Turning toward the source of the squeaks, I see the small creature scramble up over stone, lit by a faint light from somewhere above. The ramp here isn’t as smooth as the other, which probably means it isn’t used as much. It makes the climb easier, ending in a vestibule dimly lit by a small window.
I peek out the window and into the darkness below. The drop must be at least two hundred feet to the palace grounds. I instantly take a step back. Glass shards and old daggers stick out from the top of the pink sandstone boundary surrounding Ambar Fort, separating it from the Walled City. Apart from the window and the door leading to the ramp, there is only one other door, with a sign that says STAIRWELL IN DISREPAIR. DO NOT USE TO AVOID INJURY OR DEATH.
Right. Of course. Then again, if I did care about injury or death, I wouldn’t be here right now. I wouldn’t be in this palace at all.
I push the door open, revealing a steep staircase that disappears into the dark, moonlight pouring in from an overhead window. There aren’t any candles or lanterns, so I try magicking a lightorb. After a couple of failed attempts, I give up and make my way down.
As the sign said, the stairs are in bad shape, the stone crumbling in places. There is also no railing to prevent me from falling into the darkness below, only a slippery stone wall on one side. My foot brushes something in the dark—a furry something that squeals as it topples over the edge. I press myself to the wall, blood pounding in my chest and my ears.
Great. At this rate, I’ll probably fall to my own death before even seeing the king.
If you fall, you will float. The voice in my head sounds a lot like Ma. You have magic in you, remember?
For some reason, the thought calms me, and I slowly make my way down, one step at a time. Long moments later, just when I think the stairs will lead me nowhere, the ground beneath my feet changes textures—from cool stone to warm earth. Moonlight glows at the end of a short passage that leads outward. I duck underneath a stone ledge, squeeze between two hedgerows …
And hear birdsong.
A nightingale perches on the branch of a banyan tree, its voice breaking the quiet of the night. Nearby, nightqueens bloom in a shrub, the fragrance growing stronger the farther I step into the palace garden. It must be the garden. Nowhere else in Ambar have I seen trees this green or felt grass like this, a dewy carpet under my feet.
Beyond the trees, a shadow moves. I duck behind a tall hedge, glimpsing briefly the silvery tip of a guard’s helmet. Voices murmur, slowly rising in crescendo.
“Queen’s curses,” one of the women says, “where are Radha and Laila?”
“Probably still sleeping in the barracks. You know how they are.”
“Well, I’m not waiting anymore,” the first guard replied. “They should have been here when Sunheri first appeared in the sky.”
“We’ll get into trouble for leaving our posts!”
“If we get into trouble, so will they! They’re not Sky Warriors—just ordinary guards like us. I’m reporting them. This is the fourth time they’ve been late like this.”
I hold my breath, feel it ease out only when I hear their footsteps moving away, the creak of the garden gate shutting behind them. My daggers, I know, lie somewhere beyond the garden gate, in the bushes. I hold my breath, hoping the gate isn’t locked or magically sealed.
I brush a finger lightly against the gold grille. It creaks open with a slight push, the sound so loud that I freeze, wondering if it will bring the two guards running back. But no one comes. Ahead of me, the marble pathway leads up to Rani Mahal, gleaming in patches where the moonlight hits it from behind the clouds.
I locate the bushes where I tossed the bundle and, to my relief, find the glass daggers, still hidden exactly where I’d left them, a bloodworm crawling across the hilt of one. I brush the insect aside and hold them to my chest, reassured by their presence, even though I know I now have to look for another hiding place.
Keeping them in the servants’ quarters is out of the question—apart from my cot, there’s only a large cupboard that I share with the other girls, and the floor underneath is tiled. It will have to be somewhere else—a place I can access easily without being caught by a guard. I look both ways and slip back into the garden, closing the gate without further incident.
“Now where to put you?” I whisper.
The nightingale chirps, as if in response. I decide that the banyan tree is as good an option as any; the mud underneath it is dark, untouched by grass. A memory surfaces: my mother covering me with earth on a similar moonlit night.
You will not let our sacrifice go in vain.
No, Ma, I won’t. I slowly rise to my feet, throat tightening. It’s only a matter of time.
21
CAVAS
I think of Gul in the dark of the night, long after Papa falls asleep. I think of her the day after, upon hearing the other stable boys talk of an altercation between a serving girl and the princes. I wonder how long she’ll last—if she will eventually give up her real name, and mine, as the one who helped her sneak in.
It’s not the only reason for my worry. Latif has disappeared after our last encounter, not showing up no matter how hard I rub the green swarna. He’ll come, I try to assure myself. He’ll keep his promise. Gul, on the other hand, is best forgotten, a girl synonymous with trouble ever since the day we first met. So I don’t understand—or perhaps don’t want to understand—why the strange tightness in my chest eases when I see her today, a whole week after I sneaked her in, a few paces behind Princess Malti.
I drop to one knee. “Shubhsaver, Rajkumari.”
“Shubhsaver, Cavas.” I sense amusement in Princess Malti’s high voice and find it when I look up, her dark eyes sparkling with mischief.
“I was telling Govind ji that Siya needs a horse of her own if she intends to keep up with me.”
Gul. Or Siya, as she’s calling herself these days, the sun reflecting in her eyes. Our gazes lock, slide away. I rise to my feet. I’m not thinking about how perfectly her new clothes fit. Or wondering if the skin on her bare waist is as smooth as it looks. Next to us, Malti is arguing with Govind again—an argument that I know she’ll lose.
“Rajkumari, you aren’t permitted to race Dhoop,” Govind is saying patiently. “Your mother’s orders, remember? A light canter is occasionally allowed, but a gallop is considered unladylike. Cavas will lead him for you, and your serving girl will accompany you. On foot.”
It’s against protocol for servants to ride the horses, and Govind conveys this in a voice that is both gentle and firm.
“I wanted to ride today! Properly!” Malti’s small face puffs up—the beginnings of a royal tantrum.
“A walk will be so much nicer, Rajkumari,” Gul cuts in with a smile. “We can enjoy the cool air, breathe in the smell of the rain. The garden is so green today. Certainly, it seems like it will rain again. Perhaps even the River Aloksha will begin flowing.”
An optimistic thought. Ambar’s only river, which originates in a glacier in Prithvi’s mountains, hasn’t flowed since the Great War. Unless Prithvi’s king lowers his magical wall, I doubt the Aloksha will ever flow again.
Gul isn’t wrong when she says the palace grounds and the garden are green—thanks to the magic perpetually infused into the soil by the gardeners. But magic isn’t endless, and it always comes at a cost. Govind tells me that more palace gardeners have depleted themselves and retired early during King Lohar’s reign than during any other.
Their only relief comes in the form of the rain now scenting the air, brought forth by clouds that can be seen slowly gathering in the west, a patch of gray in a distant blue sky.
“Siiiyaaaaaaaa,” Malti complains.
“Rajkumari Maltiiiiiiii,” Gul chides in the same singsongy way.
Govind’s mouth narrows with disapproval, but Malti bursts out laughing. I feel myself smile.
I sense Gul watching me, but by the time I turn to look, she’s already fussing with the princess’s small dupatta, ty
ing it around her waist and carefully tucking it in.
Dhoop, like his name, is pure sunshine during the day, his yellow coat gleaming like butter. Foaled by a sturdy Ambari mare, the pony has strong legs and enough enthusiasm to kick up a whole pathway through the grass if we let him. I feel him tugging at the rope when I lead him out, as excited to see Malti as she is to see him. To my surprise, the pony also nuzzles Gul’s cheek, and she strokes his nose, smiling.
“You’re a funny one,” she says under her breath, her voice soft, meant for the pony alone.
I turn away. Only a whisperer and her magic. What difference does that make?
But it does make a difference. Controlling Dhoop can be difficult, and I need to be firm from the outset that this is a walk and not a run. Today, however, he’s relatively placid, and part of this, I believe, is due to Gul’s presence, walking alongside us, chatting with Princess Malti, her hand brushing the pony’s coat from time to time.
The earth gets drier the farther we walk from the stables, cracks visible in the surface. I keep a lookout for snakes as I lead Dhoop up a particularly steep curve and then down, where the path gently descends and then plateaus—a fairly flat patch of land cordoned off by a ring of sharp rocks. Beyond the ring, the thick wall surrounding the palace rises, locking us in.
Here, away from Govind’s stern eye, I finally let go of Dhoop’s reins. “Please be careful, Rajkumari. No climbing the rocks. Stick to the—”
“—rock circle as much as possible,” Malti interrupts. She gives me a wide grin. “I know, Cavas. I promise I won’t get you into any trouble.”
She makes a clicking sound, and soon enough Dhoop’s walk turns into a light canter and then a full gallop.
Gul turns to me, her eyebrows raised. “Whatever happened to her mother’s orders?”
“As far as I’m concerned, not being able to ride a horse is a lot worse than being unladylike. Govind agrees with me. He just can’t admit it publicly. Besides, Malti is a natural on horseback.”
Gul laughs. “Now I see why she likes you so much.” For a few moments, we both watch Malti race around the circle formed by the rocks.
“Dhoop seems to like you,” I say at last.
“We had horses at ho—where I come from.”
“Many magi homes do. Not all magi seem to really like them, though.” Even Govind, who can control the wildest of stallions, sees it as more of a duty than a pleasure. “And the horses, too, rarely respond like that to strangers unless they know them well.”
She shrugs. “I like animals.”
“Fireflies, too?”
Her body stiffens in response, but after a pause, she answers. “Fireflies, too.”
A black-tailed shvetpanchhi circles overhead, perching on a stone jutting from the pink sandstone wall. A white feather floats briefly in the sky before settling on a rock a few feet from us.
“My father told me that shvetpanchhi feathers look like snow,” she says. “All white and gleaming in the sun.”
I watch the feather, try to visualize a thousand more falling from the sky. “I’ve never seen snow before.”
“Neither have I,” she says. “But Papa had been to Prithvi as a boy. He said it snows all the time over there and gets especially heavy around this time of the year. Those who hate the snow call it the Month of Dandruff instead of the Month of Tears.”
A laugh spills out of me, almost involuntarily. “You mean the way people here call Tears the Month of Piss?” Her horrified face makes me smile. “What? You didn’t know?”
“I didn’t—and it reminded me of Javeribad’s head thanedar singing to himself while urinating against a wall.”
I laugh again. “Urinating thanedars aside, it’s a nice place. Javeribad. My papa used to take me there when I was a boy to seek blessings at the Sant Javer temple. We’d tie scraps of cloth around…” I pause, suddenly embarrassed by the way I’ve been talking—even more so by the captivated look on her face.
“Around the branches of the old banyan tree outside,” Gul finishes my sentence in a soft, almost wistful voice. “People said that if you had a problem, all you needed to do was whisper it into that scrap of cloth and tie it around the tree. Sant Javer would take some of your troubles for his own. Which”—her eyes gleam with sudden mischief—“is quite a lot of work for one dead man, even if he was a saint. Don’t you think? Or maybe he’s a living specter.”
The joke isn’t that funny, but something about the way she says it makes me laugh again.
“If Sant Javer really wanted to help, he could do something about the poor rain we’ve had in Ambar over the past few years,” I say. “I miss eating levta.”
“Levta? You mean the black mudfish that breed in rain puddles?” Gul looks repulsed. “They’re so slimy!”
“They don’t taste bad fried.” I grin, remembering what some of the men in the tenements say. “Though you can eat them raw for added virility.”
“That sounds even more disgusting!”
The conversation leads to what we would eat for the rest of our lives if given a choice. I pick chandramas; Gul picks sohan halwa, a sticky Ambari sweet made of ghee, milk, flour, and sugar. We argue over the best way to ride a horse (Gul: bareback; me: saddled) and agree that the best sighting of the two moons takes place in the villages, where you can also see the stars, unlike the city, where magic can block them out.
Talking to Gul feels almost like talking to Bahar again. Not because they speak about the same things or even in the same way, but because of how light and unfettered I feel during our conversation—like a boy flirting with a pretty girl on an early spring day, the boy I might have been, perhaps, if Papa had not fallen ill.
The more we talk, the more of an excuse I have to look at her, to make note of her long, straight lashes, the tiny freckle in the hollow between her clavicles. I move closer almost by instinct, and it’s only the catch in her breath that reminds me of where we are, making me draw back.
“I’m sorry. I’m standing too close to you.” My voice emerges gruffer than usual.
“Not that close.”
Does she know how breathless she sounds? Does she care? I glance back in Malti’s direction, but she’s still riding Dhoop and laughing.
“She knows,” Gul says flatly. “She knows we’re … friendly.”
Friendly. Is that what we truly are? Is that what this strange buzzing underneath my skin means, now as I stand, less than an arm’s length away, close enough to slip a hand into hers?
“We are not friends, Gul.”
“Siya, remember?” A note of laughter enters her voice. “Though I don’t mind being called by my real name. Even if it is by a nonfriend.”
Had she been a simple non-magus girl, I might have smiled. Responded to the flirtation with one of my own. But there is nothing simple about this girl. Or the laws I’ve broken to get her in here.
“I am no one to you.” I turn away from the hurt I see in her eyes. “It’s best you remember that, Siya ji.”
* * *
A little before the sun is vertically overhead, I whistle for Dhoop to come back to me. The whistle is sharp, and, as a pony, Dhoop is trained to obey its call, though this will change as he and Malti grow older and they grow more independent as horse and rider. He trots back to me and licks my face.
The princess, on the other hand, appears put out. “So soon?”
“It will soon be time for your afternoon meal, Rajkumari,” I say, smiling. “Aren’t you hungry after your ride?”
Malti continues to pout. “I’m not that hungry!”
“Come, Rajkumari. We can’t keep Cavas from his work at the stables, can we?” Gul is smiling at Malti as well, but there’s a coolness to her tone now that wasn’t there before. “Besides, it looks like it is going to rain soon.”
She’s right. Rain clouds, so far away when the morning began, approach swiftly now, a gentle rumble going through the sky. Malti sighs but doesn’t argue anymore. The walk back to the stables
is silent, hot despite the approach of the rain. By the time we reach the stables, a light drizzle begins, dampening the back of my tunic along with sweat. Another serving girl waits there, parasol in hand, to escort Malti back to the palace.
I expect Gul to leave with them, but to my surprise, she doesn’t move, her gaze fixed somewhere behind me. I turn around to see what she’s looking at and spy the three princes walking in the distance: Crown Prince Sonar, his cruel, handsome face laughing at something his brother, Prince Jagat, said. Lagging at the end is Prince Amar, his shoulders stooped from the weight of his thoughts.
I’ve seen many a serving girl pause at the sight of the princes, stare at them with open longing. Gul’s face, however, looks the way it might if a levta in all its slimy glory leaped out of the mud and onto her lap.
A drop of rain slides down her cheek and then another. It has been relatively dry this Month of Tears—though the clouds seem to be making up for that now, soaking through our clothes.
“My supervisor told me that women cannot visit Raj Mahal without the raja’s permission. Is that true?” Gul asks me.
“Yes. There is a rekha—a boundary you cannot cross in certain parts of Ambar Fort if you are a woman. There are exceptions, of course. Like the queens. But even the queens don’t often go to Raj Mahal unless the king requests their presence.”
Gul says nothing. A furrow appears in the space between her brows, making me wonder what she’s thinking.
“It wasn’t like that before.” I recall the story Papa once told me. “Before Raja Lohar took the throne, Rani Mahal was the seat of power. Some say that the old queen, Megha, wanted another heir—a daughter.”
Gul looks at me askance. “Rani Megha didn’t have children of her own.”
“That’s the official version. But there were also rumors that she did have a child. An illegitimate female heir. When Megha died, Raja Lohar set out to quash the rumors by drawing every bit of power to himself. This included changing the succession to male heirs only. It’s said that on her deathbed, Megha ranted and raved about a queen who would come, who would be the true ruler of Ambar. The palace vaids say that she had gone quite mad by then, of course.”
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