans. They were all part of the great drama, the slow and continuous spiral of creation and destruction, and they all played their roles.
And always, always did the brilliant stars burn bold in the deepest night.
When at last the ring of hands released hers, she found herself resting by the window in her palace bedroom.
It was still nighttime, and the stars still turned slowly above, just as Nani had mentioned on their tour of the palace. But Sheetal felt wrong. This wasn’t her body, this frail, fleshly creature. She was a giant thing jammed into a tiny cage.
Already the impression of the—what? Event? Ritual? Whatever the word, already she’d lost it, the memory shrinking, flattening to fit into the borders of her mortal mind. Already her throat had gone raw with thirst, and her sweat-encrusted body cried out for a shower and a change of clothes. She needed to sleep.
She didn’t want to do any of that. She wanted to expand back out, to be that enormous celestial aspect made only of light and song that spun in eternity without judgment or human emotion—or split ends.
Sheetal raked through her shimmering tangles with clumsy hands. Whoever heard of a star with bad hair days? She’d just trimmed the ends herself, and here they were scissoring apart again.
What if you went full star? a voice in her head suggested, small and shrill compared to the song of the sky. You could look like Charumati.
She recoiled. It wasn’t about the hair. It was about the steadiness, the sense of concord on that cosmic level. Up there, they were all part of the slow and sensuous dance.
Up there, everything made sense.
Rati’s face appeared in her mind, and Sheetal knew she would never say yes to her offer, not if it meant leaving all this behind.
But she wasn’t giving up being human, either. She would find a way to have it all.
Her hands tingled, and she let them grow warm without fear.
20
The stained glass windows in Sheetal’s grandparents’ sitting room were a wash of constellations and moonlight lotuses in a palette of peacock blue, silver, and black. Their light splashed onto carved ebony furniture, a fine writing desk, and pewter shelves lined with scrolls and blue-and-silver blossoms. It should have been a welcoming place, especially after the dining hall last night.
Not this morning, though. Sheetal, her neck stiff and aching from sleeping awkwardly on the windowsill, did her best to appear even halfway alert. Somehow, after a quick bath that did nothing for her knotted muscles, followed by the usual dressing routine Padmini had refused to cut short, she’d lugged herself here. That had to count as a miracle, right?
For Dad, she thought. Nothing else could have gotten her out the door.
Her head throbbed horribly, her skin sparked with acutely offended nerve endings, and her whole body felt wrung dry, as if she hadn’t just gulped down two large glasses of blue mango juice. Her lungs, which she’d expanded until they hurt during yesterday’s rehearsal, complained with each breath. Listening to Charumati and Nani argue about instruments while Nani’s advisors tried to get a word in, too, drove freshly sharpened spikes through her skull. Kids at school talked about post-party hangovers; if her stomach weren’t growling for food, she would’ve called this one.
Servers finally brought in a spread of dishes, and Sheetal homed in on the buttery sweetness of the warm sheero placed before her. Fat and sugar and the rich flavor of cardamom—eating the ghee-drenched semolina felt like collapsing into a hug.
But the sheero turned bitter almost as soon as it melted on her tongue. She only had one full day of training and rehearsal left. One—and she felt like she’d been run over by a whole fleet of trucks. How was she supposed to do this?
And with the court laughing at her the entire time.
She was done being laid bare, a specimen sliced open and prodded with pins on an examination table. She definitely didn’t need Nani or anyone else reading her feelings and judging her. Or possibly catching her debating with herself whether to bail on the competition.
Nana smiled and folded her hand over a warm piece of puran poli. “You look tired, dikri. How are you feeling?”
Looking into his gentle face, she figured it was worth a shot. “Nana, there’s got to be some way for me to hide my thoughts so I’m not broadcasting them to the whole court. Will you teach me?”
“Veiling yourself from the astral melody is a vital skill,” he said. “Eat for your strength, and then we will commence.”
Sheetal wolfed down both that piece of sweet stuffed fl
atbread and the second one Nana offered her. Then, following his directions, she closed her eyes and felt the sidereal melody, a sea of silver notes that went on and on and on. Her emotions were minute threads in its boundless tapestry, all different shades from pewter to frost, and she could pull on each one, directing it in or out of the song as she wanted.
The argument between her mother and grandmother faded, and so did the advisors’ persistent attempts to change the subject.
“It is simply a matter of weaving and unweaving,” Nana encouraged her.
Sheetal located the thread of her bad mood and plucked it from the starsong. A simple tug, and it drifted away into the background. Around her, the starry melody livened subtly. She was just as irritated as before, and her head still felt like someone had dropped an anvil on it, but at least now, if she’d done it right, none of that showed.
Nana considered her. She waited, worrying a tooth with her tongue. Had it worked?
He smiled. “Well done. I sense only hope.”
Her mood perked up right away, and she smiled back. Success! That had been a lot easier than she’d expected—obviously she deserved a second bowl of sheero and a third glass of blue mango juice.
“So we will have the ice harp delivered,” Nani declared, and Sheetal snapped to attention. “Nitin, have it brought to Charumati’s practice chamber.”
“Of course, Esteemed Matriarch,” Nani’s secretary said with a bow of his head.
Sheetal rapped her knuckles on the table. “Excuse me, but can I maybe have a say in what I play? You know, since I’m the one who’ll be playing it?”
Everyone looked at her as though they were shocked to see her sitting there.
“Well, you play the harp and the dilruba,” Nani asked, “do you not?”
“Yeah,” Sheetal said, “but I haven’t even picked a song yet.”
Nani’s expression shuttered. “Would you please leave us,” she commanded her advisors.
Their faces ranged from hassled to fretful. “Are you certain?” one asked. “There is more we have not yet addressed, such as the upcoming skyberry harvest.”
“I appreciate your concerns, but I am certain. We will speak later.” Nani treated them to a weary but implacable smile, and one by one, they filed out.
She plucked a crystal rose from a vase on the table and ran her fingers over the faceted petals. “You are newly brought here, beti, so permit me to explain. We do not encourage mingling with mortals, and that includes indulging their customs. Here we defer to our elders and their best judgment.”
“Understand,” Nana put in, “it is our intention to ease the path for your success among us.”
“I appreciate that,” Sheetal said sweetly. Time to dust off an old trick for dealing with Radhikafoi—acting humble. Too bad she almost always got too worked up to remember to do it. “It’s clear you put a lot of thought and planning into all of this, which I really appreciate, because I wouldn’t have any idea where to start. But if it’s okay, I’d really like to be the one to choose my instrument. I do feel I know my music best.”
The lines on Nani’s forehead grew starker. Unlike Radhikafoi, she didn’t appear at all flattered. “I suppose you do, at that,” she allowed. “Which song would you play, then—the ballad?”
“The bhajan.” After Priyanka’s quacks like a duck routine, Sheetal wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to sing that ballad again.
And something about Nani choosing the harp made her want to do the opposite.
“You will need a dilruba, then,” Charumati said. There was a quiet note of triumph in her words, as if Sheetal had scored her another point in whatever tug-of-war was going on between Nani and her.
“Yes,” Sheetal said, keeping her voice neutral. “Can I see the options?”
Nana laughed and patted her hand. “That you will have to entrust to us! I am certain you will not be displeased with the results.”
Trust them? Yeah, right. Sparks flared at her core, and her hands started to tingle. How was she supposed to trust anything they did, now that she knew they’d once closed the gates between the worlds?
“Actually,” she said, “I have a question.”
Nana waggled his head. “Ask.”
Sheetal pressed her hands flat on the schedule to still their shaking. “You said something about not mingling with mortals. What exactly do you mean by that?”
Her throat closed as something sizzled under her palms. She lifted them from the cover to see scorch marks. Scorch marks in the shape of two hands.
Everything was skyrocketing out of control. It was like burning Dad all over again.
Nani, Nana, and Charumati exchanged troubled looks. Nani recovered first, her eyes darkening. “I told you she should have returned to us sooner. How will she ever take her place among us if she burns herself up first? She should have learned how to wield her flame long ago!”
Take my place? Sheetal eyed her own palm like it was a strange thing someone had grafted onto her wrist. Her throat refused to unclench, and the fire hissed through her, furious, famished.
Charumati circled the table and squeezed Sheetal’s hands as if to pacify them. “She is my daughter. I will help her. Leave her be.”
When Nani spoke again, her voice was a quiet thunderbolt. “You think what you did affected only you, beti? You were to be my successor, we were to retake the court together, and you threw it all away for a mortal!”
Charumati’s light licked the air like tongues of flame. “And I will never make amends to your liking, no matter that I left my life on Earth—left my husband, my daughter—in order to return and aid our house.”
“I’m a mortal,” Sheetal muttered, remembering what she’d read about how Nani had sealed off the Hall of Mirrors. “Did Mom throw away her time on me, too?”
After she’d shared in the connection of the cosmic dance, after she’d felt the entire universe unified, she couldn’t bear to hear her grandmother say it. But she needed to know the truth.
Nani’s furrowed brow softened into an affectionate smile. “What sort of query is that, dikri?” Starshine blazed fiercely from her. “You are our Sheetal, and you always will be.”
The astral melody vibrated with tension Charumati wasn’t even bothering to hide. And with her own, too, Sheetal realized. Nani’s answer was beautiful, but it hadn’t actually told her what she wanted to know.
Before she could think how to reword the question, Nani returned the flower to the vase. “While we are on the topic, it is important to understand that there are boundaries and values we must adhere to.” She cut her eyes to Charumati. “Traditions exist to preserve our integrity.”
Charumati’s mouth twisted into a parody of a smile. “Mother, perhaps we should change the subject?”
“What you did, Daughter,” Nani emphasized, each syllable as sharp and cold as icicles, “brought dishonor down on all our heads. Breaking the taboo, endangering our future if I had not contrived a way to turn it to our advantage . . .”
“It is hardly a taboo any longer!”
“You are the princess of a royal house. You cannot simply follow your whims—”
“Stop,” Nana ordered. The kindly glint in his gaze had been replaced by iron. “No more of this, either of you. We have our beautiful, healthy child now, and that is where this dispute ends. She needs our guidance. Let us leave the past where it belongs.”
He pushed a saucer of sweets toward Sheetal. “Be at ease, beti. All families have misunderstandings on occasion. Cast these angry words from your thoughts and look forward.”
But Sheetal could only look at her hands, the same hands she’d finally accepted just hours before, and wonder who they would hurt next.
Somehow Sheetal made it to her lesson on etiquette. She nabbed a seat next to Kaushal at the far end of the library table and unrolled a scroll, ready to take diligent notes. Unfortunately, the instructor, a middle-aged star who looked like he’d be at home in a mortal professor’s tweed jacket and b
ow tie, killed that plan, droning on and on about manners and propriety in excruciating detail—glowing the whole while.
She mimicked falling asleep and snoring to Kaushal, who barely hid his grin. It didn’t take her long to boil the instructor’s rambling down to three basic things: One, she needed to channel Minal and sweet-talk everyone. A lot. Two, she had to couch any complaints in tactful terms. Three, she must hide her true feelings in the astral melody, except when sharing positive ones. If someone displayed negative emotions, you could be sure you’d really rubbed them the wrong way, and they wanted you to know it.
Like during the convocation yesterday morning.
Sheetal fidgeted in her chair. It was great and all to learn the proper number of times to refuse a gift before giving in—five—but how did that help her right now, when she could be practicing her dilruba? The finer points of when and how to compliment someone’s outfit wouldn’t impress the court. Only her music would. Not to mention she still had to figure out how not to set everything on fire.
Every minute she wasted here was a minute she wasn’t doing either of those.
Two days. Her palms tingled, and she gripped her pen harder, determined to stay calm. Well, two days if she didn’t blow everything up first.
Kaushal nudged her under the table. Startled, she glanced up from her scroll, where she’d been doodling pictures of her dilruba. “Your boredom is showing,” he whispered. “Bright as a mortal neon sign.”
Sure enough, the instructor had stopped talking and was frowning at her. “It seems you have yet to master a key aspect of fundamental court etiquette, which leads me to question your proficiency in the rest.”
The other students tittered, and Sheetal flushed. But she found the strand of her impatience in the sidereal melody and plucked it out. “Better?”
The instructor waggled his head in approval and went back to the lecture.
Class finally ended, and Sheetal was off like a rocket. But then Kaushal and Urjit stepped in her path.
“That mortal food,” Urjit asked, “what was it called? Chevdo?” Sheetal nodded. “I appreciate your sharing it with me.”
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