Sisters of the Snake

by Sasha Nanua

  “She’s not a pet!” I snap, turning to Rani, who nods her head in agreement. But Amara flings out a hand, ready to use her cuffs on Shima. The snake dodges her and leaps into the air, fangs out, ready to attack. Just a second away from Amara, Shima strikes before she hits an invisible wall. She falls to the grass in a heap, motionless.

  “SHIMA!” I cry, buckling to my knees. I reach out and touch the snake. “Shima, no! Please be okay.” I feel her pain, as sharp as a fresh burn, but it simmers into anger.

  I . . . will be fine, Shima says. She lifts her head. You must face her, Princesses. You are more powerful than you realize.

  I look up at Amara, anger causing my words to waver. “What did you do?”

  “The Bloodstone is more than a wish-granter, you see,” Amara says with a sly smile. “Anyone who holds the stone is protected from attacks, a safeguard, if you will. You cannot hurt me. The foolish Head Chart tried to take the stone back and look what happened to him.”

  I fist my hands. “We might not be able to hurt you, but we know what you want,” I snap. “Looking for the fabled Soul Master would destroy the balance of magic.”

  Amara chuckles. “Yes, I desire to bring my husband back, but you’ve come to the wrong conclusion. There is something else. What I am doing is much greater.”

  Rani shakes her head. “What else, Amara? War? Whatever your game, whatever your reasons, this is wrong. You used your magical cuffs to control our father. To make him the way he is. You wanted this war with Kaama.”

  She tuts. “Kaama’s always been to blame. Yes, the raja was taught how to be a fierce and ruthless ruler from a young age, but I had to push his war hunger even further. I had to forge letters between the kings. I sent mail to the Kaaman royalty, writing as King Natesh. I had to give the raja a fake threat from King Jeevan to make it seem as though the Kaamans were ready. I had to spur on the war.”

  I reach back into my memory. The night of the engagement party—the letter from King Jeevan. The penmanship was so familiar. Only now do I realize why. It’s the same handwriting on the war plans in the raja’s office. Amara’s. She must’ve used her control over the mail chariots to her advantage.

  My mind races. Why would Amara do this? I think of Amara’s husband—Saeed’s father, Kumal. The great Kaaman Warrior. He died on a mission for his country.

  “You can’t blame an entire nation for his death,” I cut in.

  Amara reels as though I’ve struck her. “He was on a routine mission to weed out Abaian spies when he was abandoned, left for dead. He was promised security, but those Warriors didn’t protect him.” She shakes her head. “His own country didn’t care to keep him safe. Why should I ever trust them again?” All the pain and grief she has suffered plays there on her face, so clear I feel as if I can read her whole story.

  The father who used his power to manipulate and abuse her.

  The husband who loved and protected her.

  The man who risked his life for his country.

  “Kumal’s own family wouldn’t take me in,” Amara says now. “No one cared. You’re telling me about blame?” She stares straight at me, clucking her tongue. “Don’t you blame your parents for giving you up? Don’t you blame your kingdom for what it’s done to people like you? Ria.”

  The air is thick with silence. My stomach quivers. “How’d you know my name?”

  Amara purses her lips. “Haven’t you wondered why your parents never acknowledged you? It’s because you’re not in their memories anymore, thief girl. It is because of me.”

  “You made our parents forget about us?”

  “Well, it wasn’t my idea,” Amara drawls. “Your parents knew you had to be apart because of the prophecy, but they knew their resolve would never hold if they were to remember their other child, lost to the world. So they asked me—no, begged me—to perform a complex charm . . .” Amara glances at her cuffs. “In exchange, they would betroth my son to their remaining child. They asked that I erase the memory of the other twin from my mind, as well. But I thought I’d keep that memory alive, just in case. It seems I made the right choice.”

  I leap at Amara, screaming obscenities. Rani holds me back while Amara laughs. No wonder the raja allowed Mama Anita to be killed in the Pit. He didn’t even remember her.

  “You see, I was taught early on that none of us are born worth anything,” she says. “We must seize influence and power. And that—that has been my game all along.”

  I think of everything Amara did. Erasing the memory of me from my parents’ minds. Using the cuffs to manipulate the raja.

  This whole time, I’d thought the raja and queen had pretended to forget about me. That I’d been beneath their attention, as if I’d never existed in the first place. My history, all of it, gone.

  Fury ripples through me.

  Amara’s eyes are bloodshot. “I have something greater than just Kaama’s destruction in mind. Greater than bringing back my husband. When he’s alive once more, no one will harm him ever again.”

  “But you said yourself that Queen Amrita grew ill from using the stone!” I tell Amara.

  “Of course. But as I mentioned in the dungeons, there is an antidote: The lifeblood of Amran, kept inside this very stone. Once I extract a droplet of his lifeblood and pour it into my veins, I will be immune to any ill effects.”

  “No,” Rani whispers.

  Amara’s grin is feral. “Once I am protected with the antidote, I can finally make my wish without repercussions. You see, the Retanian scholars revealed to me a forbidden truth. I can wish to be more than mortal. Do you think I will merely call upon the Master I desire? No. I will make the greatest wish of all. I will become the Master of Souls.”

  42

  Rani

  Amara’s words echo in the warm air.

  I’m frozen in shock. My bones turn to ice.

  No one has ever become a Master. The thought is blasphemy.

  “No one will be able to control me,” Amara says. “I will become the Master of Souls, someone who can reap the dead. I shall bring back Kumal, and then no one can harm my family. I’ll be indestructible.”

  I shiver. “You cannot cross the boundaries of life and death. The Master of Souls—that’s just a myth!”

  “Any myth can become reality with the help of the Bloodstone.” Amara thrusts her arm out, directing the stone at us. We’re thrown back from its power, its sheer strength. I land on the threshold of the throne room, my body on fire. It feels like a flame licking up my arms, and I grit my teeth against the pain.

  “Rani . . . ?” Ria ekes out. She lies on one side of me, Shima on the other.

  “We . . . have to stop her.” I groan.

  “It’s impossible,” Ria says. “She can’t be stopped.”

  Despair creeps over me. It’s true. With the Bloodstone, Amara is all-powerful. She’s untouchable, unstoppable. We can’t give up, but what else is left to us?

  I look up, to where Amara, standing in the distance, starts closing in. Ten feet away. Nine. Her cuffs glow, and Samvir patiently slithers at her side.

  I glance backward, into the throne room, looking for anything that can help, and my eyes land on where the Pit remains sealed. An idea flickers to mind. We opened the Pit once, from the dungeons. Why not again?

  “We cannot attack her, but perhaps we can trick her.” I whisper my plan to Ria and glance at Amara. Six feet away now.

  “We can’t let the snakes harm her,” Ria says. “We just need them close enough so that they startle her. She’ll have no way out.”

  I agree. My resolve unfurls like a flower, rising to the sun, claiming its own light.

  We help each other rise and step back toward the sealed Pit.

  “What’re you two doing?” Amara says as she reaches the threshold of the throne room. She halts, her gaze dropping to the throne room floor.

  “On three,” I tell Ria. I take Ria’s hand into mine, squeezing it hard as she stares at me quizzically, recalling every emotio
n I’ve felt with her. The fear and terror, love and warmth.

  “One . . . two . . . ,” Ria says quietly to me, barely a whisper.

  I focus on the Pit, on the snakes beneath the ground, on the magic in my veins—magic I share with my twin sister. There are so many snakes—the magic boils inside me, twisting and writhing and threatening to erupt.

  I yell, “Three!”

  We release each other’s hands and face our palms toward the ground. The Pit rips open from our combined magic, and the snakes rise, their voices echoing and thundering through my bones. The snakes move higher, higher, until they create a veil, a wall of green taller than Ria or me.

  I let out an audible gasp at the power I feel thrumming through my veins, feeding between Ria, the Pit, and myself, creating a surge as strong as a tidesweeper’s endless storms.

  “We invoke the name of the Snake Master. We summon the snakes of the Pit,” I say, my hands beginning to shake. Ria echoes me. “Help us. Defend us.”

  A chorus of hisses. Snakes of all colors and sizes slither with the direction of our hands, and we step forward, bringing them closer to Amara as they split off and begin to surround us all.

  “Stop this!” Amara spits, but she cowers back at the sea of serpents. I tug Ria forward, beginning to circle Amara, until her back is facing the Pit. The snakes move onward with our command, hissing so loudly the sound is overwhelming.

  Sssstop, they say, directing their words at Amara.

  Their bloodlust floods me, tin and copper that feeds into my own rage. My thoughts join with theirs until I am a part of the mass around us, an endless loop of strength. I never expected this power, and I feel my and Ria’s control slipping, the hunger overtaking everything.

  Amara flinches from the snakes around her and falls back. The snakes are breaths away from her now. She clutches the stone tighter.

  Snakes leap out and attack Amara’s invisible wall. Some vipers hiss as they are thrust back, but other rise up to replace them, continuing the onslaught. Snakes thrash toward her and coil onto the ground, shrieking with fury.

  We step toward Amara, nearly close enough to reach out and touch her.

  “Amara!” Ria speaks up beside me, her voice strained. “Give us the stone!”

  At her side, Samvir looks as if he is awakening from a slumber, and he joins the snakes, a cobra among vipers.

  “Stay back! You can’t have it.” She gestures again with the Bloodstone, flinging a hand out, and the snakes billow away from her as though hit by a massive blow. But they do not break.

  Amara steps back again, eyes shining with greed. My gaze falls. She doesn’t know what’s behind her.

  The Pit.

  Crack. My eyes widen with fright just as the floor begins to crumble beneath her. The Pit . . . it’s breaking.

  “Rani . . .” Ria’s eyes widen. The whole ground shakes. We might have been controlling the snakes in the Pit, but the Pit itself is alive.

  It’s been promised a new offering.

  Our control over the Pit snaps, breaking entirely.

  Amara’s arms shoot out as she struggles to regain balance. Her cries are muffled as she loses her footing. Everything slows: time, the world around us, my very breaths. The snakes below are writhing like worms. With hunger, thirst, promised wishes.

  My breaths stop entirely.

  I’ve promised them something without realizing. A new kill.

  They want Amara.

  I move to grab her, but I am too late. She clutches the stone to her chest as the Pit yawns open and catches Amara in its teeth.

  43

  Ria

  Death has a certain smell. Rotting bones and acrid blood, half-eaten bodies and choked-out last words. I smelled it on the streets of Abai, on hopeless nights in alleyways. I smelled it in the palace, a reminder of all the loss that’s taken place here.

  I can smell it now.

  “Amara!” I rush to the edge of the Pit. I peer inside, Rani next to me, watching the Pit’s infested insides. The snakes squirm and twist, but there’s no sign of Amara. Now that the rush of power has left me, I feel almost dizzy.

  “W-where is she?” Rani says.

  I smell blood in the Pit and reel back, covering my mouth. “You don’t think she’s . . .”

  Rani can’t say the word. Neither can I.

  I lean in. There’s no sign of a body. The snakes continue to squirm, searching for their meal. How could Amara just disappear without a trace?

  My voice quivers. “Can you see her?”

  Rani shakes her head, her breaths running short. “No,” she whispers, tears filling her eyes. “This isn’t how people die in the Pit. I know. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

  The snakes’ voices fill my mind, speaking as one.

  She is gone. She is gone.

  “What do you mean, gone?” I ask.

  She disappeared before she could reach the bottom. We have never seen such a phenomenon in the Pit, a snake says.

  “And the stone?” Rani shrills.

  Gone. Gone. Gone.

  Shima slithers out from the Pit, shaking her head, and I feel her confusion inside me. She glides onto my arm. I step back and hear the hole closing, stitch by stitch, until it’s gone.

  Fear pulses through my veins. What happened to her?

  Footsteps approach the throne room doors. I tense up just as they burst open, and two figures appear before us.

  Saeed. Amir. They look out of breath, Amir’s cheeks red, Saeed’s eyes wide.

  “We found the queen and a servant tied up in an upper chamber,” Saeed says. “It looked to be my . . . mother’s work.” His voice is strained.

  “Aditi?” I squeak out. Saeed nods.

  “They’re safe now, both in the infirmary,” Amir says, eyes locking on Rani’s. “Where’s Amara?”

  “It’s . . . a long story.” I look at Rani.

  “You might wanna hurry.” Amir’s eyes flicker to mine. “The raja’s back.”

  The king stands before Rani and me, wearing a look of surprise.

  “So this is true.” He offers a prayer. “You’re my . . . twins?”

  Rani, the raja, and I are standing in a hall lined with portraits of past rulers. Rani called this place the Hall of Eyes. I can see why.

  “My name is Ria,” I reveal, voice shaking. “I’ve been here, at the palace, since Diwali night. You just didn’t know it.”

  “How can this be?” the king wonders.

  “Amara took your memories of us away because you asked her to,” Rani explains. “I know this is confusing, but perhaps we should start at the beginning. Diwali night . . .”

  The raja wears the same look of bitter shock Saeed had when we told him and Amir the truth of Amara’s disappearance. Saeed didn’t take it very well, but Rani promised him we’d find out the truth. Now he and Amir are on the way to someone named Jas in the infirmary. Rani asked them to relay a message—something about needing a draft of medicine.

  We tell the raja about the moment we switched places. His expression doesn’t change as we discuss Amara’s confession of controlling the king with her cuffs; how she swapped the stone for a fake with the help of the traitorous—and now dead—Head Chart; our battle to get it back before she fell into the Pit.

  He grinds his teeth when he hears the news. “And where is she now?”

  “She’s gone,” Rani says. “I’m sorry, Father, but she disappeared.”

  Or escaped, Shima reminds me from her resting place by my feet. She’s exhausted, all the snakes are, and I feel it in my bones.

  “And my Head Chart? Was she controlling him, too?”

  “Amara said she didn’t have to control him to get the help she wanted,” I say with a gulp. “At least not fully. We found him dead in the courtyard.”

  The raja—my father—takes a tentative step toward us. Rani and I move our arms together so our snake birthmark comes together. He stops short as the truth illuminates his features.

  “For years,
” the raja reveals, “it was as though there was another voice in my mind. A bloodlust for battle that would not relent.”

  Rani bites her lip. “It was Amara’s. She’s been controlling you for longer than we knew. Using you to help her get the stone, with the Charts’ assistance, and destroy Kaama in the process.” Rani steps toward her father, placing a hand on his shoulder. “When you were at the river, it seemed like her hold on you began to break. Perhaps she could only fully control you when you were near.”

  The raja links his hands together. “While she is certainly to blame, my bloodlust was not entirely a result of mind control. You see . . . there were people before us, rajas and ranis, who believed King Amrit’s bloodthirst was warranted. They wanted war at the end of these hundred years. As did I.

  “It turned out that Kaama’s king had been receiving letters from me—letters I had never written. I wonder if Amara had planted them, using the couriers, to spur on the war to come.” His face is solemn. “Once we realized how we’d been tricked, we agreed a battle was not the answer. Not tonight.”

  “But the pact said that blood must be spilled after a hundred years,” Rani says. “Or a curse would befall our bloodline.”

  “Blood has been spilled,” the raja says. He offers his left palm, where a jagged cut crosses his skin. “King Jeevan and I both offered our blood to the battlefield. But I think . . . it may be time to leave the past where it belongs. We have all been manipulated, by past hatred and by those who would exploit it for their own benefit.”

  “You mean you sacrificed your own blood, instead of spilling blood from battle? That’s . . . brilliant,” Rani says.

  “So what will happen?” I ask eagerly. “Will you agree on a new truce with the king of Kaama?”

  The raja considers me for a moment, something softening in his features, before giving a decisive nod.

  “It won’t be easy—there is much to be resolved, and much hate between us. Kaama and Abai have a lot to discuss.”

  Rani nods resolutely, her eyes shining. “But it’s worth it.”