Hunted by the Sky

by Tanaz Bhathena

  If we were in Javeribad right now, I would have taken one of the tall prince’s own arrows and run it through him.

  “Is this how the royals treat those who serve them? Where is your honor and respect, Rajkumar?” I demand instead, invoking the Code of Asha.

  In response, the tallest prince’s hand cracks across my jaw, making my teeth rattle. He sneers at me, and I wonder how I could have ever thought him good-looking. “First of all, I am no ordinary princeling that you can get away with calling me Rajkumar. I am the yuvraj—the heir apparent to Ambar’s throne. When you talk to me again, you will address me accordingly, the way respect and royal titles demand. As for honor? You think you can use my own mother’s lectures on me, serving girl? You are not a rajkumari or some jumped-up minister’s daughter I need to watch myself around. Your honor is of no consequence to me.”

  “Let it go, Sonar,” the turbaned prince cuts in impatiently. “Father’s waiting for us, remember?”

  “Shut up, Amar,” the crown prince—Sonar—says. “Father can wait.”

  The turbaned prince shoots me a look that is both angry and pitying. Sonar’s hand reaches out, wrenching my dupatta off my head. Instinctively, I grab the cloth, my knuckles turning pale.

  The prince standing next to Sonar laughs. “Oh look! She’s going to put up a fight!”

  Sonar laughs as well, his perfect white teeth gleaming, his grip on my dupatta almost lazy. He knows he can rip the cloth from my hands with a single pull. Another step forward and he will reach for my other clothes, tearing into the sleeve of my blouse, revealing the birthmark I’ve taken such pains to hide.

  No. My heart thuds beneath my ribs. No.

  Light erupts from my hands, hitting Sonar with a boom. His eyes widen, and he staggers back, nearly falling over his own feet. The three princes stare at me in astonishment. A calm feeling settles over my mind, heat steaming the palms of my hands. When Sonar grabs my right arm, he screams a curse and and is forced to release me at once. Triumph floods my veins as angry boils bubble over his bare hand, his face turning red with fury.

  “Jagat! Grab her!” Sonar shouts.

  A kernel of energy forms in my solar plexus, a little seed of heat I had felt only once before—in a storage room, before a gunnysack filled with rice. Use me, it seems to say. Kill them.

  I know I can. I feel it—death magic ready to burst free and wreak havoc—when a blast echoes through the sky, momentarily eliminating all sound. I feel my mouth open in a scream, see my action reflected in the three princes nearby. We fall to the ground, the thud of our bodies making impact with it finally breaking through to my ears.

  “What is this?”

  The woman who speaks has eyes the same shade of yellow as the princes’ and a voice colder than Prithvi ice. The streaks of gray in her braided hair reveal her age, even though her face appears ageless, the gold on her high cheekbones so perfectly applied that it looks like part of her smooth, sun-kissed skin. The firestones on her cream-colored ghagra catch the light when she steps out into the sun, her mere presence seeming to suck the air from around me, rendering the heat even more oppressive.

  The princes sink into deferential crouches at the same moment, their heads bowed so low their noses nearly brush the hot tiles. “Rani Ma,” they murmur.

  Their mother. Even though I’ve never seen her before, I know this is Queen Amba. I feel it in my bones. No one else can possibly inspire this level of respect or fear. Holding on to the queen’s firm hand is none other than the little girl I’d seen earlier, her dark eyes filled with worry. She widens them at me now and grips her little dupatta, which is tucked neatly across her torso, before jerking her chin at me.

  My own dupatta lies pooled at my feet like sloughed snakeskin. I quickly grab hold of it and wrap it around me. I look for the bundle containing my daggers and spot it next to a group of bushes right by Rani Mahal, a few feet from the queen herself. It must have been tossed there during my scuffle with the princes. I try not to groan.

  “All this fuss over a serving girl?” Queen Amba’s eyes focus on me now, sharpen on seeing the gold badge still gleaming on my shoulder. “My serving girl?”

  “Rani Ma, I told them not to!” the turbaned prince exclaims. “I have nothing to do with this!”

  The murderous looks his brothers shoot him are quickly superseded by the utter coldness of Queen Amba’s glare.

  “Tell me, my sons. What pledge do you make when you become princes?” She lets go of the little girl’s hand and walks around the three men, as if inspecting them. The three of them mumble something. “Louder!”

  “Valor in the face of fear. Respect for the poor and the elderly. Honor above all else,” they say, their voices a perfect chorus.

  “Yes. Honor. The one thing I promise each girl I take into my employ—a trait I expect from my sons as well. If you don’t have honor, you don’t have anything.” Her eyes flash. “Rise to your feet.”

  The princes wince as a beam of light, as thin as a blade, flashes three times, leaving behind the smell of burned flesh. I wince as well, even though I don’t pity any of them. Except the one named Amar, who probably didn’t deserve the same punishment. When she finally dismisses them, I see it for myself—three thin lines bisecting the center of three different backs, delicate trails of blood beginning to seep into their white tunics.

  She watches the princes walk away and then turns to the little girl. “Malti, you can run along now and play in the garden.”

  Malti glances at me one last time and then nods. “Ji, Rani Ma.”

  “What are you staring at?” Queen Amba asks me. “Come along.” She points to the bundle lying by the bushes. “And bring that with you.”

  I trudge toward the bushes and bend slowly, my body shielding the bundle from her gaze.

  “Hurry up,” the queen snaps.

  The seaglass daggers catch the light for a brief second before I toss them into the bushes. I rise to my feet, the bundle held close to my hammering heart. But Queen Amba doesn’t ask me any questions, and I follow her into Rani Mahal without another word.

  SPLENDOR AND BLOOD

  19

  GUL

  Tiles, cool under my feet. Swirls of sangemarmar overhead, interlocking in an archway made of shimmering rose-colored stone and stained glass. If I were another girl, I might be standing there staring at everything in awe. Only I’m not another girl. I’m an impostor inside Rani Mahal, following in the footsteps of a queen who may very well cut short what’s left of my life in this gleaming white courtyard. Balconies border us on all sides. A few women stand there, peering at us, their whispers like leaves rustling in the silence.

  It’s not until we cross the entire length of the yard and enter the building that I begin breathing again. A pair of serving girls dressed in the same outfit I’m wearing, only better fitting, bow for Queen Amba. One dares to glance at me, an eyebrow raised at my sweaty face and dirty clothes.

  “Don’t loiter,” Queen Amba says, as if sensing my hesitation. Or maybe she has eyes in the back of her head. Though she says nothing else, I’m sure she hears the whispers that break out behind us. I follow her farther into the palace, down a long passageway lit by fanas after jewel-toned fanas. The air here smells of frankincense and oil, the sort used in temples to light wick-lamps for the gods.

  A sharp left and we enter another passage, the sun pouring in from the glass panes overhead. At the end is a door, inlaid with firestones and pearls, and it is flanked by a pair of armed Sky Warriors, both women. My fingers curl inward as I catch a glimpse of their atashbans, sharpened to glistening points.

  The door opens to a spacious chamber flooded with natural light. My jootis sink into cloud-soft carpets, patterned with paisley and Ambari wild roses. The design echoes on the walls, paint foiled into shimmering greens and yellows. A gilded chandelier hangs over a seating area corralled with mattresses and long, velvet-covered pillows.

  “This is the gold room,” the queen says, and all o
f a sudden, I find myself under the scrutiny of that yellow gaze. “But you would already know that if you worked for me.”

  “I beg your forgiveness, Rani Amba, but I am new here.”

  I avoid looking directly into the queen’s eyes and focus somewhere around the region of her chin, where two full moons are tattooed: one blue, one gold. It’s said that only the direct descendants of the moon goddess, Sunheri, are allowed such tattoos—though I’m not certain how these descendants have verified their bloodline and connection to a now nonexistent goddess. The moons are so perfectly etched onto Queen Amba’s skin that to anyone not looking closely, the tattoos simply blend in with the hoop of her nose ring and elaborate choker—firestones and pearls embedded in a lattice of gold. She raises her hands in a pair of resounding claps. Within a space of two breaths, another serving girl appears.

  “Are we expecting any new girls?” the queen asks.

  The girl shoots me a sideways glance. “Yes, Rani Amba. We were expecting someone new today. To replace Siya.”

  “I see. What’s your name, girl?” Rani Amba asks me.

  “G—S-siya,” I stutter.

  “One Siya to replace another. Interesting.” A finger tilts my chin up, forcing me to meet that yellow gaze. “What you did outside with that shield spell? That was clever,” the queen says coolly. “Who taught you?”

  “My mother.”

  Pain, not unlike the slice of a knife, burns across my left side. I bite back a scream. There’s a cruel, knowing look on the queen’s face, even though she touches me with nothing other than a finger.

  “With a touch, I can enter the recesses of your wretched mind and penetrate its every curve and bend. With a touch, I can make your eyes water, your eardrums burst, turn your organs into tar. I am going to say this only once: Don’t lie to me.”

  A truth seeker. It’s the first time I’ve come across one other than Kali. Only Kali never wielded her power like this.

  “No one,” I blurt out. “No one taught me this.”

  The truth. I’m suddenly immensely grateful for Amira’s refusal to give me any kind of instruction or help during our training.

  The smallest of frowns mars the smooth perfection that is Queen Amba’s forehead. “And your mother. What happened to her?”

  “She’s dead.” Give them the truth, but never the whole truth, Juhi always said when training us to answer suspicious thanedars. I think of my mother’s eyes, golden in the moonlight, the life in them suddenly extinguished in a flash of red. “She died two months before my fourteenth birthday.”

  I wait for another jab in the belly, a nosebleed, something worse. But what I feel is weight: an invisible rock threatening to crush my ribs, a sensation I’ve always associated with grief. The queen’s hand drops back to her side. Breath rushes into my lungs. Weakness is not always a terrible thing, Cavas said. And it’s only now that I understand why.

  “Open the bundle you brought in,” she says.

  “Rani Amba—” I begin.

  “Open it. Unless you have something to hide.”

  I swallow hard, undoing the knot, allowing the cloth—an old gray sari—to fall to the sides. The bangles on Queen Amba’s wrist click together delicately, pausing inches from the contents. Her nose wrinkles, as if presented with dung cakes and not a stack of day-old bajra roti.

  When she looks up at me again, I hope I appear sufficiently embarrassed about my poverty. I hope it is enough to evade another interrogation—one that very well might lead to other secrets being brought out in the open. Like where my daggers are hidden right now. Like my murderous plans for Raja Lohar.

  “This must be your lucky day, Siya. I am not going to punish you for using magic against a royal.” I don’t miss the slight emphasis on my pretend name. Or the warning that rattles somewhere inside my rib cage, along with my heart. The queen’s mouth curves up into a shape that would, on any other woman, be a smile.

  “Show this girl her quarters,” she tells the serving girl. “And get her a ghagra and choli that fit.”

  * * *

  “Look at what the tabby dragged in.”

  “I thought it was Rajkumari Malti who did the dragging. She’s fond of strays, that one.”

  “No, it was the princes! She’s probably one of their discards.”

  The three serving girls in my assigned dormitory talk about me as if I’m not there, even though I can feel them watching, their eyes examining every inch of my body as I fumble with the string ties at the back of my blouse, struggling to get them knotted. It was already a task keeping my birthmark hidden with these girls staring at me, laughing when I pretended shyness and showed them my back while getting dressed.

  “What is this?” a voice cuts across the chatter, soft and imperious. “A show at a bawdy house in the Walled City? Get to work, you three!”

  Tongues as sharp as daggers soften to the consistency of rose petals.

  “Apologies, Yukta Didi.”

  “We’re leaving, Didi.”

  Slippers brush over the floor, the sounds rising behind me and then fading away.

  “Leave that.” The same voice, with a touch of impatience. A hand brushes aside mine and does up the tie that was giving me so much difficulty. I keep my gaze lowered to the floor, to the woman’s feet, which are encased in jootis made of polished brown leather.

  “Look up—Siya, isn’t it? Neither of us are royalty here.”

  I look into eyes that are neither brown nor green but a mix of the two. Wrinkles fan out from their corners like rivers against the woman’s deep-brown skin, bracketing the curves of her pursed lips. Not a single strand of her silver braid appears out of place. Unlike the rest of us, she wears a sari made of orange cotton, simple except for the designs of the two moons embedded in the cloth, reflected with her every move. A supervisor.

  “At least your hair isn’t untidy like some of the other girls’. Goddess knows how many times I’ve had to undo and redo their plaits during the early days. Use these.” The woman—Yukta Didi—holds up a pair of brass hairpins, which I use to fix the dupatta neatly over my head.

  “Now listen carefully, Siya, for I will say this only once. There are twenty-five serving girls working in Rani Mahal and five of us supervisors. Rani Amba’s girls report either to Jaya Didi or to me—but mostly to me. Your main duties will involve waiting on Rani Amba and Rajkumari Malti and ensuring that their needs are seen to. You are allowed anywhere on this side of Ambar Fort, in the royal stables, and in parts of the garden that are open to the residents of Rani Mahal. On no account must you venture to the west side of the fort, where Raj Mahal lies.”

  “Why not?” The words slip out of me before I can stop them. How am I supposed to kill the king if I’m forbidden from going where he lives? Though it’s not like I’ll be able to kill him anytime soon without my daggers.

  “Raj Mahal is surrounded by a rekha—a magical line that allows no woman to pass through,” she says coolly. “Doing so results in instant death.”

  “Even for the queens?” I ask, surprised.

  “The queens have their own ways of getting to Raj Mahal. Which really is none of your concern. What you must do is avoid the sort of disturbance you created with the princes this morning.”

  Disturbance? “That wasn’t my fault.” I feel my voice rising and force myself to lower it when I see her raised eyebrows. “I wasn’t anywhere near Raj Mahal!”

  “You don’t have to be.” Her words may be censure or warning or perhaps both. “Any other questions?”

  In the corner of the room, right next to my bed, a spider delicately swings from a thread, barely an arm’s length from my pillow.

  “No,” I say. “No other questions.”

  20

  GUL

  The servants’ quarters—“women only,” Yukta Didi says—are on a lower level within Rani Mahal, accessible only by a pair of ramps instead of stairs, the stone rubbed smooth by frequent use.

  “Most of the women working inside th
e palace live here.” Yukta Didi walks ahead, navigating the steep ramp with more agility than I expect from someone of her age.

  “What about the Sky Warriors?” I ask, thinking of the ones stationed outside the gold room. “I mean, some are women, aren’t they? Where do they live?”

  “Most live in the barracks in the Walled City, though a few live in Ambar Fort itself.”

  I press close to the wall, trying not to slip over the stone and fall backward into the dark. The ramp leads into a small, rectangular lobby, which branches off into three corridors.

  “Janavi, Farishta, Amba.” She points out each corridor. “You are expected to know where each rani stays and, if called, to serve her within reason. Your badge marks you as Rani Amba’s personal staff, so your first loyalty will always remain with her.”

  Before I can ask what “within reason” entails and risk another reprimand, she’s already moving to the corridor on the far left—the one that leads to Amba’s apartments. The air here changes almost at once to a cloying mix of frankincense and roses.

  Yukta Didi pauses outside a green-and-gold door. “You’ll be helping me clean the green room today.”

  To my surprise, a familiar figure steps out: the turbaned prince I’d seen outside Rani Mahal earlier this morning.

  “Rajkumar Amar.” Yukta Didi drops in a bow. I realize a little late that I’m supposed to mimic her movements, especially when the prince’s gaze locks with mine, his eyes narrowing with interest.

  In my haste to bow, I nearly trip over my own feet. Yukta Didi glares at me.

  “I hope you are well now, Rajkumar,” she tells him, her tone shifting to something more personal. Motherly. “The herbs I gave you—”

  “Worked wonders,” he says, smiling. “Rani Ma wouldn’t have really hurt any of us. You always worry too much, Yukta Didi.”

  “What else am I supposed to do?” she scolds. “It’s because of you and your brothers that my hair has turned gray over the last twenty-one years.”