But Nisha wasn’t just anyone. More importantly, she might help Aniri fix some of the damage.
Nisha was peering at her. “What has it cost you?”
“It cost me Ash.” She pulled in a breath, fighting back the surge in emotions that came with that.
“What?” Nisha was horrified.
Aniri didn’t think she could say it again. So she pressed on. “I should have known it would spread like a fire rushing down the mountain, Nisha, but I didn’t. And now I would just like to stop the rumors, maybe repair some of the damage, make sure the people have their confidence in their prince, before I have to leave.”
“Leave?” Nisha became even more aghast. She squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head and apparently trying to sort the mess, then opened them again. “You’re telling me that one kiss has put off your wedding?”
“Rather permanently, yes. And it wasn’t just one kiss.”
“There were more kisses?”
“No! I just… it’s difficult to explain.”
Nisha gave her a knowing look, then reached for the lever on Aniri’s door. “I have time,” she said resolutely, pushing the door open and dragging Aniri inside.
Priya looked up from her unpacking and frowned when she saw Nisha come through the door. Perhaps she expected Ash. Nisha closed the door and let Aniri go no farther.
Nisha eyed Priya. “Do we need to be alone for this conversation?”
Aniri sighed. “Priya knows everything. Pretty much at all times, actually.”
Priya hurried over, but stayed quiet, watching them.
Nisha frowned. “Then tell me. What is really going on?”
“While I was in Samir, I failed to return a lot of Ash’s messages. We were on the run a lot, I wasn’t sure who to trust, and I never had the right words.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I know now that I was just uncertain. And preoccupied by the threats to my sister’s life. And there was more that I found in Samir…” She couldn’t talk about her father, at least not to Nisha. Soon enough she would have to bring it to the one person it would hurt most: her mother.
“You found this Samirian.” Nisha scowled. “The one you kissed.”
“No!” Aniri said. “I mean yes, I found him there, but he kissed me. And it wasn’t like that, Nisha. I used to love him, but I don’t anymore.”
Nisha’s eyebrows hiked up. “I see.”
“Devesh is the one who betrayed my lady,” Priya threw in with a nod. “If you knew half the things he’s done—”
Aniri held a hand up to quiet her handmaiden. Priya ducked her head but not without a but it’s true look.
“This isn’t Devesh’s fault,” Aniri said. “It’s mine. I take full responsibility for all of it spinning out of control like it has. It wasn’t just a single kiss that made Ash not trust me, Nisha. I did that all by myself, with my worries and hesitations and—”
“And the thought that you’re rushing things?” Nisha asked.
“Yes.”
“And a nagging feeling that you’ve made a mistake?”
“Yes.” Aniri folded up her arms, hugging them close.
“And the desire to run off to places unknown and escape it all?”
“Yes, all right. All of those.” She hadn’t expected Nisha to see her foolishness quite so clearly. She squirmed underneath her steady gaze.
“You mean, all the normal things a bride-to-be feels before her wedding day?” Nisha shook her head. “Aniri, I wish you had come to me sooner.”
“The circumstances weren’t exactly in support of that.” But a warm glow spread through her. Maybe it wasn’t entirely her foolishness at work. Maybe it was a normal thing, as Nisha said, to have doubts. Second thoughts. She wished she had known that sooner. Perhaps all this could have been avoided, if she hadn’t been wrapped in the adventure and the drama. Which was ironic, given her worry that drama alone had drawn her and Ash together. Now that she had possibly lost him, she knew there was so much more that bound them together in the first place. Or at least, her to him. For him, perhaps not.
“This entire thing is ridiculous and must come to an end.” Nisha said it as if she could simply wave it away with her words.
“I completely agree,” Priya spoke up again, then peeked at Aniri to see if her words were out of turn.
Aniri just shook her head. “I’d simply like to assure Ash’s people that, whatever they think of me, they should have faith in their prince. They’re going to need that faith, Nisha, and I need to fix this before Ash sends me away. Or the Samirians decide they’re done with waiting and declare war on us.”
Nisha slowly nodded her head. “The faith of the people.”
“Ash has earned it.” The more Aniri said it, the stronger it felt. “No matter what happens between the prince and me, I can’t be the thing that brings him down. I’ll do anything to keep that from happening. Please tell me you’ll help me with this. I know you have the people’s favor. Perhaps you can help counter the rumors?”
Nisha smiled. “I have an even better idea.”
Priya’s eyes sparkled even though she couldn’t possibly know what Nisha was thinking any more than Aniri did. But it didn’t matter. Aniri had already embarrassed herself on a ship full of Jungali sailors. She would do whatever was necessary to fix this.
“Let’s hear it, then.”
Nisha’s idea apparently involved a festival on the streets of Jungali later in the day. In fact, it was nearly into the night. Nisha had scoured her wardrobes for a proper costume for Aniri, coming back with a traditional Jungali dress that had four different swaths of color. There was no corset, and a surprising amount of bare skin: her shoulders and midriff were exposed, along with bare feet underneath the full, sweeping skirts. The sleeves were comprised of thin, draping strips that fluttered with each small movement. It was entirely exotic, and the ink swirls Priya was applying to each of her feet and hands made it doubly so.
She looked thoroughly Jungali.
It made her heart ache.
But Nisha was convinced that participating in the festival would be just the thing to counter the rumors about her that had swirled throughout the city all day long. And for that, she would wear what was customary and do as she was told.
Nisha and Priya donned similar costumes, and Nisha had even fashioned one for Seledri that accommodated her baby. Her sister seemed delighted by the entire affair, and that Seledri’s tears had been banished was justification alone for any attire.
When the four of them emerged into the twilight of the courtyard outside the palace, Aniri saw why Nisha had insisted they all dress this way: every female, from grandmothers to tiny, tottering girl babies, were wearing the same thing. It was a dizzying feast of colors, made deeper and more lush by the flickering of the lamps, which were, quite literally, everywhere.
From tiny clay pots to enormous trays festooned with flowers, thousands of oil lamps burned throughout the courtyard, giving it a warm, flickering light that fought against the waning sun. The street’s gaslamps had all been turned down. Small children climbed the poles as if they were trees, extinguishing the brighter, more modern gaslight and leaving behind the soft romance of a million, brilliant, tiny flames.
“Nisha,” Aniri said with awe. “It’s beautiful.”
Seledri and Priya were likewise struck, but Nisha just smiled. “Oh, it’s only getting started.”
“You said this was a celebration of an ancient King’s return home to his Queen, after being thought lost to the mountains,” Aniri said. “But what is the purpose of the lamps? And the costumes?”
“The costumes are the Queen’s dress of the time,” Nisha said. “It’s from hundreds of years ago, when the provinces were barely formed, and there were as many people roaming nomadic through the mountains outside the walls as there were within them. The four colors are the four provinces, first brought together under Queen Kazmi’s rule.”
A small girl carrying a basket of miniature earthen pots interrupted Nisha
. Each of the four of them received one tiny lamp, so small it fit in the palm of Aniri’s hand. Another girl followed behind with a fistful of sticks in one hand, and a flame-topped one in the other. She lit their lamps, one by one, then scampered off into the crowds.
“Do we carry them?” asked Seledri, seeming as entranced by the whole thing as Aniri was, and her tentative smile made Aniri’s heart glad. They edged forward into the crowd.
“Yes,” Nisha said. “This is the Festival of Lights, and these are the lamps Queen Kazmi kept lit in the highest tower of the palace, through four winters and four summers, so her King could see them from anywhere in the mountains and find his way home. The legend says that Devpahar herself manifested as a shashee and found the King buried in a landslide. She used her great tusks to move the mountain and unearth him again, then she followed the lights. We use them now to remember that, even in dark times, there is always a light to guide us home.”
Aniri’s lamp was cool in her palm, the flame winking and throwing shadows across the curling ink designs on her hand. She tried to put on a smile, pushing away thoughts of how this wouldn’t be her home for much longer. They slowly worked their way past knots of dancing girls, some no bigger than toddlers. Clusters of women arranged more lamps and flowers along the walk, making some kind of pattern that seemed meant to be viewed from above. Aniri imagined flying the skyship over the city and admiring the beauty below as she left Jungali forever. She had to push that thought away, too.
“But where are all the men?” Priya asked as she tiptoed around a spiraling design of lamps, taking care to lift her skirts and keep them from catching fire.
“They will be along soon enough,” Nisha said with a grin.
As they progressed, Aniri realized they were heading toward a stage of some kind: it was a simple elevated platform, a few feet off the ground, but it was heavily decorated with baskets of flowers. In the center, small lamps were arranged in a pattern that looked like a star, with tiny lights radiating out from an empty circle in the middle. The scent of so many flowers and flames made the air heady. The cool cobblestones on her bare feet and the light breeze fluttering her gossamer sleeves added to the light-hearted effect.
We’re a romantic people, Ash had once told her. Even as those words pricked tears to her eyes, the beauty of this festival couldn’t do anything but warm her heart.
Seledri bent her head to Aniri’s. “Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Why do you think they’re lining up?” Seledri pointed to a line of young women who had started to form at one end of the platform.
“This is where you come in, Aniri.” Nisha took her by the shoulders and steered her to a place at the end of the line.
“What do I do?” Aniri was already garnering glances and raised eyebrows and whispered conversations. The girls in front of her in line were all about the same age as her: young enough to not yet be wed, but old enough to want to.
“Just watch the others. You’ll be perfect.” Then Nisha urged Priya and Seledri away from the line, although they could all just as easily have joined her. Priya at least. Seledri and Nisha were a little older and married. And, now that she thought about it, Priya was betrothed. She sighed when she realized she actually was the only one without a husband, present or future.
The line started to shift, and she craned around the other girls to see why. The first girl in line had stepped up on the platform. She stood in the center of the pattern of lamps and raised her tiny lamp in the air.
In a loud voice, she called, “Devpahar, I pray you bring my King home.”
A hush fell over the courtyard as all the women, young and old, stopped their preparations and turned to watch the girl on the stage. She held her lamp aloft a moment longer then stooped to place it at the edge of the circle. Then she lifted her skirts clear of the ring of fire and quickly leaped over it. Another girl took her place, skirts hiked to bridge the circle, then holding her lamp high above.
The quiet of the courtyard carried her voice to the walls of the palace and nearby taverns and shops, echoing it back to her. “Devpahar, I pray you bring my King home.”
Aniri swallowed. What in the three Queendoms what Nisha thinking? That Aniri would stand up and say those words in front of Ash’s people?
The girls in front of her were whispering behind their hands and sending her furtive looks. Behind her, there was no one. Apparently she had scared off whoever else might have been interested in giving their supplications to Devpahar to bring home their own lovers, their personal Kings, whoever that might be.
The line edged forward. Aniri had a sinking feeling in her stomach. She gritted her teeth and remembered her purpose: this was to negate the rumors. To ease the prince’s embarrassment at having his future-Queen run off to another country and kiss a Samarian. And above all, to bolster the people’s faith in their prince, in the event that those same Samarians decided to wage war.
The two girls in front of her had reached the platform. Their giggles threatened to keep them from performing the ritual, but they sobered just in time. Aniri felt impossibly old compared to them, even though she couldn’t be more than a year or two their senior. It wasn’t that long ago when she could safely indulge in the giggles of childhood.
Not anymore.
Nor, strangely, did she want to. As they cleared the stage, and she was the only one left in line, she solemnly ascended the two short, wooden steps and carefully gathered her skirts so she could step into the ring of tiny lamps. There were so many of them now. They pulsed heat toward her bare feet, their growing flames threatening to lick far enough to catch the edges of her colorful skirts. It flushed heat up to her face as she remembered the night Ash saved her from a cloak on fire. It was in a dingy inn buried in the province of Mahet, where they had taken refuge on the way to the skyship.
Trying to save you from fire is becoming a habit of mine. Ash’s words rung in her mind, but he wouldn’t be saving her from this fire. This was a problem of her own making, and one she would have to solve alone.
The crowd before her had grown silent. Expectant. The ones who were close enough to see their faces in the waning, flickering light wore expressions of surprise and amazement. Clearly, they didn’t expect the Third Daughter of Dharia to step up to the platform in the middle of the Festival of Lights.
Aniri raised her lamp over her head. “Devpahar, you don’t need to return our King, because he is already here.” She held her light aloft a moment longer and briefly considered saying no more. Setting her burden down and fleeing. She shoved that thought straight out of her mind and lowered her arms, holding the light before her so that it would shine on her face. Even those at the far reaches of the crowd should be able to see her now.
“You already have a prince who, in any sensible world, would be King. He doesn’t need a Queen from Dharia to prove his worth. He doesn’t need a Queen at all. He puts to shame any royal from the plains, proving his nobility time and again in acts of bravery and wisdom. In leading you constantly toward peace. In negotiating with countries five times Jungali’s size to bring prosperity to the country he loves. In risking his very life to stop a war. People of Jungali, your King is already here—” She swept one hand up to gesture to the balcony where Ash usually addressed his people. She stuttered to a stop when she saw a lone figure there. A dark outline of a man who could only be Ash, standing on his balcony, watching her.
She swallowed and dropped her gaze back to the crowd. Her heart pounded. “Your King is already here,” she said again, weakly. Her mouth had run dry, her voice had fled, and her mind had gone blank. She should exit the stage now, before she embarrassed herself. But before she could set down her lamp, two small girls skittered to the front of the platform and smiled up at her. They looked at each other and exchanged a mischievous grin.
Then the one on the left started dancing.
She held small hand aloft as if an imaginary lamp were perched there. Her other hand
swept up to tap it, as though lighting the lamp. Her wrists slowly circled, as both hands spiraled back down to her sides. Then, throwing one arm crooked over her head, she stamped her bare little foot on the cobblestones as she turned in a circle.
Once she had completed the turn, she looked to her friend. Together, but not quite exactly matching, they repeated the moves. Hand up, lamp tap, circle down, circle around. When they finished, two more girls, slightly older, hurried out from the crowd to join them. A drum beat started up from somewhere, followed by a flute and some kind of horn Aniri didn’t recognize. Two women joined the girls, and then two more, still older, all dressed in the same costume, flicking the air with their hands and beating the cobblestones with their bare feet.
It was a simple routine, but beautiful, and somehow hypnotic.
Aniri watched as more and more women joined them. She shook herself out of the trance and finally set down her lamp. Careful to lift her skirts, she stepped over the flames to leave the platform. Everywhere was movement, as women pressed in and filled the square with twirling skirts. She couldn’t find Nisha’s face, or Priya’s or Seledri’s.
A chanting rose up.
At first, Aniri thought it was the women, but the sound was too deep and muscular. Down the main street, she spied a massive shashee—it was painted in the colors of Queen Kazmi’s costume and possessed a lone rider. On either side, men danced, stamping their feet and singing as they went. It was a similar routine to the women’s, but rougher, more masculine. They repeated their spinning and jumping movements again and again as they marched to meet the women in the courtyard.
They were the King returning home to his Queen.
The male and female dancers met and blended, seamlessly filtering together. Boys with grandmothers, tiny girls with giant burly men, shy embraces of women and men of courting age, and knowing ones of those a little older. It was love and reunion put in motion.
Second Daughter (The Royals of Dharia, Book Two) Page 21