The Star-Touched Queen (7 page)

Except his voice …

It drilled through the gloaming of my thoughts, pulled at me in the same way the mysterious intruder’s voice had tugged. But where the woman’s voice brought fury, this was different. The hollow inside me shifted, humming a reply in melted song. I could have been verse made flesh or compressed moonlight. Anything other than who I was now.

A second passed before I spoke. By then, the stranger’s lips had bent into a grin.

“Who are you?”

“One of your suitors,” he said, not missing a beat. He adjusted his garland.

I backed away, body tensing. I had never seen him before. I knew that with utmost certainty. Did he mean to harm me?

“That’s not an answer.”

“And that wasn’t a thank you,” he said. “Before you scold me for interrupting your martyrdom, you should look outside. Particularly at the chariots.”

I stole a glance at the door to the antechamber. The suitors and attendants would return at any moment. Keeping my distance from the stranger, I focused on the underside of the chariots and froze. What I had mistaken for wheel spokes were spears covered in gold paint. And hiding beneath the false chariots were soldiers.
Hundreds
of soldiers. I backed away from the window, heart beating wildly. How many men were hidden beneath the carriages? Worse, how many soldiers had Bharata unwittingly admitted? The neighboring kings could have snuck in half their militias through the open gates. I scanned the chariots. My father’s army easily outnumbered them, but the suitors had the advantage of surprise.

I wheeled around. “Did you plan this attack?”

“No.”

Grabbing a sharp pin from my hair, I held it toward him like a blade.

“Then why won’t you tell me your name?”

He bowed. “I’m the Raja of Akaran. But you may call me Amar.”

Akaran
? I had never heard of such a place and I had extensively studied the geography of Bharata’s surrounding kingdoms. Before I could say anything, Amar snatched the pin from my hand.

“You may threaten me later. For now, your concern should be the men outside. They know of your father’s plan for a siege and they’ve come prepared.”

My lips parted. “But how did you know—”

“My own spies informed me.”

“Does the Raja know?” I thought of Gauri playing in her room, completely unaware of danger.

“Yes.”

A flurry of questions rose to my mind. “But—?”

“I sent my messenger to alert him.”

“I have to get to the harem. My sister isn’t safe.”

Picking up the ends of my sari
,
I turned toward the door, but then a rumble shuddered through the kingdom. The chariots had overturned. I could picture the soldiers beneath the wheels—unfurling from those crouched positions like nightmares made flesh. Thunderous footfall pounded the earth, gates creaked open and screaming ripped through the air.

“I have to go,” I said, my voice rising. “I have to warn them.”

Amar grabbed my arm.

“It’s too late for that,” he said. “They’re already fighting.”

I paused, straining to hear anything other than blood rushing in my ears. Distantly, I heard iron against iron, the sound of clashing shields, and the roar of screams pitted against each other. Outside the window, the chariots lay overturned, split open like hollow shells.

“There’s no time,” he said, releasing his grip on my arm. “The Raja himself asked me to deliver you from this.”

“He did?”

Amar nodded. Outside, the sounds of fighting grew closer and the parapets of the harem gleamed impassively.

“The women will be fine. Those generals only want one war. They won’t attack your sisters. If they do, they’ll have to answer to the kingdoms of their betrothed. As we speak, soldiers are guarding the harem.” His voice cut through my thoughts. “Who will guard you if you stay behind?”

I had no answer, stunned by what was happening outside the window.

“We must go,” he insisted.

If I stayed, I would die anyway. But if I went, at least I could live …

A flutter of hope beat soft wings in my chest. How long had I wanted to escape these walls? And now, on the brink of drowning that hope with poison, it was
here
. The past seventeen years could have been breath held solely for this moment. Something caught inside me, as sharp as a wound. I almost didn’t recognize the feeling—it was
relief
. Incandescent and glittering relief. Giddiness swept through me, leaving my hands trembling.

“Well?” pressed Amar. “Are we going or not?”

We?
I looked him over. The garland of red carnations hung limply around his neck. He held out his hand like a casual invitation, indifferent to the tumult outside the chambers. How could I trust him? What if he sold me to the enemies? He had no reason to protect me … unless I meant something to him.

Something else guided my hands. Images flashing sideways—a different hand, a samite curtain. I was convinced that we owned this single moment, this sphere of breath, this heartbeat shared like a secret. I don’t know what possessed me, but I took the white garland and threw it around his neck.

I stared at my hands, not quite believing what they’d done:

With one throw, I had married him. Amar lifted the garland of white flowers and grinned. “I hoped you’d choose me.”

The right corner of his lips curled faster than the left. It was such a small movement, but I couldn’t look away from it. His smile was disjointed, like he was out of practice.

The doors of the chamber burst open. The fighting that was already churning in the halls now pooled into the inner sanctum. Guards and enemy soldiers spilled inside with spears raised.

The smell of burning rice filled the room, acrid and bitter. I grabbed the edges of my sari
,
feet pounding against the silk of the floor. My run was frenzied. Blind. In the adjacent hall, I tripped over abandoned swords and shields, slipping over puddles far too warm and far too red to be water or oil. My heartbeat roared in my ears, pushing out the sounds of fists connecting with flesh and the echoing trill of locked swords. All the fatigue, ache and grief lifted from me, dissolving in the air. Energy snaked through my bones. A fierce, almost painful desire to live pushed me toward the door, taunting me with the promise of the sun searing my skin, of clear air rushing into my lungs.

A soldier’s hand grasped for me, but Amar pulled me away. Arrows zoomed past, but each time one came near, he would whirl me out of the way. Amar never shouted. He didn’t even speak. He moved fluidly, dodging javelins, always a few steps behind me, a living shield. His hood never budged and revealed nothing more than the bottom half of his face.

The doors began to open, creaking like broken bones. Blinding light spilled into the room. I squinted against the brightness, but my feet never stopped. Hot, dry air filled my lungs and left them aching. The second I slowed, I felt a cool hand on my wrist—

“My mount is this way,” said Amar, pulling me away from the road.

I was too out of breath to protest as his hands circled my waist and lifted me onto the richly outfitted saddle of a water buffalo. The moment I found my grip, Amar leapt onto the animal’s back and, with a sharp whistle, sent dust flying around us. The water buffalo charged through the jungle. Sounds bled one into the other—crashing iron to thundering hooves, gurgling fountains to colliding branches.

At first, I sat still, not wanting to disturb a thing in case this was a death-dream, some final taunt of escape. But then I saw the jungle arcing above me. My nose filled with the musk of damp,
alive
things. The numb evanesced.

I was free.

7

THE NIGHT BAZAAR

I tilted my head back, letting the wind sting my eyes. Every now and then, my hand crept to my heart, reassuring me that there was a heartbeat. Freedom was bittersweet. I would never spend another afternoon drawing beside Gauri. I would never lose hours in the honeycomb rooms of Bharata’s archives. The future was blank and the weight of everything unknown left me dizzy and grounded.

We rode beneath a canopy of golden trees. I glanced behind me. We had long since left the road and no ghost of its existence loomed on the horizon. The jungle had swallowed it whole.

“Where are we going?” I asked. “The main road leads to all of the major kingdoms.”

“Not all of them,” said Amar.

The water buffalo ambled toward a cave matted with black vines. Compressed earth formed the walls, and veins of quartz ran through the cave.

“To get to Akaran, we must first go through the Night Bazaar.”

I nearly choked. Maybe there was such a thing as magic, but the Night Bazaar was fantasy. Its provenance lay in childhood, in dreams. Amar was teasing me. I raised an eyebrow, thinking back to Yudhistira’s bullying incident and the cloud of bees that chased him into a puddle.

“Just because I was raised behind thick walls does not make me—”

The dark tunnel gave way to light.

A divided sky illuminated an unearthly city. To the left, the moon bathed small shops and twisting plants in a pearly light. To the right, the sun beamed and soft sunshine fell over strange trees shaped like human limbs and animals. The sky, ever divided by day and night, blended into a spectrum of rainbow.

Creatures both impossibly tall and short slipped between shadow and light. An ethereal elephant whose hide shimmered pearlescent dipped its trunk into the pocket of a tall mouse. Twelve birds with comely female faces batted their eyelashes at a group of
naga
men who slithered closer, their scales flashing emerald. A child with the hunched wings and crumpled beak of a vulture pouted beside his mother, who had neither wings nor beak, but the sweeping train of a peacock …

The last of my taunt died in my chest and I sat there, gaping at the world around me.

This
was
the Night Bazaar.

All of my calm slipped away. In my head, I pictured royal maidens dragged off to serve potbellied
rakshas
or princesses turned scullery maids in the bowels of the Night Bazaar. I scrambled off the water buffalo, biting back a wince as I struggled for some balance. Catching my breath, I backed away from Amar. In the shadows, the hood over his face glinted sinister.

“Do not come near me!” I hissed.

Amar halted.

“Let me explain,” he began. “I understand that this is not—”

I lunged for a stick and brandished it at him.

“Who are you?”

Amar laughed. “A stick? I’ve brought you to the Night Bazaar; do you really think a stick would protect you?” I gripped the stick harder. “Not that you need protection from me,” he added quickly.

“
Who are you?”

“Amar.”

“Where are you from?”

“Akaran.”

I gave him a hard look, but I wasn’t sure how much he could see through his covering. “
What
are you?”

He drew himself up. “A raja and your husband.”

There was no hesitation in his voice.

“Why have you brought me here?” My voice shook. I couldn’t stop staring at the Night Bazaar. There it was. And here
I
was. Standing on the same plot of land shared with beings that—until now—had only existed in stories. “What do you want from me?”

He stopped. The smile was gone from his lips.

“I want your perspective and honesty,” he said, before adding in a softer voice, “I want to be humbled by you.”

Heat flared in my cheeks. I paused, the stick in my hand falling a fraction. Perspective and honesty? Humbled by me? Rajas never asked for anything other than sons from their consorts.

“My kingdom needs a queen,” he said. “It needs someone with fury in her heart and shadows in her smile. It needs someone restless and clever. It needs you.”

“You know nothing about me.”

“I know your soul. Everything else is an ornament.”

His voice wrapped around me, lustrous and dark. It was the kind of voice that could soothe you to sleep in the same moment that it slit your throat. Still, I leaned toward it.

“Come with me,” he said. “You would never be content in that world. They would cage you. They would give you playthings of silver and silk.”

His teeth burned white when he smiled. “I could give you whole worlds.”

Something tugged at me. The pull was far stronger than fear or attraction—it was ambition. The court of Bharata didn’t expect me to be anything other than a pawn. But Amar was asking for more. He wanted my opinions, my thoughts. He wasn’t offering me a prized seat among his wives. He was asking me to rule.

I knew my father. He would have already announced that I was dead, and the kingdom would ask no questions. It might even be better for me to stay away from the palace and let them grieve me falsely, rather than hate me openly. There was nothing left for me in Bharata.

Even with his eyes concealed, I sensed Amar’s gaze. “What world do
you
belong to? Theirs?” I pointed at an Otherworldly being sharpening his horns.

“No. My kingdom is neither among humans nor Otherworldly beings. It is between.”

“Why did you come to Bharata?” I asked. “The invitation to my
swayamvara
was issued only to the nations we’re at war with.”

“Everyone is at war with my nation,” he said with a smile.

“How did you even know about me?”

“Akaran has its eyes and ears.”

He could have been lying. Nothing escaped me from the rafters where I had spied for years. But my father had other meetings … and he was not always in Bharata.

I hesitated. “How can I trust someone who won’t even reveal their face?”

“It’s far too easy to be recognized here.”

He drew the cloak closer and the gesture was so final, so closed off and unwelcoming, that I stepped back, chastened. Amar removed the wedding garland from around his neck. From the sleeves of his jacket, he withdrew a small knife. Before I could react, he swiped the knife across his palm. Small beads of blood welled to the surface. He held his palm out to me like a perverse offering.