by Sasha Nanua
“Saeed! How’d you find me?” I whisper, though no one’s around.
But I’m wrong. Aditi pokes out behind a pillar, still carrying her tray and looking small.
“Aditi brought me to you. I figured that if you weren’t going to endure our engagement party details at dinner, neither should I have to. That speech was . . . bold of you.”
“It’s not wrong for a princess to speak up,” I say. “Or a villager, for that matter.”
“True, but it isn’t like you to do so.”
I bite my lip. I should be more careful. “It’s not like I ditched dinner because of you. I thought you weren’t even coming.”
“I . . . got sidetracked. What were you doing in the raja’s study?”
“I just needed some air.”
“In your father’s office, with the door closed,” Saeed supplies. “Yes, I’m sure the air is much better in there.”
The atmosphere between us turns thick as ghee. “Your point?” I don’t break eye contact as I cross my arms.
Aditi’s voice shakes as she steps between us. “M-Master Saeed, your tonic.” She holds up the tray to Saeed, who finally rips his gaze from mine and pours himself a steaming cupful of liquid. He takes a sip before grimacing and setting it down. The liquid in the cup ripples and something inside my blood surges in kind. I sense . . . something.
Beads of sweat break out on Saeed’s forehead, and his normally bright eyes darken. “Something wrong?” I ask.
“It’s nothing. Just a little bitter.” But I detect the lie easily. “Good night to you both.” He bows, maybe out of spite, before he disappears down the hall.
I ignore my heated cheeks and turn to Aditi, inspecting the teacup on her tray. “May I?”
Aditi nods, offering me the cup, but she hunches her shoulders like she’s afraid of stepping closer. I hold the steaming liquid up to my nose.
Skies be good. There’s something familiar about the scent. Something that makes my blood stir.
I pour myself a fresh cup and hesitatingly take a sip. There’s something coppery about it, something strange. “What’s in this?”
“Mistress Amara asks that I not speak of it.”
“And the rose?”
“She always asks for a fresh rose with the nightly tea. The brew is for Master Saeed, but I was headed to her room next.” The girl trembles the way she did on Diwali night. Raja’s beard, was that only two days ago?
“You can tell me.” I pray she hears my honesty.
Aditi’s voice is thin as a blade of grass. “I make it every night for Master Saeed, at Mistress Amara’s request. It’s a sleeping draft with song beetle juice—”
“Song beetle?” When I was seven summers old, the orphanage had an infestation. Turned out to be song beetles, which had flown from their native kingdom of Pania. I can still hear Mama Anita sweeping them away with a broom.
I snap back to the present. It’s not beetles I’m worried about. It’s that I sensed something else in that tonic. The coppery taste in my throat . . . I’d felt that before. When I first spoke to Shima. When I stared into that scepter in the raja’s office.
Everything clicks into place. What I tasted wasn’t song beetle juice.
It was snake venom.
18
Rani
Sunset crests over the edge of the Moga Jungle when we dismount our horses and enter a steep path, mares in tow. Mine, a rough-maned horse with gentle eyes, has taken to nibbling at my pack, filled with ribbons of dried mango—hardly enough to snack on over a day and a half’s travel. Yesterday, we stopped to get the materials we would need for Sanya’s passport, and then we passed through grassy plains, which were enough to settle the horses’ stomachs but certainly not mine.
The whole way here, Amir and I exchanged stories like keepsakes. Mine, my first lesson with Tutor, albeit a bit refined to leave out the palace. Amir, tales of his mother—she was sharp, unerringly kind, and with a wicked sense of humor that he apparently inherited. Sanya, within earshot the entire time, was silent. Or perhaps silently brooding.
“Here,” Sanya says now, rolling up her map. She points ahead at an array of foliage indistinguishable from the surrounding fauna—until she pulls the branches and leaves back. This is no ordinary part of the jungle. In fact, there stands a wall before us, formed of sand and stone, with markings matching the ones on Sanya’s necklace.
Marks of magic.
“Where are we?” I approach the wall. When I touch the sand, it reacts to my snake magic, and a frisson runs through my fingertips. Granules of dirt snake along the indented markings. The circular shapes bend to my will as I drag my finger down the wall just in front of me. Magic has always called to other magics . . . I just hadn’t realized the Earth Master’s magic had survived. Yet here it is, in this very wall.
Father was wrong. Other magics do still exist! But why is there earth magic here? I pull my hand away before the others can see.
“This,” Sanya says, “is the entrance to the Mailan Foothills.”
“I remember this.” Amir joins me at the wall. “Ma and Papa held us on their shoulders so we could see over the wall, but we still weren’t tall enough.”
“These are ancient marks of the Old Age,” I say.
“The same ones on my necklace.” Sanya grasps the beads out of habit. “Ma got it from the Foothills a long time ago. She told me this place was forged by the stonebringers . . . you know, when magic thrived.”
“The Foothills are a place of magic? Of the stonebringers?” I wonder. Stonebringers are descendants of the Earth Master. People who could manipulate rock and stone, or grow trees from the driest soil.
Sanya says, “Hundreds of years ago it was. The stonebringers mostly lived in Amratstan.” She juts her chin over at Irfan.
“Amratstanians grow up with the legends,” he says. “Stonebringers found refuge in their own magic-made mountains in Amratstan, after the Great Masters’ Battle that ended in the Masters’ disappearance and caused magic to fade away. But some stonebringers chose to stay here, in Abai.”
“In the Hidden Lands,” I say. “Why?”
Sanya sucks her cheeks in, and she looks a few years younger than her nineteen summers. “Ma and her friend Jas told me the story privately. Many of the stonebringers chose to stay and created the Foothills, a place to keep themselves secret from the snakespeaking royals. There are two parts to the Lands: the Mailan Foothills and the Forest of Hearts. The Foothills was their own settlement, named after their leader, Maila.”
“The stonebringers could form dirt into rock,” Irfan says. “They could make the sand levitate in the air like snowflakes.”
I gasp in a breath, thinking of the sand dunes of Retan, the snowcapped mountains of Amratstan.
“Imagine what life would be like if we still had that,” Sanya says, as if in a faraway dream. “The stonebringers could plow through fields and pick crops with just one thought. They were powerful people, more powerful, some thought, than the raja of Abai himself. But magic, Jas taught me, is like an elixir. If we drink too much, we’re drunk on it. Our minds aren’t as clear as they might be otherwise.”
Has Father been drunk on magic? It would explain his sudden fervor to acquire the stone and use it against the Kaamans. . . .
I paste on that thief’s smile I practiced my first night in the jungles, but now it’s too stiff, fake. This whole charade should mean nothing, but the deeper I play this role, the more I uncover the truth of my father’s kingdom, and the more difficult it is to stay impartial.
I press a hand against the wall again. “How do we get past this?”
Sanya unfurls her map, pointing to one corner. “There’s a password I wrote down,” she informs us. “Our mother gave it to us when we were kids. It was something she and Papa recited every time we came to the Hidden Lands.”
I turn to Amir. “Do you remember this?”
Amir sucks in his cheeks, an embarrassed frown on his lips. “I . . . think it always
stayed in the back of my mind. A mantra.”
Sanya smiles sheepishly. “Ma played a game with us to help us, remember?”
Suddenly Amir looks down. “We were kids. We aren’t anymore.”
A cloud passes over Sanya’s face. “Guess I didn’t realize becoming adults meant forgetting our childhoods.”
Amir looks as if he is about to retaliate, but I interrupt. “Weren’t you the one telling us to stop bickering?” I turn to Amir.
Amir grunts.
“What if . . . ,” I begin. “What if you both say the password together?”
Amir and his sister look at me as though I’ve claimed something preposterous. Anger still lingering in her gaze, Sanya finally says, “Fine.”
She offers Amir one side of the map, and together, their voices are like the sound of sharpening blades, almost entrancing: “Freedom runs within us, deep inside the veins of rock making up our earth. Freedom cannot be taken from us. Freedom is immovable as mountains.”
Their voices curl into the air like smoke, resting for a moment before the ground itself reacts.
The wall begins to shake, the sandstone cracking and forming fissures that look like tributaries of a river. The granules cascade to the ground, and Irfan pulls me back before the wall itself crumbles down, creating a massive thud as the stone hits the floor. Dust and debris fill the air, and I cough and wave away the haziness.
Before us is nothing but sandy plains, as though we’ve crossed from jungle to desert inexplicably.
“But . . . where is it?” I wonder.
“Just wait.” Sanya takes hold of her horse and steps forward. She closes her eyes, and then her body begins to fade, as though swallowed into the air—until she is gone.
I gasp. What magic is this? Certainly Tutor never told me of people who could disappear into nothing.
“She’s not gone. C’mere.” Amir holds out his hand. At first I refuse, but eventually, Amir convinces me. I feel the warmth of his hands, the grooves and rough lines of just-healed cuts. He leads me forward. In one step, his body disappears, and in the next, a strange ripple bubbles in the air. I step inside, and it is as though a wave washes over me. For an instant all is dark. I feel, see, hear nothing. Then the wave recedes. My senses kick into motion, immediately overtaken by what is before me.
The Mailan Foothills.
The world here is a spiral of color. Where once the plains were empty, now I see an entirely different picture, as though a painter’s brush has added color and vibrancy to the land. The plateau up ahead is cloaked with a sea of bodies, which cover the hills rolling as far as the eye can see. There are tents instead of huts to mark each hill, and a tree as tall as it is wide grows in the center of the Foothills. Music lilts on the wind, light and inviting, and people dance on the rocky plateau, resplendent in fabrics as bright as lemons. The evening air smells of Father’s festive feasts.
To the right of the hills are trees—the Forest of Hearts that Sanya mentioned. Some of the trees hold fresh mango blossoms.
“Amir,” I breathe, “this is amazing.” It’s like a whole world of its own, hidden away by some surviving magic. Another of Tutor’s secrets. Perhaps he wanted to show me someday.
“It is,” Amir replies, as if he cannot quite believe it himself. “There’re so many people.”
“But how did they simply appear?” I wonder.
“They didn’t just appear—they were hidden.” Sanya points behind us, where Irfan stands with the remaining two horses. The wall has reemerged. A magical entryway.
“This land was created by people, stonebringers, who wanted to ensure no one could enter without first speaking their maxim.”
“Freedom is immovable as mountains,” I echo.
Sanya nods. “This was a place of refuge for many stonebringers. A hideout, if you will.”
“And the raja never knew. . . .” I turn back to the scene, the people milling about with such . . . happiness.
Sanya urges us onward, spurring her horse forth, and we make our way through the Foothills, past the smells of simmering daal and crackling fire. We pause and dismount, surveying our surroundings. I think back to the fountain’s prophecy. Seek the place of stone and glass, where emptiness hides and fire flames . . .
Emptiness is hiding something right in front of our eyes. Our maps have always deemed this area an unclaimed land, unoccupied, a vestige from a past life. And yet, all of this is here. Could this be the place of the fountain’s fortune?
Amir takes my hand with a featherlight touch. “Over here.” We pass by crimson tents, children playing a game with sticks and rocks.
“You see that?” Amir points. “Sanya and I used to play that when I was little. I think I can just remember the rules—”
I eye Amir, realizing we’re still holding hands. Even though I barely know the boy, his touch is warm, and he speaks with a kindness I haven’t heard in the palace in years.
“You helped me,” I whisper. He believes I’m speaking of Ria, but in truth, he’s helped the real me—Rani—more than he knows. Without him, I would have never made it past the marketplace where we found Sanya. His boyish grin turns bright, and his profile is strong and soft all at once. A boy of dirt, a boy of hope.
A tap on my shoulder makes me jump. Irfan. His silver eyes are dim.
“We’re unpacking our things.” He juts his thumb toward two sapphire tents billowing in the distance. “Sanya and I will be staying here to keep low.”
“And the passports?” Amir asks. I, too, have not forgotten my promise to Ria.
“Sanya will take you in the morning to find the passport maker,” Irfan replies.
I nod. I think back to my own mission, to find Tutor’s wife, and thus the stone. I must find her quickly; my pulse thrums at the thought of seeking her out now, in a place like this. There’s so much color, excitement, wonder.
“I think I’ll take a look around,” I say, and Irfan nods. A few days here will not be a hitch in my timeline with Ria, but it’s already taken nearly two days to simply reach the Foothills. I cannot waste a second more.
I never imagined such a group of people outside the palace. They seem genuinely content, smiles on their faces despite their lack of wealth, their rags of clothing. A smile sneaks onto my lips. This is the world I want to live in. A world that determines its own worth. A world defined not by titles but actions.
Amir leaves with Irfan. I take the opportunity to sneak away and begin my search for Tutor’s wife. I clutch Tutor’s ring in my fingers, feeling it burn a hole through me.
I weave through the crowd of people, eyeing their fingers for the matching ring, offering sweet smiles but feeling my faith diminish every minute with the magnitude of the crowd. Abai’s sun, why did I ever think this would be so simple?
“You look lost,” a voice says from behind me.
I swirl, clutching the ring on instinct. It’s a man, bearded and tall, standing at least a head above mine. He has tiny oval glasses perched upon his nose and his brown skin is sun-darkened, wrinkled from age. He seems to be a man as wise as his years, like Tutor.
“I—I’m looking for someone,” I say, unable to keep my words to myself any longer. “A widowed woman. I was told she might live here. I thought this ring might mean something to her. . . .”
When the man catches sight of the ring, he narrows his eyes. “Where’d you get that?”
“You recognize it?” My heart fills with hope.
The man’s hawk eyes scrutinize me. “I know who’ll be able to help you.” He turns, throws his head over a shoulder, and says, “Follow me.”
Curiosity overtaking any sense left within me, I trail the man’s footsteps, keeping my breath locked in my chest. My mind whirls as we head up the nearest plateau. The humid air grips me like a vise one minute, and the next, a cool wind circles past us. A dense cluster of trees look like shadows in the arriving moonlight.
When we reach a scarlet tent, the nameless man pulls back the folds, revealing a
world awash with more color. Linens of red and gold drape the walls. The tent looks more like a library, with tattered books forming precarious stacks.
“Jas,” the man calls, “you have a visitor.”
My stomach coils. Jas . . . the name of the woman Sanya mentioned. Her parents’ friend. The passport maker.
A woman with graying hair is sitting at a wooden desk. She flips the page before her, ignoring us, clear in her stance. She looks like she could be an older mother, perhaps a wizened auntie from the women’s room.
She replies in a husky voice, “You know I don’t allow visitors, Karan.”
“I think you might want to reconsider.” Karan pulls the tent flap open wider and prompts me forward, until I’m standing before the table. He juts his chin toward the hand that holds Tutor’s ring.
I glance between the two of them before unfurling my fist before the passport maker. Jas finally looks up, face impassive, before lowering her glasses in disbelief.
“How did you come by my husband’s ring?”
19
Ria
Saeed’s hands are warm in mine as we spin through the ballroom. Spin, because this dance lesson is spinning out of control, and I can’t seem to stop stepping on his toes every two seconds.
At the ninth bell, I came to the reptile terrarium with Shima, thinking I’d be getting another history lesson, but instead Saeed surprised me and led us to the ballroom. Turns out today’s lesson isn’t for the mind.
“Mother asked that I allow us time to practice our dance for the engagement party,” he explained. I just know that if I keep my head low and do what I am asked, I’ll be out of these lessons soon enough.
After I step on his toes again, Saeed says with a tilted smile, “And you told me you were a dance prodigy?”
Only when she feels like it, Shima snickers. She’s coiled up far away. My “chaperone.” Apparently Shima trails Rani wherever she goes, especially to her lessons, which makes being undercover that much more—
Interesting? Exciting? Shima supplies. I spin away from her and focus.
Step, twirl, arms out, arms in. I suppose thieving is a sort of dance, a tap of your toes and wiggle of your fingers. But it’s a secret kind of dance—not the one you share with a guy you’re supposed to be in love with.