by Payal Doshi
Razya extracted the pouch from her gown. She was anxious to know if Oleandra had any news on the location of the sacred Som’s missing petal. She grimaced. Asking Oleandra for help twisted her insides into a gnarled root. She felt nothing short of disgust for that woman, if she could even call her that. Had she completed her training in Shadow Magic, her own powers might have been strong enough to trace the petal. But she had been hasty, and now it was too late...
Suddenly, Razya noticed something terrible in the ornate leaf-shaped mirror. Her mouth dropped open as she stared at a wrinkle near the corner of her eye. The fold of skin caused a wave of nausea and the mounds of her bosom rose and fell. Razya had worked hard to preserve her beauty. It failed her once and she vowed never to let it happen again. To calm her nerves, she admired the strings of baroque pearls cascading from her ears. They complemented her necklace—an intricate lattice of diamonds and pearls. She ran her fingers over its exquisite pattern.
“I am Queen Razya of Astranthia. Ravishing and ruthless.”
As she ironed out the wrinkle with a spell, the events of the day assaulted her. Wasn’t it ironic that the ministers of her Court had supported her decision to kidnap the boy when they feared their lives were in danger, but now that he was captured and their lives were safe, they had the audacity to question her authority? Not to mention spreading rumors of true ascension. Why, Minister of Trade Homburg Grime, the gap-toothed landlord whose livelihood she had revived by casting fertility spells on his milkweed fields to guarantee a full harvest, hardly wasted a moment before assailing her with his words.
“You may have got the boy, Your Extreme Greatness, but the Asurai warn of dark times to bloom once again in history,” he had leered with a greedy glint in his eye.
Razya kept a straight face. The Asurai were the League of Alchemists and Scholars of Nectral Mystique. More like the league of scholars who spent their boring lives studying the magical abilities of the nectar and who tried every trick in the book to stop her from wielding her ‘tainted’ Shadow Magic. And failed each time, Razya reminisced with a grin.
“Anything else?” she asked.
Quivering behind a smile, the minister said, “They foretell one nobler will emerge to avenge the throne.”
The fool thought he was nobler than her. How desperately she had wanted to chop his head off. But she couldn’t order something that severe days before the ceremony. The ministers and the Asurai had gathered more allies on their side than she had, and they would surely challenge the order. No, she couldn’t risk appearing impulsive, especially after the recent matter she had learned of only a week ago: The sacred Som was missing another petal.
Twice before, the sacred flower had sacrificed a petal, turning it to ashes. Once during the Great Revolution and the other during the gruesome Shadow Wars. This time, however, a petal had gone missing. Vanished, it seemed, and lost. Waiting, as the portents claimed, to reveal itself once the wrongful action was righted.
A chill cut through Razya’s heart.
All those years ago, she had felt the weakening of the nectar—the magic which flows through Astranthia like blood flows through veins, keeping the land alive—wondering what was causing it to wilt. Not once did she think it was because of what she had done.
Razya rested her head against the back of her chair. She thought back to simpler times when she was first crowned Queen: sitting on the grand throne, shivering with excitement, ruling the land she was meant to rule. Unlike her father, she didn’t care to be beloved. She wanted power—power over every Astranthian—and her time had finally come.
For twelve glorious years, her schemes worked marvelously. When landlords and farmers fretted over dry fields and poor harvests (an effect of the weakening nectar), she created enchantment potions to boost the fertility of their fields. The wretched souls hungered for them like a cackle of ravenous chimera. The Shadow Magic they once reviled, they now worshipped! Stamped with the royal seal, the potions were sold to merchants and tradesmen, who in turn sold them to farmers and landowners. Their pockets turned empty, but the villagers lived on the promise that the potions would bring to life their fledging fields and fill the starving bellies of their families. The royal coffers grew rich and her subjects were indebted to her with their lives.
That was how one ruled, mused Razya.
Now, the future of her reign hung in the balance. If the petal was not discovered before the Night of Nilaya, her hand in the weakening of the nectar would be exposed, and no amount of magic would save her. The people of Astranthia would lay their eyes on the missing third petal and see for themselves the price they’d been paying for her actions. They would realize why their lands produced fewer harvests, why pounding rains drowned their crops, and why rampant wildfires burnt their homes. She’d be stripped of her title and humiliated.
Since the day Oleandra told her about the third missing petal, with blatant joy no less, Razya hadn’t slept. If word got out, every Astranthian as well as her power-hungry ministers would run amok in the quest for the lost petal—for whoever held it could claim entitlement to the throne. She paced her room night after night, trying to devise a plan to find the petal, and then, as if ordained by the heavens, the answer presented itself.
From the pouch, Razya brought out her most treasured flower: the kissed-by-death rose. Cousin of the scarlet bloom, the kissed-by-death rose smelled just as sweet but was infinitely more beautiful; its petals were the luminescent black color of three-eyed crows.
She plucked the roses and dipped them into a solution of foxboar’s blood and crushed bat wings, and mixed into it a drop of her blood along with one of Oleandra’s. A flame flickered on her fingertip and she lit the concoction. The rims of the petals ignited with fire and they lifted skywards. Glittering in black and burning in gold, they arranged themselves into the shape of a face—two petals for eyes, one for a nose, and two for lips.
“Miss me already?” the flaming lips of petals scoffed in Oleandra Ophrys’s voice.
“I am your Queen and I will summon you every hour if I so desire,” snarled Razya and the fiery lips settled into a sneer. “So, have you located the petal?”
“No.”
“We are FOUR days from the ceremony.”
“Indeed,” the petal-face said, matter-of-factly.
“YOU HAVE TO OBEY MY ORDERS, OLEANDRA!”
“Frankly, I would rather have Astranthia see the end of her days than have you continue as Queen.”
“How dare you? Look for the petal AT ONCE OR—”
“Or what? You’ll destroy me like you do anyone who disobeys you?” The petal-eyes assumed a look of mock fright. “Oh, I forgot you can’t. If you do, you shall never know where the petal lies and there goes your chance of continuing as Queen.” The lips formed a smirk. “That’s the thing about curses, dear Queen. They come back to haunt you.”
Razya bit back the insult she wanted to hurl at Oleandra. “I have the boy and I will kill him if you don’t start looking.”
“After what you did to me, I don’t care what you do to anybody else.”
“He was MINE!”
The petals turned somber. “If only he lived to tell the tale…”
Anger seared through Razya. She wanted to destroy something, anything. A current of nectar, sizzling like electricity, sputtered from her fingertips.
“Anyway,” the petal-face said, ignoring Razya’s rage, “the flowergrass have told me about the arrival of a young girl looking for her lost brother.”
Razya stared at the smiling face of flames. “How did she get here?”
“Through the Doda Alda Mara of course.”
Razya blinked, holding back her excitement.
“Well, I thought you’d appreciate that piece of information. Now, if that is all, farewell until ceremony day!” The petals laughed and dropped to the floor.
A loud pecking came from outside the veiled windows and Razya snapped her fingers. A Sirion covered in purple-grey feathers appeared wi
thin her chamber. It had the face of a human with the beak of an eagle and was twice the size of a man. On its feet were sharpened claws.
“Urdaag,” Razya said, shooting an invisible ray of magic. The Sirion screeched in pain. “Next time be more prompt with your information. I already know about the girl. Now go, keep a shadow on her.”
Urdaag flew away, and Razya looked pensively at the petals strewn across the floor. Her lips curved into a smile. News of the girl’s arrival impressed her. She hadn’t expected her to find her way so soon. She was intelligent.
Foolhardy as well, she chuckled. The poor girl had no idea what was coming.
Chapter 14
A Malevolent Hiss
After the fourth knock, Mishti Daadi opened the door. She looked harried, her saree lined with creases as though it had lain crumpled on the floor. Seeing Rea, her face lit up.
“My dearie, what a delightful surprise.”
“I really need your help again,” said Rea, her head spinning with questions.
“Certainly, dearie. Come inside. Where’s your friend?”
“She’s at home taking a nap.”
The truth was Leela was snoring louder than a drowsy goat after their escapades in Astranthia last night. Rea was exhausted too, but she had no time to waste. Rohan was trapped, and she needed to get him out. Plus, she wanted to prove Amma wrong—Rohan’s fate didn’t have to be like Baba’s. They weren’t going to lose him, too.
Mishti Daadi patted Rea’s cheek and pointed at the table where she performed the augury. “We shall try our best, won’t we?”
Rea gave a small nod. She had snuck into bed before Amma and Bajai had woken up in the morning. She’d been extra quiet even though she knew how exhausted Amma had been these last few days. Between juggling her jobs and mourning Rohan, she seemed to sleep more deeply than ever, waking up in a fog. She had taken to drinking an herbal concoction of milk, honey and fennel seeds that one of the neighborhood aunties had given her to help her sleep at night. As for Bajai, she always slept like the dead, sleeping right through the milkman’s incessant doorbell ringing every morning.
Once Amma left for the tea plantations this morning, Rea made up an excuse of catching up on schoolwork she had missed and told Bajai she’d be at Leela’s house. Bajai looked suspicious, but Rea lied again and told her that Amma had given her permission. Bajai tried saying no but eventually allowed her to go, giving Rea her old cell phone in case there was an emergency.
Mishti Daadi laid out the broken pieces of bone, dusty relics, glittering stones, sparkling potions, and bizarre thingamabobs. She took her place on her chair and Rea prepared herself for the unbearable pressure that was soon to crush upon her. Something told her the vision of Astranthia would not return. She opened her diary to a list of questions and switched on the voice recorder on Bajai’s cell phone. The red light blinked. It startled Mishti Daadi.
“Um... since Leela isn’t here, I thought I could record the prophecies... is that okay?” said Rea, embarrassed not to have asked before.
Mishti Daadi cast a wary glance at the phone. “I suppose it’s all right.”
She rubbed the blue liquid on Rea’s palms to ‘expunge the murkiness’ and then closing her eyes, said, “Baccara sintera verafara.”
Rea was right. Once the energy of foresight seeped into Mishti Daadi, no reverie came to lure her. She had already lived out the vision’s premonitions in Astranthia. With a flick, the lights in the room went from dim to glaring yellow and Mishti Daadi opened her chalk-white eyes. Rea peeked into her diary and read her first question aloud.
“Why has the Queen of Astranthia captured my brother, Rohan Chettri?”
All the words were there. Nothing could be misinterpreted. Slowly, Mishti Daadi began to chant:
“Blue and precious, a sapphire hibiscus,
On a cobalt moon, it comes to bloom.
A lonesome bud, in need of blood,
Of noble birth and gallant worth.
In him it runs, the chosen one,
The blood to offer for none to suffer.”
Rea almost understood the verse. There was something about a hibiscus, a moon and someone’s blood. Her heart skipped a beat. Could this ‘blood’ be Rohan’s blood? Flula’s words about a flower rising during the Night of Nilaya entered her mind. Was that flower the hibiscus, and the moon, the ceremonial night? She’d have to clarify all of it later. For now she needed to move on.
“How do I get to the Queen of Astranthia’s castle?” Rea asked.
Mishti Daadi’s head bobbed like it was charting a route in her mind. When she was done, a rhyme fluttered out of her mouth.
“Past the forest widowed of leaves
Into the hills towards the sea,
A towering castle you’ll come to see
On the water’s edge of serpent lilies.”
Shoot. Xeranther and Flula had warned her about the sea. Or was it a lake? And what were serpent lilies? Rea remembered how terrified they were by that water and threw in an impromptu question.
“Are these waters dangerous?”
“A malevolent hiss,
A lightless abyss,
A sudden move,
Oh.
It’s Death’s kiss.”
Death’s kiss? Xeranther said crossing the lake meant she could die but she hadn’t believed him.
“Um... how do I cross these waters?”
Mishti Daadi gazed into nothingness with a decidedly evil grin, and Rea had to remind herself that the lady in front of her wasn’t the Mishti Daadi she knew, just a possessed oracle. As if to agree, the lamp to the right flickered and half of Mishti Daadi’s face fell in shadow. The eerie white dot in the center of her eyes roved up and down.
“When the time is right, you must recite,
O winged fury, hither do hurry
To you I plead, O mighty steed
With your coat of night
and myrtle eyes,
Sail me to the shore,
O Ceffyldwer.”
Ceffyldwer! Hadn’t Flula said one had been spotted? All at once, the impossibility of what she was attempting to do pressed upon Rea. She had to cross a deadly sea with the help of a Ceffyldwer—whatever that was—enter the castle of a queen who had captured Rohan, free him from the Cellars of Doom before the Queen took his blood, and escape together without getting caught—or dying. Rea looked into those disturbing eyes and asked the question she was most afraid of.
“Will I reach the castle alive?”
Heavy pouches hung under Mishti Daadi’s glaucous eyes.
“Try you must and try you will,
Success to you won’t come until.”
“Will I find Rohan?”
“Try you must and try you will,
Success to you won’t come until.”
Rea kicked the leg of the table. Mishti Daadi didn’t like answering questions regarding the outcome of my fate, thought Rea. A sharp pull tugged at Rea’s fingers and Mishti Daadi began shivering. Rea let go of her hands.
“Thank you, Mishti Daadi. That will be all.”
A cloudy sky blanketed Rea’s walk home. She replayed the recording, trying to understand it, but her mind drifted to Rohan. What must he be going through? She couldn’t imagine being kidnapped and imprisoned. Locked in those Cellars, he would be feeling so alone, not knowing if anyone was coming to help him.
Except for the constant feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach, her twin connection with Rohan hadn’t given her any indication of what was happening to him. She willed it with all her might to tell him she was going to save him.
Rea pushed back her tears.
It wasn’t too long ago when they had begun to drift apart. It was as if one day they had stopped being children and got busy with their own lives. Rohan began spending more time with his friends, and she began to retreat into herself, wanting to know more about Baba, their past, and the secrets Amma and Bajai so often kept. Rea vividly recalled the day she was walking towards
the school quadrangle during recess when a group of boys whacked her tiffin box out of her hands. Turmeric-spiced rice flakes scattered over the ground and they ran away, laughing. Rohan, who was with his friends, charged after the boys.
“Stop pretending to care and stay away from me,” she screamed in front of everyone, mad at him for thinking her weak enough to need his help.
His face turned grim. Maybe that was when it had happened. She had shut him out. He had left her alone in their battle for answers and she hadn’t been ready to forgive him then. Now, she couldn’t stop thinking about how different things might have been if she had been more forgiving.
Chapter 15
A Periwhittle’s While
As the last of the roots slunk away from the Doda Alda Mara, Rea and Leela made a dash for the market road.
“The second time was worse.” Leela held her stomach, looking nauseated.
Rea felt a little floaty in her head, too. They slowed down, blending into the crowd of shoppers. This time she noticed the knickknacks and curios of cobalt hued moons and sparkling blue flowers (oddly enough, with only three petals) twinkling and glimmering in shops. She thought of the prophecy about the flower, the moon, and maybe Rohan’s blood, and touched her locket. Her fingers turned cold with fear. Astranthia was preparing for the Night of Nilaya.
“Not enough rain? Not enough sun? Ain’t no need to fret no more!” a potion-seller hollered, clanking bottles of bubbling liquids in front of Rea and Leela’s faces. “Forty coins to triple your harvests!”
Skedaddling away from him, Rea spotted Xeranther sitting on a low stone wall chewing on a stalk of grass. She signaled to him, and he jumped to the ground, pointing at a shrub whose berries burst each time someone touched them. A little boy, standing beside it, was licking his blue and yellow juice-splattered fingers when his father yelled at him to keep away from the berries.
Rea and Leela ran towards the bush and found clothes in a burlap sack hidden behind it. They quickly slipped them on.