Sisters of the Snake

by Sasha Nanua

The Myth of the Soul Master

  Many believe that Amran, the Creator, originally intended to make a seventh Master. This, some thought, would be a Master that could control the realm of the dead. Thus came the myth of the Master of Souls, yet others refuted this theory, attesting that only Amran could control who lived and who died.

  The believers of the Soul Master concluded that Amran had begun the process of creating such a being, bestowing part of his own power to control life and death into the Master. Only learned scholars of the Retanian Academy understand the secrets of the Masters and their powers.

  “A Soul Master?” Saeed gapes. “I’ve studied history and magics for a long time—never have I heard of this.”

  “Me neither,” I whisper. But something rings in the back of my mind. Amara’s voice during the engagement party, after my kiss with Saeed.

  Praise the seven Masters.

  First Amara’s strange letters to her husband, now this? Why would she keep a page on some mythical Soul Master all to herself? What does she really want?

  “I’m scared, miss,” Aditi says. I take her hand and squeeze gently.

  “Look,” Saeed says, pointing down into the middle of the shrine. “My father’s sword. It’s glowing.”

  I squint, but the blade looks dull. “Saeed, what’re you talking about?”

  Before he can reply, he steps into the shrine and then . . .

  Vanishes.

  “Master Saeed!” Aditi gasps. My breath is caught in my throat. There is only dust where Saeed once stood.

  “Where did he go?” I ask, voice cracking. I blink. There one second, gone the next. It’s impossible.

  Or is it?

  I glance down, lift my skirts, and carefully step into the shrine. Aditi tries to hold me back, as if the fire will catch onto my lehenga, but I move forward anyway, planting both feet firmly inside.

  “Stay here,” I tell Aditi and Shima.

  The room disappears.

  Muted colors surround me, like I’ve stepped into the scene of a painting. I’m standing in a village I don’t recognize. Mountains jut in the distance from afar, and a voice calls out from beside me—

  “Rani?”

  I spin. There’s Saeed, looking as shocked as I probably do.

  “W-what’s going on?” I ask him. He shakes his head and gulps. This isn’t normal, that much is clear.

  A man appears, likely only a few summers older than me, crouching behind an abandoned hut. He’s got curly hair and hazel eyes, and wears a black-and-purple uniform.

  “Is that . . . you?” I ask Saeed. But it couldn’t be him . . . it could only be . . .

  “No,” Saeed whispers, tears filling his eyes. “That’s my father.”

  The man turns and looks directly at us. No—he’s looking in the distance. It’s like we don’t even exist to him.

  “We’re not really here,” I realize. It’s like we’ve stepped into a portal of his father’s memory. Now Saeed isn’t just seeing a vision of the past . . . he’s living in one.

  Saeed’s father, Kumal, stands from his crouched position, his eyes widening. Shouts come from afar, but instead of running, his father stands his ground. Could this be . . . ?

  The moment his father died.

  “Run, Father!” Saeed rushes up to Kumal and tries to place his hands on his father’s shoulders. But his fingers fall right through his body.

  “Saeed, he can’t hear you.” My voice breaks.

  The realization hits Saeed, and he stumbles back. His father stands tall, thumbing the Kaaman crest on his coat. As if reminding himself of his devotion to his people. To his Warriors.

  And he charges. He swings his talwar with grace and ferocity, striking the attackers. But too soon, someone’s sword finds Kumal’s throat.

  The scene changes. Splotches of the world—the real world—come back to me.

  Candles, notes, Kumal’s sword.

  We’re back in the shrine room.

  “Masters above.” Saeed looks sickly in the candlelight, like he isn’t sure how any of this is real. He sinks to the ground.

  “What happened?” Aditi asks, eyes wide. “Was that your magic, miss?” She’s still clutching onto that page on the Soul Master, crinkled in her frail hands.

  “Not my magic,” I tell her. I look at Saeed. Was this Saeed’s magic or something greater?

  “Mother always told me he’d passed from an accident,” he says shakily, “while on a routine mission. But he was fighting. He . . . fought bravely.” His gaze flicks up to mine. “His death was never an accident. Do you think Mother saw this, too?”

  “This is her closet,” I say. “She must have set up this shrine. But how did she do this? She doesn’t have magic.”

  No, Shima agrees from Aditi’s side. But she has power.

  Power. It always comes down to that. Is that what Amara wants—power over others? I digest everything I’ve seen in this strange shrine. Letters to the dead; text on a mythical Master; Saeed’s father fighting to the death. Everything pieces together when I remember Amara that day in the rafters, seeing her talking to the raja about the Bloodstone.

  What if she wants it for herself? She could use the stone for anything—except revive a loved one. Unless . . .

  “Can I see that page again, Aditi?” I ask her. She hands me the information on the strange Soul Master, and chills sweep through me as I reread the passage.

  A Master that could control the realm of the dead.

  I shiver. “What if Amara didn’t make this shrine just to remember your father?” I ask Saeed. “What if she wants to do something else?”

  “Like what?”

  “Find the mythical Soul Master,” I say to the group. “And bring her husband back from the dead.”

  36

  Rani

  The inside of the Glass Temple is painted in brilliant streaks of gold and amber. Carved glass ornaments pepper the space, blown from the first currentspinners’ very breaths. Forged in the flametalkers’ fire.

  I suck in a gasp as I observe the ceiling, adorned with hand-carved architecture and symbols to represent each Master, the same ones on the gate. The Temple was made during a time of peace, a time before the Masters disappeared after the Great Masters’ Battle. How fitting that a descendant of the Snake Master should be the one to stop the battle to come.

  I must be that person. I must change the course of history—the shape of all that is known.

  Portraits line the walls: women and men of old, the Masters themselves, their bodies ghostly-looking in the frames. Their eyes catch on mine as we pass. Amir visibly shivers next to me despite the heat. But there’s an extra, seventh portrait. It’s empty.

  “How long have you been living here?” Sanya asks the man curiously. Her eyes are locked on a portrait at the end of the hall, one of the Snake Master, whose eyes are red as blood. I shiver at the intensity in his eyes, and the small quirk of his lips that suggests cunning. Despite myself, I recognize the expression—I’ve seen it on my face. On Ria’s.

  “After the Snake Master usurped power, and the Masters disappeared, there was little hope for their return. Eventually the rest of the world stopped visiting the Temple and forgot the ways of the Old Age. After magic began to disappear, many flametalkers used the Temple as a place of refuge, and we have lived here for generations.”

  But that’s . . . hundreds of years. How has no one known? I suppose it’s been a long time since anyone got past the sandtiger.

  Amir gulps, glancing back at the portraits. “Are the Masters . . .”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard the stories,” the man says as we turn the corner. “The Masters’ souls were banished, their heavenly bodies disappearing into the skies. . . .”

  “Your tone insinuates something else,” Jas infers.

  The man sighs. “Their spirits are not truly gone. It is still possible to communicate with the Masters. The royals . . . they have wanted us to believe one thing, and one thing only: that they are the sole
possessors of magic. They are wrong.”

  The man’s eyes settle on mine. It is as if he can see through to the real me. The princess within. The one who’s taken all her life and never given a pretty golden coin.

  “If we were to come out with the truth, the royals would call it blasphemy. But signs of magic have been appearing all over Abai,” the man continues, sweeping across the floor. We follow him, step by step, until we are standing before a line of carved statues.

  The Masters themselves.

  They look ethereal. Life-size. Even lifelike.

  “Our fire powers are rare,” the man says, “and certainly they cannot match those of the flametalkers of the Old Age. But the Snake Master was wrong to think he could erase all of Amran’s other magics altogether. For many, they stayed . . .”

  “Diminished but alive,” I finish. The discovery of this magic makes me dizzy with shock.

  He only nods. “I am Taran, leader of the Temple’s flametalkers. It has been a long time since a group with true intentions has arrived at the Temple and passed the sandtiger’s test. The others . . .”

  I know what he is saying. We all do. We saw the bodies, decomposed, flies abuzz.

  Taran leans down to the feet of the Fire Master’s statue. “We have learned that the Masters’ spirits can be called down from the heavens and enter these statues themselves.”

  The man’s eyes flash, fire reflected inside them from the hearth just paces away.

  “This is what we protect. The Masters’ spirits. Their holiness.”

  It all makes sense now. We pause at the lip of the heap of ashes, perhaps offerings to their Master.

  “Have you called upon the Masters?” I ask Taran.

  “We have attempted to summon the Fire Master, but we only hear his voice in passing after offerings. But it often dissipates, like smoke. If you wish to speak to him, you will need a strong offering. The sandtiger has granted you one.”

  I hold out the compass talisman once more, and this time, the elder man nods, as if readying himself.

  “Where are the others?” Sanya asks.

  Taran leads us to a room lit with flames, which looks like a cave of sorts, an open sky cut above. Curly-haired children rush past, and the sight of them fills me with warmth. Everything here fills me with warmth: from the beautiful night sky to the hearths planted around the area. To the old women conversing the way gossiping aunties would at the palace; the boys playing games that involve throwing torn-up shoes. It’s a sight that reminds me of the freeness of the people of the Foothills.

  A young boy runs up to me, clasping onto my leg as another runs around in search for him. I shrug him off gently, lowering myself to eye level. His eyes are a deep brown, innocent and wide. Without realizing, I take his small, pudgy hands in mine, feeling how warm they are. The mehendi swirls in patterns of flames. The boy giggles and runs off, weaving between smoldering hearths.

  Ria’s voice leaps to mind. The fever children.

  Children with buried fire magic, hidden from Father and his Charts. Taran is right—Father would consider it blasphemy. I did, once.

  “The children connect to their magic differently,” Taran offers. I stand and face him. “They do not yet understand the deep connection within, in our blood, so they use the mehendi to visualize their magic.”

  My eyebrows raise, though the statement rings true. When I was young and only just connecting to my magic, calling it from my marrow was more than difficult. I would have to hold on to a serpent just to feel any ringing of magic in my bones. Now I have to compartmentalize every aspect of magic, each like a drawer in an armoire. If I want to access one subset of snakespeaking, I must reach in my mind and tug open the drawer I need, letting its magic out until I close it.

  “We must speak to the Fire Master as soon as possible,” Irfan says. Taran nods and calls the other warriors into the chamber. The sun has nearly set, and soon, the chamber is full.

  Jas, Irfan, and Amir wait behind me while Sanya stands opposite me, watching as Taran lights the hearth. It crackles around us, and the flametalkers form a line, holding their offerings in hand.

  They arrive to the hearth one by one, some children at their parents’ feet, while they drop their offerings. With each offering, the hearth seems to burn brighter, ash sweeping up from the flames. The fire leaps higher, higher. A coin dropped in the rubble, a bird’s feather descending into the debris. Eventually, it comes time for our offering, and the flametalkers watch us with the intensity of a hundred lit diyas.

  Across from me, Sanya nods. Even Taran watches with a curious eye, and Jas rubs my shoulder as I hesitate.

  The statues are like gods, watching us, warning us. The Snake Master’s eyes seem to follow me.

  I step into the ring of statues, finding the foot of the fire and the already melting offerings. I glance up at the Fire Master, whose marbled statue seems to teem with life, smoke from the hearth wreathing the statue’s feet.

  I slip the compass from my hand, the chain coiling across the compass face and falling into the flames. The fire bursts, doubling in size and licking the air as it leaps nearly to the ceiling before simmering back to the ground. Amir takes my hand, pulling me away from the hypnotizing flames, close enough to singe my lashes.

  At first, all is still. Then the Fire Master’s statue begins to shake, and the ground with it, making the mothers leap back, guarding their children. Taran, entranced, steps closer to the fire. I spot the talisman in the middle of the blue flames.

  Swiftly, the fire quenches, as if a tide has slipped into the chamber. The smoke left behind is dark and ghostly, moving like a wisp through the air, until it takes the shape of a face. Golden eyes look down on us.

  The whole chamber bows. Children falling to their knees, parents pressing their hands to the floor. I do the same, but my eyes move in awe, unable to look away.

  The Fire Master.

  His voice penetrates the air, thick and hoarse. “The Glass Temple opens its doors for all who love without fear, live without lies, and learn without reluctance.”

  His face is like fog, moving in and out of shape. The flametalkers watch in shock, for certainly a Master has never been called down from the heavens; or rather, from his place of banishment.

  “We thank you, Master of Fire, for the magic you offer and safety you provide.” Taran’s voice booms through the room, and people nod their assent. But many of the children’s gazes are on mine, much like the Master’s, whose eyes are chilling.

  “You offered my talisman,” the Fire Master notes. “You have liberated me from my slumber.”

  I shiver at the power rolling off his voice. “We require your help. Our kingdom is in a time of great danger,” I begin. “The Hundred-Year Truce is coming to an end.”

  His eyes roam about the room before they settle back on mine, ember-bright and piercing. “Did you wake me with good intentions?”

  “Yes,” I breathe, looking down, unable to look the Master in the eyes. “We are desperate. We require information on the Bloodstone.”

  Beside me, Jas nods and clutches my hand, giving me the strength to look at the Master once more. We tread closer to the pit of smoke, watching the talisman continue to glow.

  Faintly, the world around me and the Master appears to fall away, as if smoke shrouds the room. I chance a step forward, finding myself in what seems to be a formless, strange bubble for just me and the Fire Master.

  The Master peers down, as if evaluating the truths within me.

  “Where—”

  “I sense the Snake Master’s blood within you, Princess Rani.”

  “You know,” I whisper.

  “Yes. You see, the seeker who will find the stone must have royal blood,” he informs me. “Yes . . . The Snake Master was cunning. Should the stone be lost or hidden, only someone of his descent, of his magic, could find the stone.”

  My blood runs cold. I dig for my snake magic, feeling it unfurl inside me. “If you tell us the location of th
e stone, we can stop the raja from using it against Kaama and starting a new war.”

  “And why should I believe you, snakespeaker? Lies come easily to your line.”

  I shudder a deep breath. “You’re right. I started this journey for selfish reasons. I lied to people I grew close to. I used them to get what I wanted. But now I’m here to stop the stone from getting into the wrong hands. I can do this, and I will save my people. I will change things for the better, like Queen Amrita. Not for myself but for the people who deserve it.”

  The Fire Master ponders my words. “You remind me of the Snake Master. He had goodness inside him once.”

  “What do you mean?” My eyes find the Snake Master’s statue. I’ve never been one to speak of the so-called deception from the Snake Master. But I also know little of his life.

  “The feud between the Masters was not what people think. It wasn’t all the Snake Master’s fault. There was bad blood between a few of the Masters, and the stone only caused the rift to grow.”

  Rift? I haven’t been taught this. Is there more to the Snake Master’s story that even his descendants don’t understand?

  “Not to mention the stone’s ill effects,” the Fire Master continues. “There is a reason why Queen Amrita hid it in the first place.”

  Wait, what? As I open my mouth to speak, that bubble seems to pop, revealing the chamber once more. Chatter returns in waves. At my side, Jas looks on. No one seems to have noticed our private conversation.

  “And what would you use this stone for?” the Master asks, as if the bubble hadn’t existed in the first place. His face looms closer. Others cower back, but I stand firm, focusing on my mission and not the strange riddles the Fire Master uttered.

  In truth, one wish wouldn’t grant me anything. It wouldn’t give me freedom, stop me from being princess; it wouldn’t undo Ria’s being given up, or the prophecy that said we would cause harm to each other. I wouldn’t stop it, because I won’t make it come true.

  I won’t harm Ria. I won’t harm my people.

  I raise my head resiliently and face the Fire Master. “We don’t want the stone for ourselves. We hope to find the stone and stop the raja from using it for destruction and war.”