Star-Touched Stories

by Roshani Chokshi

  She walked closer, hearing herself speak. She sounded so old, and yet not old enough that she might follow him soon after. This was her grief: to be left behind.

  “I told you not to go without me,” she scolded.

  “See, that was your mistake,” teased Vikram, rasping. “You know I hate following orders. Even yours, my beastly queen.”

  His hand rose to her face and cupped her lined cheeks. With effort, he spoke:

  “To possess even a single line in the legend of you is the greatest wish I could have made.”

  He did not speak again.

  The image froze, hovering here, and therein lay her choice. As if through a filter of centuries, Gauri heard the messenger of Death’s voice:

  “You may find that you do not care to bring back your bridegroom’s last breath after all. You can always turn around.”

  Such grief. Such bleakness as to lay waste to her soul. Past the image she saw so many empty days, more full of shadow than light. The drawn-out impatience of those who feel their life lingers on out of spite.

  The messenger of Death had not doubted her ability to bring back Vikram. She had doubted her bravery. Who wanted that pain? There was pain regardless, but at least, if she walked away, she would never have to know the pain of loving someone so completely that the loss of him was an open wound upon her soul. She would never give herself entirely to that enthrallment, the seeds of which she already felt burrowing into her. She could love him more than she did now, and it might as well destroy her. But then she remembered his name at her throat, his hands in her hair, his shadow beside hers. Aasha had said that she would need to be brave to bring him back. But this was bravery new to Gauri. This was the bravery required to love the fleeting.

  The bravery to hold loss in your heart and love anyway. The bravery to let go at the end.

  And she knew, even as she reached for the flame of his last breath, that loving him would be the bravest thing she had ever done.

  INHALE

  The horse was not there when Gauri emerged from the wintry palace.

  In truth, she had not truly expected to see it anyway, though she wished that she could have thanked it once more. Instead, the same staircase that she had descended now appeared before her. The image of what she had seen melted away, replaced with an infinite stretch of silvery brume. The mist coiled around her feet. An invitation. But Gauri grabbed hold of the staircase rail, and step by step, she pulled herself from hell.

  When she emerged, she was standing once more inside the bedroom. The yamaduta sat in her bed, and looked up at Gauri with her face. It seemed as if all time and no time had passed. An eon and a blink, as the horse would say.

  “This is what I do not understand of mortals,” said the messenger of Death. “You suffer so greatly for a smile. Why?”

  In the room next to this one, she heard the rustle of sheets. A cough. And then, an irritated groan, like someone who had been shaken too soon from sleep. She knew those sounds. She smiled, even as her heart broke a little. She smiled, and the memory of the Gate of Grief receded to a faint kernel of knowing.

  “I suppose it depends on who does the smiling.”

  TOMORROW

  The night of their wedding was a night of discovery.

  How long could a kiss last without the urgency of breathing? How long could a breath last without the urgency to kiss? It was a discovery of delicacy, like reaching for a bloom only to discover that it was a creature in camouflage with brilliant wings now catching the light as it danced out of reach.

  Later, held tight in Vikram’s arms, Gauri considered what she had said to him before she had descended to steal back his last breath. She had not told him yet, and she wasn’t sure that she ever would. In the arena where she had practiced her swordplay, she had said:

  “Tomorrow we are chained to each other’s side. I do hope you like the Tapestries on the throne room walls. We shall be staring at them until the day we die.”

  She relayed this to him now, and he lay there silently.

  “I remember,” he said. “And I remember asking if that was all that tomorrow meant to you. Does it still?”

  She curled a little closer to him and shook her head. What tomorrow meant … what this meant … was too immense to fit into words.

  “This is an adventure, Gauri,” Vikram whispered against her hair. “All of it.”

  “Even staring at the ugly wall Tapestry in our stateroom?”

  He winced. “Unfortunately.”

  Gauri laughed. And though she was sure that there would be days when she could not, and perhaps even a stretch of years where she knew only the shadow, she took comfort in knowing that this laugh was just the first of many.

  END

  PRESENT

  “Their wedding was held with great pomp and ceremony,” said Hira’s grandmother. “Everyone who attended said they had never seen a more handsome bridegroom or a more beautiful bride. She even carried him over the threshold, which shocked a few people, but the pair of them thought it would be good to start shocking people early. Might make them more immune to the rest of the surprises they had in store for their kingdom.”

  Hira’s heart ached, but she was not sure why.

  It was a happy story, wasn’t it? The bride who went to fetch her beloved and who returned victorious … but she still lost. In a way.

  And for the first time since their fight, Hira’s heart ached for her sister. Was it possible that she too felt lost? That maybe, when she had seen the toys Hira had left in her treasure chest, that she did not think of them as playthings but … reminders. Of something she was leaving behind.

  “Did they live happily ever after?”

  This question made her grandmother pause.

  “They lived,” she said carefully. “Mostly happily. Sometimes furiously. But always gratefully. It is, I think, the best way to spend existence.”

  Hira nodded, and hoped that she looked as wise as her grandmother sounded. Spend existence. What a strange phrase. It made her think that her own years were like currency. She had learned about currency and all of its strange magic when she had listened to her father’s councilors. This much armors our soldiers. This much paves the roads. If she had currency, she would have spent it on something far more interesting: like magic. Sometimes her grandmother told stories like that. A place, called the Night Bazaar, whose currency dealt in years and memory.

  “Does it still happen?” asked Hira.

  “Does what still happen, my little jewel?”

  Hira pulled her knees to her chest. This portion of her grandmother’s window faced the royal grounds. And Hira saw a procession of chariots. Servants bustling through the growing crowd with trays of refreshment and sweet lime juice.

  “Adventure,” whispered Hira.

  Her grandmother did not answer. Instead, she took off the necklace that she wore around her neck. The snake necklace that Hira swore turned different colors, though she seemed to be the only one who thought so. She clasped it around Hira’s neck, and the weight of it felt like an oath.

  “Did you know that when your grandfather wore this, it told the truth?”

  “Really?” asked Hira.

  “Oh yes,” said her grandmother. “People lived in fear of him repeating anything they said. Honesty does not make for good politics. But it does make for loyal subjects. The snake had a name too. Biju.”

  “It doesn’t tell the truth anymore?” asked Hira sadly.

  “Well. It does not for me, at least,” said her grandmother. “You might be different.”

  “How will I know if it’s telling me a truth?”

  “You’ll feel it, my jewel. If you lie, it will tighten, ever so slightly. Like someone’s hand squeezing yours. And if you tell the truth, it shall not move at all.” Her grandmother kissed the top of her head. “Now go. You’ve spent too much time with me. Go talk to your sister. You won’t have much more opportunity to do so.”

  Hira slid off the couch, her finger
s tracing each individual scale of the necklace.

  She couldn’t wait to tell Meghana all about the story. Maybe they could test out the snake necklace before she left! Or maybe they could just sit beside each other. Hira was fine with that too.

  She told her grandmother good-bye, and then raced out the door. As she did, she whispered to the snake:

  “I will not live a life of adventure and magic.”

  Maybe it was just her imagination, but Hira could have sworn that she felt the barest squeeze right where the snake’s tail looped over her collarbone. It felt like her grandmother’s hand reaching down to guide her and say:

  Oh, my love, you have no idea what magic awaits you.

  EPILOGUE

  It was right before dawn when she saw him.

  Gauri had spent the day standing regally in the shadows, watching the ceremony for her grandchild’s wedding. She loved weddings. She loved the dessert, and the laughter. She loved how the bride and groom snuck bewildered glances at each other. And she wished her family a life of joy. But after everyone had been embraced and alternately scolded or praised, she had retreated to her Garden of Swords and Sweets.

  She could not lift a sword any longer.

  Nor did she have any wish to do so.

  It was enough to sit quietly on her stone bench and watch the sweets sway above her, and imagine a kingdom full of story birds. She did a lot of imagining these days. Which was why she almost dismissed the sight of him.

  Vikram.

  Sitting beside her on the bench.

  He looked just as he had in his youth. Tall and lanky. Black curls falling over his forehead. His dark eyes touched with amber so that when the sunlight hit him and he smiled, it looked as though his eyes were made of topaz. Stunned, Gauri reached out to touch his face. Years had passed since she had touched him, and she had almost forgotten the hot silk of his skin. One touch and she remembered. She looked down at her own hand, this one flesh and not glass. It was unlined. Callouses gone. She was young once more.

  She smiled, delighted to find herself in this dream.

  Vikram clasped her hand to his face and grinned.

  “I am almost too handsome to be real,” he said. “It has clearly boggled your mind.”

  “You’re not real,” sighed Gauri. “I’m going to wake up and you’ll leave again.”

  The smile vanished from his face.

  “Not this time, my love.”

  “I’m tired,” she said. “You’ve been gone a long time.”

  “I know,” said Vikram guiltily. He ran his hand through his hair. “It wasn’t like I had a choice. But I watched you … every day I slept beside you. Did you notice?”

  She had, but she always thought it was a dream.

  “I met your sister, by the way,” he said. “She laughed at my jokes. I don’t think her husband was particularly enthused, but he let me stay and wait for you. I refused to go without you.”

  Maya, thought Gauri. It had been even longer since she had thought of her sister’s name. A door opened in her memory. Her sister both excited and resigned to see her again. Now she knew why.

  “To a new life?” asked Gauri.

  “On and on and on. Until we get tired of it and wish to leave.”

  “And you’ll be there in the next life?”

  “Always,” he joked. “I’m very hard to get rid of. I’m like an infestation, really.”

  “Then you are my favorite pestilence.”

  “Music to my ears,” he teased, and then helped her up.

  She stood, and noticed herself left behind. It was not a bad feeling. It was like waking up and falling asleep all at once.

  “Come on, my beastly queen,” said Vikram, looping her arm through his. “Let’s start a new adventure.”

  Read on for an extended excerpt from Roshani Chokshi’s next novel

  The Gilded Wolves

  THE GILDED WOLVES © 2019 by Roshani Chokshi

  Fléctere si néqueo súperos Acheronta movebo

  If I cannot move heaven, I will raise hell.

  —Virgil

  Once, there were four Houses of France.

  Like all the other Houses within the Order of Babel, the French faction swore to protect and safeguard the location of their Babel Fragment, the source of all Forging power.

  Forging was a power of creation rivaled only by the work of God.

  But one House fell.

  And the other House’s line died without an heir.

  Now all that is left is a secret.

  PROLOGUE

  The Matriarch of House Kore was running late for a dinner. In the normal course of things, she did not care for punctuality. Punctuality, with its unseemly whiff of eagerness, was for peasants. And she was neither a peasant nor eager to endure a meal with the mongrel heir of House Nyx.

  “What is taking my carriage so long?” she yelled down the hall.

  If she arrived too late, she would invite rumors. Which were a great deal more pesky and unseemly than punctuality.

  She flicked at an invisible speck of dust on her new dress. Her silk gown had been designed by the couturiers of Raudnitz & Cie in the 1st arrondissement’s Place Vendôme. Taffeta lilies bobbed in the blue silk stream of her hemline. Across the gown’s low bustle and long tulle train, miniature fields of buttercups and ivy unfurled in the candlelight. The Forging work had been seamless. As well it should be given the steep price.

  Her driver poked his head through the entryway. “Deepest apologies, Madame. We are very nearly ready.”

  The Matriarch flicked her wrist in dismissal. Her Babel Ring—a twist of dark thorns shot through with blue light—gleamed. The Ring had been welded to her index finger the day she became Matriarch of House Kore, successfully beating out other members of her family and inner-House scrambles for power. She knew her descendants and even members of her House were counting down the days until she died and passed on the Ring, but she wasn’t ready yet. And until then, only she and the House Nyx patriarch would know the Ring’s secrets.

  When she touched the wallpaper, a symbol flashed briefly on the gilded patterns: a twist of thorns. She smiled. Like every Forged object in her home, the wallpaper had been House-marked.

  She’d never forget the first time she’d left her House mark on an artifact. The Ring’s power made her feel like a goddess cinched to human shape. Though that was not always the case. Yesterday, she’d stripped the mark of Kore off an object. She hadn’t wanted to, but it was for last week’s Order auction, and some traditions could not be denied …

  Including dinners with the head of a House.

  The Matriarch marched toward the open door and stood on the granite threshold. The cold night air caused the silken blooms on her dress to close their petals.

  “Surely the horses are ready?” she called into the night.

  Her driver did not answer. She pulled her shawl tighter, and took another step outside. She saw the carriage, the waiting horses … but no driver.

  “Has everyone in my employ been struck by a plague of incompetence?” she muttered as she walked toward the horses.

  Even her courier—who was merely to show up at the Order auction, donate an object and leave—had failed. To his lists of clear cut errands, he’d added: get fabulously drunk at L’Eden, that gaudy sinkhole of a hotel.

  Closer to the carriage, she found her driver sprawled facedown in the gravel. The Matriarch stumbled backward. Around her, the sounds of the horses stamping their hooves cut off abruptly. Silence fell like a heavy blade through the air.

  Who is there—she meant to say, but the words collapsed noiselessly.

  She stepped back. Her heels made no sound on the gravel. She might have been underwater. She ran for the door, flinging it open. Chandelier light washed over her and for a moment, she thought she’d escaped. Her heel caught on her dress, tripping her. The ground did not rush up to meet her.

  But a knife did.

  She never saw the blade, only felt the cons
equence of it—a sharp pressure digging into her knuckles, the snap of finger bones unclasping, hot wetness sliding down her palm and wrist and staining her expensive bell-sleeves. Someone prying her Ring from her fingers. The Matriarch of House Kore did not have time to gasp.

  Her eyes opened wide. In front of her, Forged moth-lights with emerald panes for wings glided across the ceiling. A handful of them roosted there, like dozing stars.

  And then, from the corner of her vision, a heavy rod swung toward her head.

  PART I

  From the archival records of the Order of Babel The Origins of Empire Master Emanuele Orsatti, House Orcus of the Order’s Italy Faction 1878, reign of King Umberto I

  The art of Forging is as old as civilization itself. According to our translations, ancient empires credited the source of their Forging power to a variety of mythical artifacts. India believed their source of power came from the Bowl of Brahma, a creation deity. Persians credited the mythical Cup of Jamshid. etcetera.

  Their beliefs—while vivid and imaginative—are wrong.

  Forging comes from the presence of Babel fragments. Though none can ascertain the exact number of fragments in existence, it is the belief of this author that God saw fit to disperse at least five fragments following the destruction of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:4-9). Where these Babel Fragments scattered, civilizations sprouted: Egyptians and Africans near the Nile River, Hindus near the Indus River, Orientals from the Yellow River, Mesopotamians from the Tigris-Euphrates River, Mayans and Aztecs in Mesoamerica, and the Incas in the Central Andes. Naturally, wherever a Babel fragment existed, the art of Forging flourished.

  The West’s first documentation of its Babel fragment was in the year 1112. Our ancestral brethren, the Knights Templar, brought back a Babel Fragment from the Holy Lands and laid it to rest in our soil. Since then, the art of Forging has achieved levels of unparalleled mastery throughout the continent. To those blessed with a Forging affinity, it is an inheritance of divinity, like any art. For just as we are made in His image, so too does the Forging artistry reflect the beauty of His creation. To Forge is not only to enhance a creation, but to reshape it.