The Star-Touched Queen (5 page)

“
Er tharp tooth
,” she said, still pulling on her cheeks.

“What?”

She let go of her lips. “They’re sharp too.”

I laughed. “Well, you’re very small with lots of teeth and are just as vicious and scary as a sea dragon.”

“It’s bad to be a dragon.”

“Says who? Nothing wrong with a little bit of viciousness. Would you rather be a dove or a dragon?”

“Mother Dhina says—”

“I’m not asking about what Mother Dhina thinks, I’m asking you.”

Gauri peeked at me from beneath the blankets. “I think it would be nice to blow fire. I’d never get hungry.”

I laughed. “Sound reasoning, as ever.”

Slowly, Gauri slipped off the bed. I clenched my hands together so that I wouldn’t be tempted to comfort her. I couldn’t coddle her. I couldn’t lull her with false promises. All I could ask was that she would remember what I said, remember the stories I told and hope that some of that knowledge would, in time, be its own comfort.

“No matter where we are, we’ll always share the same sky. We can always find each other in the same constellation.”

Gauri sniffed. “Which?”

“The loveliest of them all,” I said, pointing at a slight angle in the stars. I may have hated the rest of them, but not this one. This constellation was far from the rest, a lonely cluster of lights. “The Solitary Star. That will be our constellation. Legend says it was built by the celestial architect who made the golden city of Lanka.”

“Real gold?” repeated Gauri. “Maybe I’ll go there too.”

I laughed and pulled her into one last hug. It was better this way, better to go without saying goodbye. After shutting the door behind me, I pulled out the heaps of clothes and set to work scuffing the hems of the saris and cutting holes into silks. I would need to blend in once I was in the city.

Doubt crept up on me. Sneaking out of the harem wasn’t the problem. It was what would come next. All those hours spent above my father’s inner sanctum, listening and watching. Whatever small hopes I had amassed over the years—to be significant in the eyes of this court, to
rule
, to possess a voice that others would listen to rather than shrink from—now lay bruised and trampled in my mind. If I left, I would live forever as a fugitive. Or perhaps no one would come looking for me. Either fate struck a blow.

Suddenly the small
diyas
that had lit my room extinguished all at once. Even the light from the moon seemed to have swiftly stuttered off into a pitch-black veil, plunging the room into impenetrable black. I crawled blindly along the floor, when a scratching sound stopped me.

Someone else was in the room.

“Gauri?” I called.

Heart racing, I edged closer along the wall. A sharp sound dragged across the floor—a blade. Panic leeched cold into my bones. I held my breath, trying to peer through the blot of darkness that swelled the room. I ran my fingers along the counters, hoping for something sharp, but finding nothing but polished wood.

“Who’s there? Show yourself!” I called, trying to keep the tremor from my voice. “Don’t stalk me in the shadows like a coward.”

A cold laugh rumbled from the middle of the room. High-pitched. Female. I frowned.
A harem wife? No. There’s no way they would be able to find a weapon. And even if they did, how would they know what to do with it?

“Is that any way to greet me after all this time?” said a voice.

Something tugged at my core. The voice had a life of its own and it conjured some wordless secret deep in my mind. Something in me hummed with recognition. I leaned toward the sound of her voice.

“What do you want? Reveal yourself or I will call the guards.”

The woman laughed and my arms prickled. “Go ahead and try.”

And so I did. But my voice never rose. No matter how much I strained, silence clogged the air. The dark absorbed my screams until the only sound I heard was the frantic beat of my own heart.

“I had no idea where you went, until today. Strange how men can be so unwittingly helpful,” snarled the voice. A shiver ran down my spine. The voice came at me from a thousand different directions. I could hear her beside my ear, at the nape of my neck, at the corner of the room. The sound ensnared me. Distantly, I heard her voice, muddled as if it had crossed lifetimes to echo in my head. For a moment, I thought I knew her and the truth of it stirred something bone-deep. But the feeling passed, replaced with panic as a blade growled, dragging across the floor.

A gust of air brushed against my legs. She was near.

“I don’t know who you are, but don’t come any closer.”

“Or what?” laughed the voice. “What can you do in that feeble mortal body of yours?”

Icicle skin brushed against mine and without thinking, I kicked.

Thud
.

My foot connected with her chest. I had a half-second to grin before I was forced to the ground.

“Not yet,” crooned the voice. “Now I know. I see you. I’ve seen this … home … of yours. I need you to lead me.”

“I’m not leading you anywhere,” I spat. I tried to grasp hold of her, but failed. I tried to scream, but the sound bounded back and all sense of direction spiraled and fell.

A hand closed on my wrist and the touch was iron and ice, so cold I could feel it clattering in my teeth. Cold set in, frosting over my thoughts. I couldn’t scream. Panic tore at me.
No
.
I will not die within these walls. Not this way.

I pushed through the numbing sensation, willing my body not to snap. It was nothing more than a shift, but I felt it, keyed into it like a groove in a tile. I held on to that small feeling, the faintest specter of warmth. I forced myself to step past the cold, and the pain of it ripped a hundred screams from my throat.

The darkness that glommed around the woman parted
.
The strength of my screams bounded around me, forcing me backward.

I heard a gasp, the barest muffle of surprise and then—

Nothing.

The silence enveloping the room had lifted. The woman was gone and she had taken all her cold with her. I rubbed my hands together, but my palms were warm and ruddy, as if the cold had been nothing more than a blanket now yanked away.

I couldn’t shake out the sound of her voice. I wanted to follow it as much as I wanted to smother it. The familiarity of her voice recalled an old hurt I couldn’t place.

Faint light leaked into the room and I cursed. It was dawn already where moments ago my room was plunged in the thick of night. My breathing was still ragged, but I heaved myself to my feet, marching across the room. Just as I reached for the door, a faint clicking sound echoed. It was the sound of a lock falling into place. I thudded my palms against the wood as panic, sharp and acrid, burned in my chest.

“Open this door! Who has locked this entrance?”

A voice no less chilling than the unknown assailant’s greeted me.

“Calm yourself, Mayavati,” came Mother Dhina’s crocodile croon.

I blanched and stepped back. “Someone just tried to invade my room. I need to speak to the guards.”

Mother Dhina laughed. “What lies you tell, child. I have half a mind to compliment your imagination. No one can get past the Raja’s sentinels—”

“But someone was
here
!” I protested. “Let me out! I demand to speak—”

“Demand?” repeated Mother Dhina. “You are not in a position to make demands. It’s a lesson you should learn now before your wedding. The Raja sent me to tell you that the
swayamvara
will be held in two days. Given your past conduct, the realm thought it best to ensure that you stay in one place and not hurt yourself.”

“You mean escape?”

“It is also best that you stay away from Gauri,” continued Mother Dhina as if I hadn’t uttered a single word. “No more meetings until the
swayamvara
. It is best not to infect her with your bad fortune and deplorable manners. Stop spreading ridiculous ideas in her head.”

“I’d rather spread ideas than legs,” I hissed back. “But I doubt you would agree—”

“
Silence
, you mongrel,” said Mother Dhina. “All your life, all I have done is try to be merciful to you and bring you stability. To give you a home.”

“You hid me away and shunned me from anyone who might get to know me. You call this mercy?”

“I do. I spared anyone the shame of being in your presence,” she said. “The least you could have done was die. But you kept selfishly clinging to life.”

“Do you expect me to apologize?”

Mother Dhina laughed and it was a cold, cruel thing.

“When the sickness claimed eight of the wives, I prayed you were next.”

She fell quiet and her next words were soft, but no less fierce. “Do you know how many children I have buried because of you? Strong, healthy babies. Ten fingers, ten toes. A full head of hair. They just wouldn’t breathe. Because of
you
.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Your shadow touched mine. You poisoned me. You
killed
them. Your horoscope has only attracted darkness to our court. It’s your fault.”

“You’re—”

“Enough,” cut in Mother Dhina. “You have no place here. Your mother didn’t either. At least she had the good sense to die young.”

Mother Dhina cleared her throat and this time when she spoke, it was in the cool and practiced monotone of someone who could watch you burn alive and not blink. “In keeping with Bharata’s bridal traditions, you will be isolated to maintain the utmost purity.”

“You can’t do that!” I screamed, slamming my fists against the door. “I am telling you someone was in here. If you’re truly merciful, let me out, let me speak to the Raja.”

Footsteps resounded in the distance. I screamed after her, but my sounds chased nothing but echoes. Mother Dhina had left. The panels of wood chaffed, scuffed and scratched beneath my fists, but they never budged. Again and again, I threw myself against the door. I screamed until voice was an echo of something I once knew. I yelled until I felt unspooled and even whispering made me wince. I slid against the door, cradling my bloodied knuckles to my chest.

Perhaps this was a dream, some horrible illusion that would soon collapse into shards of nightmare. I had heard of something like this once. When my father swore to the envoys of the rebel kingdoms that not a single hand would be laid upon the prisoners of war, he had found other means to torture them. Sleep deprivation. But he kept his word. No one touched them. No one needed to. I had listened in the rafters to their horrible testimony, to the nightmare of ears forever ringing, eyes hollow with sleeplessness. The mind was its own escape artist, and who knew what it would concoct in the absence of rest.

That had to be what I was seeing. I was tired, I whispered to myself. That was all. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. I rocked myself back and forth, muttering the words into the cupped hollow of my palms like they were sacred. I closed my eyes and let my body curl around my hurt until eventually, sleep claimed me.

5

A GIFT TO FREE

The next morning, I woke to the other wives assembling in the halls. I stared at my hands, saw the scabs and scrapes, felt the crust of tears along my jaw and knew this had been no dream. Even then, my reality was a muddled thing. In the space of a day my room had become alien and unfamiliar. The voice of my intruder roped around me, tight as a noose. Had she even been there? I didn’t know. Or was it like the tutor from yesterday whose stretched form had been nothing more than shadow play?

I pulled my hands through my hair, shivering in my empty room. The air was watery and thin with pale morning light. No matter where I looked, everything bore the telltale signs of a trap. If the sky had ever hinted its secrets in the past, it yielded none now. Twice, I had tried to lift the bars from my windows. I had sawed at them with a rock and dug at their foundations until my fingers were bloody. But there was no escape.

Outside, the wives lined up in front of my door, preparing to recite the wedded tales of their mothers and sisters and selves. The tradition was meant to be joyful, but they would give me no such false hopes. I wasn’t sure whether I should be grateful or horrified. I couldn’t separate one voice from the other, each one melded into the other, until it swelled into a chorus of pain. The wives told me of sisters murdered by vengeful husbands to safeguard their honor, of wives sewn up to guard their virtue when their husbands left for battle, of the torrent of blood on the first night of marriage. They told me of bruises covered beneath golden bangles, veils meant to hide dislocated jaws, the fear of raised voices. I tried to shut them out. I tried to convince myself that their stories were only meant to scare me. But each time I closed my eyes, all I saw was a menacing man with unforgiving eyes and a cruel mouth.

*   *   *

Night tugged a starless blanket over the palace. I had hardly moved all day. Even when the harem wives’ stories burned, even when Gauri slipped drawings under the door, nothing moved me. I tried to imagine the whole of the universe leaning forward to test me. Was this what it wanted? I could conjure fearlessness like a veil. Maybe if I just kept at the illusion, I would fool myself too.

When the kingdom fell silent, I finally moved to light the
diyas
in my room. Near the corner of my room, a pillar carved in the shape of the lion-headed Narasimha grinned wickedly. It was a gruesome tale, of blood and angry gods, but for some reason it gave me hope. The flames flickered bright in the lion-headed statue’s eyes, but they yielded no warmth. Everything was a spell of cold. To make matters worse, I had no way of knowing whether my assailant would return. I had gone over her words, but none of it made sense.
I need you to lead me
. Lead
where
? For all I knew, she was nothing more than a nightmare conjured from stress.

But if she wasn’t, I would be ready. From the drawer beside my bed, I pulled out a blunt shard of flint. I set my puny weapon beside me and stared at the balcony, willing her to make herself known. Something about her voice had filled me with regret.