The Star-Touched Queen (12 page)

“It is.” He picked up a piece of what once was the stone bird. “Nothing more than stone.” He snapped his fingers and the bird reappeared—whole and animated. Its wings shivered behind its body and it fixed an irritated gaze on me.

“The bird was not the innocent thing. It’s the feeling,” said Amar, dusting his palms. “Preservation is an innocent desire. And you let arrogance compromise that.”

“Arrogance?” I returned, my cheeks burning. “I was showing strength. Strength that I could be—”

“—merciless and thoughtless?” returned Amar. He flashed a vulpine grin. “Kill, if you must. String a garland of severed heads around your waist if you want. I would take you in my arms if you were drenched in blood or dressed in rubies … but
think
. Impulsiveness is a dangerous thing.”

“You gave me no choice—”

“I merely gave a command. ‘Use your sword.’ You were the one who thought there was only one choice.”

“When I asked what you wanted me to do with it, you … you asked me what swords are for…” I finished quietly. He hadn’t actually
said
what to do.

Amar picked up the sword from the ground and twirled it against the marble.

“Swords could also be used for freeing. You could’ve cut through the chain around the bird’s foot and set it free. Swords could be used for killing. But it needn’t be the bird. Wouldn’t the more merciful choice have been to use the sword against the oppressor?”

“So run the sword through you?”

“Why not? Everything is a matter of interpretation. And that is how you will rule,” he said, before handing the sword’s hilt to me. “Think on what you’ve seen today. But do not let me influence you. Your will is yours alone.”

I stared at the sword in my hand, still gleaming despite the dark. “I can promise you I won’t forget.”

Amar paused, his voice soft. “Memory is a riddled thing. I would caution you from making promises you cannot keep.”

I moved toward the door, but Amar stopped me with a shake of his head. “Gupta will arrive in a moment to escort you.” He straightened the cuffs of his
sherwani
jacket. “I myself have a number of duties to attend to, so I must leave.”

Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “Why?”

He paused and took a step to me. Darkness, soft-edged and heavy, clung to the room. In the shadows, his smile held all the lazy grace of a cat.

“Would you miss me?”

“Curiosity inspired my question. Nothing more,” I said, but even my voice was unconvinced.

“Even so, there’s no greater temptation than to stay by your side.”

The door swung open and a chorus of voices trickled into the room—silvery and indistinct, like whispers released through clenched teeth. Amar lingered for a moment, his lips tight as though he wanted to say something.

Then, he cupped his palms together and blew into them. When he opened his hands, a bloom of light shaped like an unopened flower bud lifted off his palm and floated into the room. Brightness drenched away the shadows.

“I will never leave you in the dark.”

And with that, he left.

*   *   *

I waited for the door to shut before I sank against the throne. I buried my face in my hands, squeezing my eyes shut. When Amar promised me the power of a hundred kings, this wasn’t what I had in mind. It felt wrong. My duty was to tweak people’s fortunes like they were designs gone awry instead of lives filled with dreams, quirks and ambitions. A knock at the door pulled me out of my thoughts.

“Are you ready to change for dinner?” asked Gupta.

I frowned, turning to the windows of the throne room. When I had stepped inside, I was sure it had been broad daylight. Now, wispy clouds like ghost skins streaked a crimson sky.

“Yes,” I called back, still trying to work out the time I had lost.

Gupta said nothing as he led me from the throne room back to the bedroom, but there was nothing stiff or awkward in his silence. He was grinning to himself and every now and then when he caught my eye, he beamed.

“I will wait for you out here.”

“There’s no need, I remember my way back to the dining room.”

Gupta shook his head. “I insist.”

“If you insist,” I said stiffly, annoyance prickling inside.

I entered the room and immediately noticed a new sari folded delicately on the bed—yards of dove-gray silk strewn with pearls. I dressed quickly before meeting Gupta outside and we walked through the halls. The mirror portals paneling the walls glittered strange reflections. Lush hills carpeted in small blue flowers, a forest tangled with lights and a bone white temple balanced between the tips of a craggy mountainside flashed past me. But something else caught my eye, tucked away in a corner of the hall that I hadn’t seen before: a door, charred at the edges, lengths of iron wrapping it round and round.

Something about the door twisted my heart. A voice, a mere scratch in the silence, began to sing:

I’ve never tasted dreams so sweet

Such pearly flesh and tender meat

Oh queen, if you only knew

You’d gladly rip your heart in two

I stopped. “Gupta, what door is that?”

He frowned. “Door? What door?” He turned around and then asked sharply, “What did it look like?”

I hesitated. Mother Dhina’s words echoed …
keep some secrets for yourself
. The words caught in my throat. This secret, just this one, I would keep to myself until I understood it. I had barely been in Akaran for a day. I couldn’t let my guard down entirely. And that voice … it felt like it had been sung to me alone.

“I can’t remember,” I lied.

Gupta shrugged. As we walked, I kept turning around, half expecting a door strung with chains to glitter just out of sight. But it never appeared.

The dining room had changed since yesterday. Today its rug showed a herd of elephants moving through the jungle. And instead of golden platters piled high with food and saffron cushions placed around the table, there were silver platters and mother-of-pearl cushions. Akaran’s riches lay unfurled at my feet. But even with all that wonder, I sensed a chill in the room. I pulled my sari closer. There was something else
here.
I could feel it like breath against my neck.

Amar was nowhere in sight. Instead, Gupta pulled out a chair for me.

“Please, have a seat,” he said. “Amar won’t be able to dine with you this evening.”

“Oh.” A twinge of disappointment ran through me. “Why not?”

“He had to attend to an urgent matter of retrieval.”

“Retrieval of what?”

Gupta stiffened and his voice came out in a wheeze. When he caught his breath, he merely pointed to the night sky, where the moon was a ghostly crescent.

“Right,” I said, deflating a little. I kept forgetting the rules of the Otherworld. Not a word could be spoken about Akaran’s secrets until the new moon.

I glared at the moon.

Gupta shook his head apologetically and pointed at the food. “Please, eat.”

As I ate, I watched Gupta from the corner of my eye. He was writing furiously, quill rapping against the wood as he filled the page with line after line of ink.

“What are you doing?”

He looked up, quill half suspended in the air before he tapped the scroll. “Record keeping. Nothing is certain until the ink dries.”

“What’s not certain?”

“Life,” said Gupta matter-of-factly.

The half-eaten platters of food stared back at me glumly. I was, against all experience, strangely without an appetite.

“When you finish, you have the evening to yourself,” said Gupta, scrutinizing the scrolls before him. “I would be happy to show you my collection of record keeping on the distribution of leaves per branch. It’s one of my more noteworthy accomplishments.”

I glanced down the halls. Again, that voice from the charred door rustled against me. The air prickled with invisible heat and magic. Gupta continued talking, but his voice ebbed in and out, splashing against a rhyme I couldn’t catch no matter how hard I strained—

Oh, the treacherous moon, dear queen, please—

“Did I ever tell you about the time I interviewed a mollusk? Fascinating—”

—free me, find me, hidden in the tree, if you—

“—hungry more often than naught, which is—”

My pulse slowed. A sharp pain turned the colors bright and sickening. I couldn’t even feel the rugs beneath my feet. My toes felt like they were sinking into damp, gritty sand. Water lapping at my ankles. A name crouched in my throat. A name I should have been screaming, but couldn’t recall. The voice from the charred door was a plea and all I knew was that I had to leave this room.
I had to find the door
.

I stood up, knocking my chair over behind me.

Whatever spell of pain had clung to me broke instantly. I looked down and saw the silk rug. Gupta stared, a little confused. I needed to get out. I needed to distract him.

“Why don’t we play a game of riddles?” I said suddenly. “I’ll stand outside and let you think. When you’re ready, call my name. Yes?”

Gupta sat up straighter, his head tilting bird-like to one side. “What riddle?”

“I’ll give you three. You seem like you’d be very good at them.”

Gupta beamed. “I have been known—”

“Excellent,” I said quickly. “I am a nightmare to most, and a dream for the broken; who am I? Next riddle. I am your future, who am I?”

Gupta silently repeated them. “And the last?”

“I hide the stars but am frightened by the sun. I am not the night, who am I?”

“Delightful!” said Gupta, clapping his hands. “You’ll stay outside?”

I smiled. “Of course.”

He gave a distracted nod, and I slipped out of the dining room.

Curiosity sharp as frissons of heat ran up my spine. I tried calling out to the voice, but there was nothing. Alone, I was beginning to think it was nothing more than the palace’s quirks. Both Amar and Gupta had said the palace would test me. Perhaps this was nothing more.

I looked around. The great corridors of Akaran unfurled before me like a stone maze and I took off down one of the paths, fingers trailing along the walls and murals. Moonlight flooded the palace, wiping away its solemnity and filling it with a cold, twinkling beauty.

Gupta had been right yesterday. I did mind the silence. It felt too controlled. When he spoke of the palace, he made it sound like it was a sentient being, something that could hop and shuffle, talk back and frown. I hadn’t believed him, but I was beginning to. Everything about the palace felt deliberate.

Some of the mirrors around me were lit up with life. A few of the cities inside them were deep in sleep, with a slim moon keeping vigil over their slumber. And then there were the mirrors with darker scenes …

Wars and flags of countries I didn’t recognize. A burning smell, as if it could stretch through the silvery portals and spill into Akaran. I never saw anyone in these reflections; the portals were like a bird’s-eye view looking down. But I still saw the fires. I still saw the horses pounding the ground beneath them, moving out of sight, far beyond the edges of the mirrors.

Up ahead, the white marble floors of the palace had given way to shiny lacquered wood. I walked forward, sure that I could hear Gupta’s voice if he called. Unlike the bare stone walls of the throne room or main hallways, these walls were giant mirrors, darkened with time and peeling to reveal the silver beneath them.

Beneath the shadow of a large arch, something glittered. I stared into the darkness, but saw nothing but a pale wooden door cracked open. The stone was cool beneath my feet and tendrils of light snaked past me, pooling into silver puddles before bringing the room into full view. My eyes widened—

Before me was a twinkling garden. But instead of potted plants and wilting flowers, every piece of this garden was bright and translucent, like it had been carved from glass. I leaned forward … it
was
carved of glass. From the stately banyan tree with its ropy leaves to the
ashwagandha
shrub and its bright red fruit, everything was glass and crystal. I walked in a daze through the labyrinth of crystal plants and lightly touched the cool stems. I stroked the glassy tendrils of an
amla
plant and laughed as emerald vines glittered and brushed against my skin.

But not even the crystal plants were as lovely as the soft blooms of light winking and disappearing into the translucent vines and petals. Thousands of lights blinked in and out, whooshing and whirling around the plants so that everything seemed wrought of light and glass. It was beautiful. I turned around, taking in the full view of the garden. Moonlight had teased away the shadows and my world had become dream-soft and slicked in glass. For the first time since coming to Akaran, I felt at peace.

“What are you doing here?” thundered a voice behind me.

I nearly jumped. Even without turning, I knew who the voice belonged to:

Amar.

12

THE GARDEN OF GLASS

I raised my chin and stared back at him. I had no reason to feel embarrassed. After all, he was the one who said Akaran was just as much mine as it was his. The door
had
been open. And yet, a flush still crept up the back of my neck.

“I was taking a walk,” I said weakly.

“Where’s Gupta?”

“The dining room,” I said before adding defensively, “I only walked a little down the halls.”

His jaw tightened. “I told you that the kingdom’s location makes it dangerous.”

“Gupta told me that anyplace that might hold danger would be locked up,” I retorted. “The door to this room was not locked.”

“Even so,” said Amar. “They might sing through their bindings. It’s better to have an escort.”

“As you can see, I am unscathed from my walk from one hall to the next.”

“Today,” cut in Amar tightly. “
Today
you are unscathed. Tomorrow is unknown. As is the next day and the day after that. Never make light of your life.”

“I never do.”

The vial of mandrake poison flashed in my mind. Life led me here. Life and the desire to
live
it.