“What laws are you talking about? The ones that were rewritten after Ambar separated from Svapnalok, to segregate non-magi filth into the tenements?”
The acharya’s mouth opens and snaps shut again.
“There’s no need to be coy, Acharya. Laws can change.” I slip on a pair of lightweight black trousers that are cinched at the calves. “Under my rule, any zamindar unwilling to pay tithes will be punished severely. The land under his jurisdiction will be annexed by the state, the revenues going directly to the royal coffers—after a fixed portion is taken by the farmers cultivating the land, of course.”
“Ambar Sikandar, I strongly discourage that idea. It will be seen as a grave injustice! As rani of Ambar, you are the shadow of the sky goddess on this earth.”
“I am no shadow, you fool!” I snarl. “As rani, I am Ambar’s very head—equal to a god myself. Isn’t that what you claimed was written within the Holy Scroll while legitimizing the usurper Lohar’s rule and, later on, his edicts to open the labor camps and indulge in unnecessary wars?”
The acharya swallows audibly in the silence. “My rani—”
“Enough. Don’t bore me with things I already know. Do you have anything else to say?”
Acharya Damak doesn’t blink. Ever the politician, he bows again. “Nothing, Ambar Sikandar.”
Once the acharya leaves my chambers, I turn to Alizeh again.
“You have news,” I say. “What happened in Tavan?”
“The raid went well,” she replies. “We lost soldiers, of course, but that was to be expected with untrained children and dirt lickers conscripted to the cause.” Though the words are delivered casually, I sense Alizeh’s disapproval; she doesn’t like to lose any soldiers on her watch.
“Don’t make excuses, Alizeh. You and Emil were more than adequately equipped to deal with the Star Warrior and her magically impotent army,” I say coldly. “So? Did you get her?” With the girl in my hands, at my beck and call, I can crush any budding hopes of a “true king.”
Alizeh grits her teeth. “We nearly captured her, but the rajsingha Subodh and his bird army interfered. That said, we do have something that’s guaranteed to bring the Star Warrior to us. We have her dirt-licker lover. You remember him, don’t you?”
“How could I forget?”
Xerxes-putra Cavas. His signature, endorsed in perfect Vani within our army records at the Ministry of Bodies. The signature had allowed us to track him—and the girl—to Tavan, though it had been hellish to breach the invisibility barrier. But that isn’t the only reason I remember this dirt-licking stable boy.
I have been called many things over the past three decades. Terror. Witch. Scorpion. Molester of underage boys. In truth, the boys who came to me were willing, of age or older, drawn to my face and my body despite the rumors surrounding me, their lust always overcoming their fear. And I took advantage of this whenever I could, drawing in General Tahmasp’s attendant to me, extracting every bit of information from the boy before I disposed of him.
They were mostly the same, these whimpering adolescents.
Except for one.
Since I first saw him, the stable boy’s stiff body revealed how repulsed he was by me, despite the atashban pricking his throat. It was the first time in a long while that I remembered my early years at the academy. The unwanted touch of an instructor’s hand curving my rear. The laughs of the male cadets rattling through my head as my body lay paralyzed on the floor.
If I hadn’t hated Xerxes-putra Cavas already for his filthy blood, I would have hated him for reminding me of how weak I once was. I avoided him afterward, choosing instead to pursue boys who sought me themselves for the promotions I could get them at Ambar Fort, and for the coins I poured over their bare bodies once we were done.
But then she’d come into the palace—the girl from Lohar’s death prophecy with her wide gold eyes and wild magic, making herself a threat where there was none in the first place.
And it was thanks to a boy I’d stupidly chosen to ignore.
I don’t make the same mistake twice. The rajsingha’s spells around Tavan were stronger than I anticipated, protecting the invisible city from unfriendly attacks over the past twenty years. But then the living specters began to fade.
My redheaded hound from Jwala had advised me well—another teenage boy who thought himself too charming for his own good. I rewarded him by branding his neck with my emblem. He was mine now, regardless of the black flames tattooing his arms. The Jwaliyan queen be damned.
“Where is our Jwaliyan hound?” I ask Alizeh now.
“He tried to escape on our way back to Ambarvadi,” Alizeh says. “Captain Emil caught and shackled him. He’s in the kalkothri now, along with the dirt licker.”
I push aside the last lingering image of the Tree of Sins. “We’ll deal with him soon enough.”
I put on my belt and sheathe my daggers before taking hold of the atashban I always keep in my room, its black arrow tip gleaming in the sunlight.
“It’s time to pay the dirt licker a visit.”
16
CAVAS
I wake up to darkness, my head sore, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. For a second, I wonder if I’ve been gagged, but then gasps unfurl, along with panic.
What have they done to me? Where am I?
Movement brings answers: the flash of damp stone on three sides and iron bars on the fourth, illuminated in the brief glow of blue shackles on my wrists and ankles. Needles of dizzying pain follow and I curse myself for moving too quickly.
What possessed you to think you could kill General Alizeh? The voice in my head sounds like a mix of Papa’s and Ma’s. Why did you leave Gul alone?
I was a fool, that’s why, I want to reply.
With Gul by my side, finally doing the kind of magic that could maim and kill, I had felt strong. Invincible in a way I never had before, our combined powers a drug in my veins. I was sure we could take on the general and her whole army together, if needed.
As the battle waged on, though, my initial adrenaline wore off, replaced by exhaustion and nausea. I forgot that as strong as they are, magi pay a price for their power. It was a struggle to stay connected to Gul, to hold firm when I felt her terror and fatigue melding with mine. At one point, I spotted General Alizeh fighting a few feet away from us.
And that’s when I did the most foolish thing of all.
Knowing that Gul couldn’t always hear my voice through our bond, I sneaked away, pursuing the general on her white steed, aiming a spell at her with my spear. It was a mistake. Without Gul to amplify my magic, the spell was no better than an irritant, a whiff of air that the general swatted aside. Then she pursued me, shooting a series of rapid spells that first broke my weapon, then my shield, and then a final spell that would have killed me if she wasn’t simply planning to knock me out cold.
I try to moisten my lips, but grit coats my tongue and it feels like I’ve swallowed a mouthful of ash.
“Ca … as?” a familiar voice echoes in the dark.
“Ma?” I whisper. “Is that you?”
I move again—on purpose—and glimpse her gray face in a glow of painful blue light.
“Ca … as.” My mother’s voice is soft, urgent. “You … serious danger.”
“Why is your voice breaking?” I demand. “What’s going on?”
“No … time—” My mother gasps, as if struggling for air. The shackles’ light flashes again, and I see that bits and pieces of her body are missing. A finger on her right hand. An ear, an elbow.
“Ma, what’s happening to you?”
Saints above, let her not fade. Not now!
In the dark, I hear her take a breath. “Stay … alive … don’t … let … her … kill … you.”
Her, meaning the Scorpion.
“And remember, you … Gul—” Her voice cuts off abruptly, as if swallowed by the air.
“Ma?” I call out. “Ma, are you there?”
But there is no
answer, and even without the glow of the shackles’ light, I realize she has disappeared.
My thoughts come one after another, each adding to my panic: What happened to Ma? Why couldn’t I talk to her?
Overhead, I hear footsteps, the screech of an old door opening and closing. The air around me smells damp and musty, like the inside of a waste pit. Underneath that, there’s another odor. Smoke—which finally allows me to guess where I am.
I’ve heard enough stories about Ambar Fort’s kalkothri: an underground dungeon so well protected that it gets consumed by fire if a single prisoner tries to escape. Designed by the Chand gharana, the builders of Rani Mahal, the kalkothri has evolved per the whims and fancies of different Ambari rulers. During King Lohar’s reign, the dungeon was expanded farther, spanning the length between the two palaces at Ambar Fort.
The kalkothri was where the king kept his “amusements”—humans and Pashu bought at the flesh market to fight in the cage—along with criminals who needed interrogation. Now, the faintest brush of light touches the corner of the bars of my cell. I watch it grow in intensity until a blue-white lightorb floats outside the bars. Underneath are three figures: a prison guard dressed in gray; General Alizeh, in white; and beyond that, the usurper queen, Shayla, herself in head-to-toe black.
Unlike her predecessor, who bedecked himself in colorful clothes and jewels, the Scorpion’s attire is fairly simple: a form-fitting angrakha and trousers, and boots made of armored leopard hide. Her only two concessions to her status appear to be the gold dusting her cheeks and the simple crown on her head, a large firestone gleaming like a bloody tear at its center.
“Admiring my crown, dirt licker?” the Scorpion says. “I had it forged after salvaging my mother’s firestone from the kabzedar Lohar’s turban ornament.”
She holds up a hand and I see a ring on her index finger with a firestone cut in the same shape. “I discovered recently that there had been a matching necklace, too. My mother had it made using only stones that worked together best to amplify her powers. So many jewels. Every bit gone to pay for the excesses of the usurper and his clan.”
Had I not been placed in magical shackles, with two of Ambar’s most lethal women standing before me, I might have wondered where this discussion on jewelry was leading. But I recognize the glint in the Scorpion’s pale-brown eyes. The one that forewarns terrible things.
“Did you know that it was a non-magus vaid who lied to Rani Megha, who told her that I was born a boy and not a girl?” she says. “He should have been grateful, felt privileged to be serving Ambar’s greatest monarch. But instead, he listened to my father. Together, they kept me from my mother—from my true heritage. And then, there was you. A foolish dirt licker who tried to help a girl from a stupid prophecy do the same. I, who am now your rani, your goddess, Ambar’s true sikandar.”
A second later, General Alizeh’s hand is at my throat, her palm nearly crushing my windpipe. If I didn’t think I was going to die before, I certainly feel like I’m going to die now, the lightorb blurring overhead. Sound fades from my ears. Then, without warning, the general’s hand leaves my throat. Air rushes back into my lungs, burning my insides like grain alcohol. I cough and cough, tears streaming down my cheeks.
They’ll kill me now—and why shouldn’t they? I didn’t think before pursuing General Alizeh on the battlefield. I deserve death for my stupidity.
Stay alive, Cavas.
I don’t know if it’s Ma’s voice in my head or my own. But it forces me to gather my wits. I recall whatever I know about the Scorpion and how she likes to play with those she tortures.
“You called Raja Lohar a kabzedar,” I speak, even though the act feels like swallowing thorns. “But you’re no sikandar. If you think the people of Ambar will accept you as their rani, you are mistaken.”
My words earn me a fist to the jaw and then a boot to my mouth. I feel a tooth dislodge, spit it out along with a wad of bloody saliva.
“Enough, Alizeh.”
The Scorpion touches my face with a finger, tracing my jaw slowly.
“Interesting,” she says now. “He plays for his survival the way our little hound does—but with taunts instead of flattery. I have to admit, dirt licker, I find your method much more interesting. Raise the wall to my right, sentry.”
The guard thumps his staff on the floor, a boom echoing through the dungeon. The stone wall to my left rises in the air, the grind of gears rattling my ears. I see prison bars again, and beyond them a red-haired boy in shackles, black flames tattooing his sun-browned arms. A royal messenger from Jwala.
“He’s a seer, dirt licker,” Shayla informs me. “Half magus, half non-magus. Able to see the living and the dead. Three months he stayed here, working for me, tracking living specters … only to betray me at the very end.”
I force myself to stay calm. I don’t know if the Scorpion is aware of my half magus blood, but for now I try to look as puzzled as I can. The Jwaliyan messenger’s terrified brown eyes lock with mine and I wonder how much he knows—if he heard me talking to Ma earlier.
“My queen, surely I can be forgiven simply for wanting to be at your side—for wanting to be the first to give you the good news,” the boy speaks in Vani, his voice dripping honey. His accent only adds to his charm, almost making the listener forget about the patchwork of red and mauve bruises marring his skin.
The Scorpion’s head crooks sideways. She steps out of my cell and into the boy’s—an act that fills me with more trepidation than when she was inches away from my face. She tilts his chin up with a finger and leans forward until they’re close enough to kiss.
A muffled scream gurgles in the boy’s mouth as the Scorpion forces the arrow tip of her atashban between his lips. The messenger’s cheeks glow orange for a second before blood begins pouring from his ears. Shayla withdraws her atashban, allowing his lifeless body to fall to the floor. Bile rises to my throat, along with the urge to throw up.
“I can’t abide liars,” the Scorpion says calmly. “Lying was General Tahmasp’s specialty, did you know? He even lied to himself, pretending he’d found love with a dirt licker’s mate, when, in reality, he raped her. Over and over, until she had you, Xerxes—or is it Tahmasp-putra Cavas?”
I want to scream. To tell her to shut her vicious mouth. But all that emerges from my mouth is a whimper as the truth of my paternity embeds like thorns under my skin. The Scorpion leans over, plucks something from the messenger’s hand. A small, but lethal-looking, turban pin.
“Silly boy. Does he not know I anticipate everything?”
Stay alive. Stay alive. Stay alive.
As if sensing my thoughts, the Scorpion gives me a smile and walks back into my cell. She laughs when I try to jerk away from the long fingers tugging back my hair, thrusting my chin upward.
“Ask him everything you can about the girl and her plans, Alizeh,” the Scorpion says. “Break him until he bends wholly to our will.”
She rises to her feet and walks out of the cell, her boots gently tapping the dungeon’s stone floors.
Next to me, General Alizeh puts aside her atashban and withdraws what looks like a pair of garden clippers, only smaller, thicker. “Tell me about the girl, dirt licker. Where is she now? What were your plans?”
“I don’t know,” I say truthfully, my voice thick with blood and drool. “As for our plans, clearly, they didn’t work, did they? I’m here with you.”
“Don’t be a fool, boy. There’s an easy way to do this and there’s a hard way. Change your allegiance to Rani Shayla. Beg for the Ambar Sikandar’s pardon and you might still live.”
Let me live and both you and your rani will regret it, I want to tell her.
Stay alive, Cavas.
“Killing me won’t help your cause,” I say. “I’m your only hold on Gul at the moment. If you kill me, she will never come to Ambarvadi the way you want her to.”
Alizeh’s face is studiously blank, but her eyes sparkle with malice. “Is that so? Hold
up your left hand, dirt licker.”
I don’t have the chance to obey. My left hand magically rises, palm facing the floor, fingers spaced evenly by a firm, invisible hand. Slowly, ignoring the screams that pour from my throat, the general uses the clippers to pull out the nail from my middle finger, tearing it right out of the nail bed.
* * *
I pass out by the time General Alizeh removes my second fingernail. When I finally come to, she is gone, darkness—blessed darkness—surrounding me again. I didn’t tell her anything about Gul … Or at least I think I didn’t. My left hand throbs and I wonder if she has removed every nail. Ignoring the shock that goes through me from lighting up the shackles, I see that she hasn’t. But the sight of my blood-encrusted middle and index fingers has me heaving, the taste of vomit still lingering in my mouth.
“Cavas?”
A hiss of pain: the barest hint of a sound. I freeze in place.
“Cavas?” the voice persists.
“Ma, is it you?” I ask, my voice hoarse.
“It’s Juhi.”
Her name shocks my system, makes my chest swell. “You’re lying.”
“Ask me a question, then.” The woman’s voice, though still quiet, has a familiar arrogance.
“Where did we meet for the first time?” I ask.
“Outside Sant Javer’s temple in Ambarvadi. It was dawn. Gul was there, too. You both argued.”
I release a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “Where are you?”
“Follow the sound of my voice.”
It takes me a while to move, needles pricking my skin, my shackles lighting the way to a wall. There, I notice a slight gap between two of the stone blocks. A pair of black eyes gleam in the flash of blue light. I press my cheek to the wall’s cool surface.
“How is Gul?” Juhi asks.
“Safe,” I whisper. She must be, for the general to torture me for her whereabouts. “I can’t believe that you’re here, though.”
Rising Like a Storm Page 12
