by Sasha Nanua
As easily as they came, the Charts shove Samar into a rickety old carriage. Another takes a scroll of parchment and slams it against a lone sandstone hut, then pins it in place. The still-bleeding woman cries out when she glances at the writing on the scroll. “My son!” she wails. “Oh, my son . . .”
My heart flips in my chest. Could that scroll be . . . ?
I glance at the carriage and watch the Charts pile up on their steeds. The horses clop away, kicking up dirt and despair in their wake.
A few people immediately turn to the injured woman, calling for cotton and gauze. I rip my gaze away and whisper to Amir, “The scroll. D’you think that’s a . . . ?”
I don’t need to finish my sentence for Amir to understand. “Let’s find out.”
We approach the scroll with bated breath, pushing through the crowd to reach the front. Some people cry out when they see their names. Amir gasps, color draining from his cheeks. I follow his gaze, finding the scroll’s endless list of names and family identification markers. For the orphans, instead of last names, there are black strikes.
“It’s a conscription list!” the newsboy from earlier announces. “Raja’s callin’ for more help!”
“He doesn’t need our help!” a different woman cries.
At the same time, Amir murmurs to himself, “This can’t be.”
Skies be good. If Amir’s name is on here—
The villagers’ words blur together as I gaze at the scroll again. Please, I think, not Amir, not Amir—
More people squeeze in, blocking my view. Amir ushers me out of the crowd. Bile snakes up my throat, burning me from the inside out. Amir begins talking, telling me to remain calm. But I don’t hear him, not clearly anyway. I hear what he told me moons ago, the day we first met, about what happens to those who try to defy the raja’s orders.
His executions are more painful than a sword through the chest. The royals use snakes. They twist their fangs in your gut and don’t let go.
It’s not just snakes that send a jolt of fear spiking through me. It’s not even the raja, or the Charts. It’s that I finally understand the look of horror on my friend’s face.
It wasn’t Amir’s name on the list.
It was mine.
2
Rani
Everything I say turns to gold—or dust. On a good day, it’s gold. It’s power, sung in my mother tongue and listened to by many. On a bad day, it’s dust. Derelict. Unheard.
Today is a bad day.
“Rani, come down,” Mother calls from the base of the double spiral staircase. I twist my body over the railing to spot her figure. Mother is short, as if she stopped growing when she was no older than ten summers. She twists her own body, mirroring mine, to look up at me. “Quickly. This is important,” she adds, the words a slap to my ears.
I pull at the threads that hang loose from my once-pretty sari and mutter a curse under my breath. I can wrap a sari with ease, but if I have to wear one more under Mother’s orders, I’ll lose every thread of the quickly waning patience I have.
I take my time strutting down the steps. Mother awaits, wearing a pink-and-orange fabric that mimics the sunset. She smiles, pale lips thinning. “Rani, beta. Come here.” She spreads her arms open as if to give me a hug, but I know better. She wants me to twirl. I’m her own personal doll, ready to play dress-up, to bend to her every whim.
I follow her command. Twirl, bow; twirl, bow. Suck in a breath; don’t loosen the stitching. For a moment, I wish for a thinner waistline but remove the thought. I won’t let Mother’s voice enter my head.
“Beautiful,” she says, clapping as if I’ve just put on a show. “Saeed, isn’t she beautiful?”
Saeed appears from the corner of my eye, sashaying down the hallway as if he’s the prince himself. Once he’s close by, he pops something into his mouth—a whole gulab jamun. He chews, swallows, and licks the saccharine syrup from his fingers.
“Beautiful,” he finally agrees, the sunshine that pours in from the lower-level windows giving him an ethereal glow. His curly hair bounces against his head. His lips, once perfectly kissable according to my fourteen-year-old self, spread into a smile.
“Want one?” Saeed says, pulling me from my reverie. He wiggles his sticky fingers. “They were just delivered. Mangoes, too.”
“Where are those manners Amara taught you, sweet boy?”
Saeed grins, and Mother pats his cheek as if he were her son. But she only has me, and so far, I’m more disappointment than daughter.
I clear my throat, bringing Saeed’s attention back to me. “Beautiful? Beautiful enough to bow for?” I ask, hiding an impish smirk. I’d like to see Saeed squirm under my gaze, but today he won’t have it. He bows, keeping his hazel eyes on me the entire time. Something in my stomach flares.
He purrs, “Always.”
The air charges with heat. A false spark. I’ve had enough. “I’m canceling all future lessons.”
“Rani!” Mother scolds, placing a hand to her chest. “That is no way to talk to your instructor.”
“Or your betrothed,” Saeed adds, his back now perfectly straight. That flare reaches my fingers, and for a moment I wish our lessons were comprised of sword-fighting and knife-wielding, rather than mathematics and chemistry. At least then I would have something to use against him.
“I will leave if it is your wish,” Saeed says. His words are quiet enough—innocent enough—to Mother, but I know better. What I told him last night, at midnight in my bedroom, was not what he wanted to hear.
Not after three years of this. Of us.
“Yes,” I reply regally, like the princess I’m supposed to be.
“Not without a kiss first, my boy,” Mother orders. “You two are to celebrate your engagement in less than a half-moon. It is time you started acting like it.”
With the faintest hesitancy, Saeed complies, striding toward me and placing a light kiss on my cheek. His lips caress my skin for a moment too long. As if I might fall into his arms like I had three years ago. Or just last moon.
I seethe against his haughty arrogance. Struggling to loose a steady breath, I stare at him with a venomous gaze. He is no prince. I, on the other hand, descend from a bloodline destined to rule. My role has forever been princess, to safeguard my people—and continue my line by marrying well. The last bit, however, is not quite working out as planned.
Before I can gather up the courage to tell her the truth of what happened last night, Mother begins to strut through the palace, past its bone-white walls and icy spires. “Hurry now, Rani. You are expected in the throne room,” she commands. “Your father is waiting.”
My gaze flits curiously to Mother’s, but she keeps her expression curtained. I have no choice but to suck in a breath, press my damp palms against my sari, and follow Mother’s shadow.
For eighteen years, I’ve walked these halls. Cool marble floors, paisley-patterned carpets, and a frosted-glass exterior. Ornate jalis, latticed screens that filter out the hot Abai air. Domed ceilings painted with sweet flower blossoms that belong nowhere near a raja like my father. The flowers are ornaments, distractions from what my family truly is. Royalty with nothing more on our minds than fatal justice—my father’s specialty—and what our next meals will be.
The palace towers into the very clouds of Abai’s capital, Anari. I know little of the world outside this home, this confinement. Its walls squeeze in on me as I walk, threatening to echo every horror of my existence. Stuck here, forever. No way out. Princess of a kingdom you barely know. A kingdom on the brink of war.
Every green-clad servant I pass bows, as if their spines are cemented in an arch. Mother’s heels burn staccato footsteps into the cool marble tiles. When we reach the throne room, another servant heaves open the wide, gilded double doors.
Three chairs are perched at the front: one each for Father, Mother, and me. They are covered in soft velvet cushions and crowned with jewels, the silken thrones so spotless they look allergic to dust.
The deafening chatter withers away in the crisp air. Nobles from Abai’s richest families, including elderly women—aunties—from the women’s room with nothing more than gossip on their tongues, fall deadly quiet at my entrance. No—the raja’s entrance through the door directly opposite this one. I wring my hands behind my back and face him.
Father is king in every sense of the word. In one hand, he carries his staff. A talisman, I’ve been taught, that’s been passed down from raja to raja, rani to rani, imbued with our snake magic. His clothes, adorned with endless badges, make him look like he’s been through battle, though he’s never experienced any form of combat in his life. A royal-purple turban is perched atop his head, and two golden chains wrap around his neck, with minuscule beads that look like they’ve been plucked straight from the sand of the continent’s lushest coastal beaches.
Samvir, Father’s snake familiar, slithers patiently at his side. Today the snake sports glimmering obsidian scales streaked with gray. The king of cobras for the king of Abai.
I clear my throat, snagging Father’s attention. His gaze cuts toward mine, tiger eyes flashing.
“Rani,” he greets. “Just in time.” Father heads for his throne just as Mother takes her seat. Queen and king, rani and raja.
I might be named Rani, but I am no queen. Not yet.
“Father,” I say, tilting my head forward. “What occasion is this?”
But Father pays no mind to my words. He spins to the center of the throne room, where Father’s Head Chart, Two Thirteen, hauls a man into the room. He dumps him onto the marble. There, I examine the figure crouched on both knees, clad in clothes dirtier than Nabh and covering his face with dirt-stained fingers. My heart thumps with understanding. This is a trial.
Removing his fists from his face, the man unveils nails both chipped and soiled. His eyes are a soft blue, the color of the rivers that shape and border our lands. He does not tear his gaze away from Father’s, even when my own jaw collapses to the floor at the sight of him.
Tutor.
Before Saeed became my teacher, I was taught by this man—science and stars, algebra and fortunes. But he taught me more still: to wish for a stronger world, a world rid of war and hate. A world that does not exist.
He once had a clean face and all of his teeth, too-large ears and an ever-present smile. When I was no more than fourteen, he defied Father’s iron-fisted rule and deserted the palace completely. Rumors flew—he left to join rebel groups or went off to live quietly with his wife. Father branded him Traitor instead of Tutor. He would forever be an enemy in the mind of the king.
I never learned his real name.
On the floor, weak-kneed and clothed in dirt and woe, he looks nothing like I remember. He is emptier, somehow. Perhaps that is what Father thinks will happen if I step outside—that I will change in some way. Or that I will become a traitor to the raja and everything he stands for.
“Your sentence is clear,” Father states. His voice bellows through the throne room, curling into every corner. “You have been found guilty of treason, keeping information about rebel intelligence while tutoring Abai’s future queen, fleeing the palace, and thus colluding with the enemy.”
Tutor’s facade does not give way, even at the sight of the snake slithering under Father’s throne. It’s Shima, my own snake familiar. Tutor never did like snakes. She is coiled like a spring and camouflaged so well I nearly mistook her for an intricately designed snakeskin rug. Her blue-green scales and vicious fangs echo the feelings of my own cold-blooded body, like a reptilian twin. It is our snake magic, my father’s and mine, thanks to the Snake Master, that gives us the ability to bond with serpents. I glance over at Shima and, with a mental tug, unlock the wall I’ve built between her and me. Tonight, I need her in my mind. I need her fierceness and her strength.
“Rani,” the raja calls, forcing my gaze back to his.
I clear my throat. “Yes, Father?”
“As princess, you know what must be done.”
He stares at me a beat too long. It is only then that I register what he is asking of me.
My skin turns to ice. I think of the Snake Pit, humming beneath my feet. Of Shima, diving after Tutor’s lifeless body. All at my simple command.
Just one word: kill.
To the spectators, tonight is a performance. A display of power. To me, it is a reminder of how I imagined this moment—Shima’s fangs showered in red, screams twisting in the air like an arced blade—but never had I thought Father would ask it of me so soon.
His gaze trails over to Shima, who now slithers across the tiles, examining the traitor with bared fangs. She’s hungry. I can smell it, taste it, feel it in our blood bond. She is ready for this. Tonight, Samvir is a bystander and Shima, the killer.
The Pit is alive beneath me—hundreds of snakes, waiting. They are ravenous. Starved, just like Shima.
I turn to the snake, but she is already moving. This is routine to her. A dance. Nothing more.
She circles around the traitor, making a complete loop. Her emerald-sapphire scales ruffle, pronouncing the hint of rose gold around her eyes. I approach him with caution and pause, my anklet surrendering its song. Tutor’s hands don’t need to be shackled for me to see he is a prisoner of fate.
But something niggles at my heart, chipping away at the icy cage I’ve drawn up around it. A memory. His gentle hands clapping out a song—one made to help me remember my lesson on one of the first queens of Abai.
They called her the Gem of Abai, the queen who passed so young
A ruler who commanded Abai to treat no one unjust
For Amrita was a woman of love, a woman of power as well
She gave so much for so little, and so we tell her tale
“Do not forget what I taught you, Rani,” he whispers now. “You can be more than what the stars wish for. You can be like Queen Amrita. You can do what I could not.”
My chest tightens. Time freezes as my eyes lock on his, as those words roll over in my mind.
“Find it,” he tells me in a low voice, his words ominous. He reaches out, pressing the inside of his hand into mine. Something sharp bites into my palm. His voice becomes a whisper. “The stone.”
I freeze. The stone? My eyes dart down to the object in my palm—a ring inscribed with a foreign yet familiar symbol—and I try not to glance back at Tutor with confusion.
“Rani,” Father warns. He slides off his throne with ease, glaring at me as he approaches, then pauses a few paces from Tutor.
A fiery tingle grips my chest. “Father,” I say. “Please. He was my—”
Before I can finish, or even utter a prayer to Amran, Father bangs his staff on the ground. That sound resonates through the room, sending spiderwebbed cracks along the marble floor.
One second passes. Another. The ground beneath Tutor crumbles to ash, unveiling a pool of snakes. I grip the folds of my sari and hold back the gasp in my throat.
“A ruler never hesitates,” Father’s voice booms. The next command slips from Father’s tongue.
“Kill.”
Shima dives into the Pit, followed by Samvir close behind. My eyes seal shut at the first crunch. I don’t have to look to know what is inside. Fang and flesh, blood and bone.
A hunger sated.
I blink my eyes open, peer over the Pit, and find the snakes writhing in contentedness. A coppery tang swells in my mouth—the taste of magic, blood, death. Over the years, I’ve learned to numb it. But now, as I hover over the Pit itself, the taste floods my mouth.
I twist away, covering my lips with my free hand. I could not speak Father’s command. But I didn’t stop Tutor’s fate from being sealed, either.
He is Tutor no longer. He is a memory.
My body numb, I march toward my throne. Mother watches me with her eyes narrowed. Whether in fury or simple irritation, I cannot tell.
This is why she wanted me dressed up. Not for her but for this game. To show that the princess is capable o
f more than just wrapping a sari. Which you are, Shima hisses, her voice slipping into my mind. She glides out of the Pit, and in a blink, the marble tiles are back, sleek as silk. As though they had never crumbled. As though nothing happened.
The Charts branch out, heading to their posts. Mother dusts her hands off and stands, sighing. This is the third execution in one month, but Mother seems more preoccupied by her manicured nails than the smell of death.
“I’m going to go talk to Amara. There’s much to be prepared for tomorrow,” she says, and leaves.
Tomorrow. Diwali. This year, the celebration is midway through autumn, and will be held outside the palace beneath a starry sky in the courtyards. It will be my first taste of fresh air—real Abai air—since last year’s celebrations.
I try not to think of all the guests who will be pouring into the palace, and focus instead on what Mother just said. She’s going to talk to Amara, Saeed’s mother. I shiver at the thought of my future mother-in-law, her bloodred lips, her mehendi-streaked hair—
“Daughter.”
I start at the sound of Father’s voice. Father’s back is straight, scepter in hand, his head only just tilted in my direction. “I did what was necessary. And one day you shall, too,” he says.
My body grows cold. I nod back, the ring searing my palm. “Of course,” I reply.
Because no one is allowed to say no to a king, least of all me.
3
Ria
Curfew is for those who don’t wish to dream with their eyes open.
Mama Anita’s mantra refuses to let go of me tonight. She used to recite it every night before she tucked me into the Vadi Orphanage’s scratchy blankets. Once, the idea of wielding magic, being a princess, was all I really wanted. Dressing up, pretending the world around me was perfect. Falling in love.
Like any of that is possible in Abai.
I’m walking along Nabh’s dusty streets, numb and nauseated and unable to utter a single word to Amir. I push reality aside. I might’ve turned eighteen recently, but I’m not about to throw my life away for the raja or his throne.