I frown. This wasn’t Shayla’s usual speech, which solely focused on defaming Gul. This is something I’ve never heard before. But it seems to be working. Though most of the soldiers are still stone-faced, a few now begin to frown, as if considering her words.
“Raja Lohar emptied our coffers. We now face a threat from a girl who calls herself the Star Warrior, a savior of the people, when all she wants is to usurp the throne. We also face external threats from kingdoms that were once our allies. Soldiers, your allegiance is to Ambar, to the uniform you chose to wear for life. Yet, if you wish, you may choose to leave now. Defect, if you will.”
Not a breath nor a whisper breaks the silence that follows. The Scorpion’s words have cleverly positioned the army’s soldiers between a wall and a steep cliff. Defection from the army means certain death. No one moves.
Shayla’s smile sharpens. “Good. I see you are still loyal soldiers, who were not swayed by traitors like the former brigadier, Moolchand, who came to see me at Ambar Fort and demanded a bribe.”
She does not notice the frown on the new brigadier’s face, nor the way he steps forward and then hesitates, as if to stop her from saying anything else.
What mistake did the Scorpion make? What did she say that was changing the fear on the soldiers’ faces to confusion and disbelief?
But I don’t have time to ponder these questions. A moment later, my name is announced, and I step forward to give my usual speech. The moment I finish, Captain Shekhar hustles me back into our carriage. He hands me a bundle, this one containing a clay pot of sweet curd and another pot of vegetable pulao. Though the food smells delicious, I can barely taste it.
Something’s wrong. I feel it in my gut.
We don’t spend the night in Amirgarh. Instead, we speed back to Ambar Fort, the Sky Warriors constantly watching the landscape for traps or danger.
“Sleep, boy,” Major Emil tells me. “It’s going to be a long night.”
But sleep remains elusive. My body thrums with the same sort of restlessness that I’d felt during the battle at Tavan.
Dawn breaks across the sky by the time we get back to the palace. I feel myself droop, falling into bed moments after Captain Shekhar and Major Emil escort me back to my room, my exhausted brain finally shutting down. I’m quite sure I wouldn’t have woken again had it not been for the hands on my shoulders, a voice I never expected to hear in my room.
“Wake up! Wake up, boy!”
My eyes snap open, looking right into Queen Amba’s. Instantly, I glance to my left. A snore rises from where Captain Shekhar sits on his usual chair. Behind him, the door is open by a crack, its edges glowing slightly—probably a remnant of the spell Queen Amba used to get in.
“Rani Am—”
“Shhhhhhh.” She raises a hand to her lips. “Listen now and listen well. She’s hiring mercenaries from the Brimlands. I overheard her talking to Major Emil upstairs.”
She? Is she talking about the Scorpion?
It has to be. There is no other she whose mention could blanch the color off Queen Amba’s lips.
“Why would she hire mercenaries?” I ask quietly. “She has a whole army.”
“An army that might have seen through her lie about bribing Brigadier Moolchand,” Amba says, grim satisfaction lining her face. “Remember now: mercenaries from the Brimlands. Inform the living specters about this and ask them to tell my son and the Pashu king. I would have done it myself, but none of the specters are answering me right now.”
“What about my mother?” I glance at the snoring Captain Shekhar, marveling at the strength of whatever sleep spell Rani Amba has put him under.
“She was my usual contact. Honestly, she was the only specter who answered me,” Amba admits. “But Harkha isn’t here at the moment and, as a seer, you might have better luck communicating with the others. I’m being watched more closely than ever. I found my last shvetpanchhi dead, its blood soaking my pillow. It’s with great difficulty that I got this moment alone.”
I grow silent, my gaze flickering to her hands on my body, touching me. A moment later, she drops her hands, her face turning impassive, as she shields whatever is human in her behind a regal mask.
“Hurry,” she whispers.
Then, with barely a brush of her silk jootis against the floor, she’s gone. Carefully watching Captain Shekhar, who’s still snoring, I reach into my pocket for the green swarna Govind gave me.
“Ma?” I whisper, rubbing the surface of the glowing coin. “Are you there?”
There’s no answer. Nothing, which is strange since my mother has been here every time I’ve called, was there with me nearly the whole way to Amirgarh.
Until she wasn’t.
I frown, wondering what she had seen—if she’d had to deal with another emergency.
“Latif?” I rub the coin again. “Any specters around?”
Seconds later, a voice brushes my left ear.
“Anandpranam, handsome.”
The specter does not show herself to me, but I know I’ve never spoken to her before.
“Can you pass on a message to the other side?” I tell her. “The kabzedar rani is hiring mercenaries from the Brimlands. The army at Amirgarh may still mutiny.”
A cold hand strokes my neck. I suppress a shiver. “Is that everything?” the voice whispers.
“Is … is Gul okay? Have you seen her?”
The hand stills, nails scoring my skin like ice. “Last I saw, she was batting her eyes at Raja Amar, wrapped up in his arms.”
Liar, my mind says at once.
“What need would I have to lie, handsome?” The specter giggles. “It’s not like I’m going to get anything from you.” The last word is filled with so much venom that I feel myself jerking backward, inching toward the wall.
“Please!” I force myself to breathe deeply and not snap at her the way I want to. “Will you give them the message?”
There’s no answer. Not a sign that a living specter was here except for the crawling sensation that has yet to leave my skin.
I glance once more at my guard, but Captain Shekhar is still fast asleep.
I have to risk it. Just this once.
With a deep breath, I close my eyes and slowly go inward.
* * *
It takes a while for Gul to hear my voice. Or, perhaps, to respond to it. She doesn’t throw herself at me the way she did the last time. Instead, her eyes remain watchful, skeptical. My mind, fueled by the specter’s poison, instantly forms an image of Gul and Amar embracing.
“What happened?” Gul asks abruptly. “Why did you call me?”
“Mercenaries,” I reply, my voice equally curt. “The Scorpion’s hiring them from the Brimlands. We were at Amirgarh last night, and she suspects the army there might mutiny.”
A frown. “Interesting.”
Interesting? That’s all she has to say?
But Gul doesn’t seem to notice my scowl. “Delegates from the northern tenements came to see us,” she says after a pause. “One of them was Bahar’s father.”
“Did he tell you something?” I blurt out. “Is that why you’re acting so cold? Or is it Raja Amar? Are you with him now?”
Her eyes widen. “Where in Svapnalok did you get such a ridiculous idea? Of course I’m not with Amar!”
“A specter told me,” I admit. “It’s why I meditated. I … I couldn’t stand the thought.”
“Was the specter female and flirtatious?” she demands.
“Yes,” I say, surprised.
“Roda,” she growls, her scowl at once confusing and heartening. “Of course she’d tell you a stupid thing like that. She’s been telling everyone for weeks now about how you’ve become Shayla’s lover.”
“What?”
Gul’s laughter does little to hide her relief. “You should see the look on your face. Like you’re about to puke.”
“The Scorpion kissed me,” I admit. “And I didn’t kiss her back. It happened only once, I swear.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Gul says, her face a strange mix of anger and sorrow. “I wouldn’t blame you for anything you were forced to do in order to survive. I paid the price for listening too much to that specter, anyway. I lost Agni.”
She tells me about the bounty hunters, the terrible chase back to the southern tenements. “Agni said you love me,” Gul says finally.
The vulnerability in her voice surprises me.
Didn’t I already tell her my heart was hers?
But maybe these things need to be spelled out more clearly.
“I do love you,” I say honestly, without embarrassment. “I realized it when Papa refused to run away and told me to go back and save you from Ambar Fort. He told me that if I didn’t, I would regret it for the rest of my life.”
“You did regret coming for me, though,” she points out.
“I did. Mostly because I regret Papa’s death. But I don’t regret you being here. Or feeling the way I feel about you. Does that make sense?”
A slight smile, which I take to mean maybe.
“Do you love me, though?” I ask the question simmering in my mind. “You never said.”
Gul’s eyes widen as I step forward, but she doesn’t move away.
“I once said I would give up my mission of killing the king if it meant saving you,” she says. “Wasn’t that enough?”
I raise my eyebrows. “You mean the time you shot me with a spell? That’s what you meant? Javer’s beard, you could have been less convoluted!”
She rolls her eyes, but this close I can feel what’s going through her mind. The heat of embarrassment. Another feeling that has my insides turning to mush.
“I thought you changed your mind with that good-looking conjurer king by your side,” I say.
“Well, it’s good that I’m not drawn to you for your looks or your magic, isn’t it?”
Her teasing smile melts against the pressure of my lips, her arms tightening around my neck. A warning ticks in the back of my skull, but I can’t seem to remember what it’s about.
Until I feel an invisible hand pulling me backward, a voice snarling “dirt-licking traitor” in my ear.
I wrench myself from Gul, a red haze of pain searing my head and torso. “Go!” I tell her. “Go!”
Gul shouts something in return, but I can’t make out what it is.
Seconds later, I’m back in the windowless room at Raj Mahal, my head bleeding as I lie on the floor, Captain Shekhar’s boot repeatedly slamming into my ribs.
* * *
My second time being imprisoned makes the Sky Warriors go twice as hard with their interrogations.
“Where did you get that magic?” Captain Shekhar demands. “Who did you steal it from?”
When I say nothing, he kicks me in the ribs again. Though pain blurs my vision, I sense another presence inside the cell—one that I instinctively know is more dangerous than Shekhar.
“Shall I make him light up again, General?” the captain asks, panting, the manic gleam in his eyes making me wonder if he’s been ingesting tez. I whimper as pain shoots through my right hand, the sound of my index finger breaking only barely registering in my head.
“That’s enough, Captain.” Alizeh flips my green swarna in the air, slaps it against the back of her palm. “Tell me, dirt licker, where did you get the green swarna—a classified contraband item? You, who are not allowed to communicate with specters? Also, since when do half magi glow with unexplained magic?”
When I say nothing, her nails dig into my skin. “Do you know what we do to traitors here?”
“Hang me, then,” I spit out. “What else can you do?”
Light flickers around the edges of my mind, gentle yet persistent, followed by a voice that I shut down before it floods my brain. I cannot have them guess about my connection to Gul right now. I cannot glow—even by accident.
“I think it’s time to start the consecutives again,” General Alizeh says.
They break my fingers first, then my already injured ribs. Then Alizeh presses the burning tip of her atashban to my forehead, peeling off my skin. I would scream, but my voice is gone by then and all that emerges from my mouth are grunts. Between moments of consciousness and unconsciousness, I hear Vaid Roshan urging General Alizeh to go slow. That there are some injuries even healing cannot cure.
“I thought you had a stronger stomach for such things, Vaid ji,” the general tells him.
“Healing isn’t butchery, General.”
The silence that fills my cell afterward makes me wonder if General Alizeh shot the vaid then and there, furious with his cold rebuke. But then I feel her boot again, pressing into my diaphragm, the searing pain that follows, threatening to knock me unconscious once more.
“Heal that then, Vaid ji.”
By now I am spitting blood. My vision is so blurred that I can barely see the shadow hovering overhead.
“Easy,” says the vaid softly. “She’s gone now.”
He sits me up. “Unfortunately, this is going to hurt more than what she did.”
Healing me hurts Vaid Roshan as well. As my vision clears, I see the sweat pouring down his face, the glow around him flickering as blood trickles from his left nostril.
“Leave that,” I say quietly when he goes to heal the nail on my big toe, broken in half and pulled out with a pair of lethal tongs. “Use some herbs instead.”
He nods, his shaking hands moving to the side of his body, where he carries a satchel with several small clay jars. Scooping out a pasty substance, he applies it carefully to the bloody nail before bandaging it.
“Why?” I whisper. “Why do you help me now? You don’t have to.”
The healer raises his tired eyes. The blood under his nostril has been wiped away, but I still see a trace of red on his pale-brown skin.
“There are others like me, within the palace and without.” He speaks so softly that I can barely hear him. “Magi who believe in the Star Warrior and the true king. Magi who believe in you, Xerxes-putra Cavas.”
His words make the fine hairs at the back of my neck rise. I squash down the hope they bring by shaking my head. “People hate me. They think I’m a traitor.”
“People are smarter than you think,” he whispers. “They—”
His voice breaks off at the sound of raucous laughter outside my cell.
“What are you going to do, old man?” a guard calls out, his voice carrying in the silent corridor. “Bite me? Shoot me with that stump? Oh wait. You can’t hold a talwar anymore, can you?”
I release a breath. They’re taunting the old army brigadier, who lost his arm to the shadowlynx.
“Give me your hands,” the vaid says out loud. I press them together, allowing him to shackle them again. I know that the disgust on Vaid Roshan’s face isn’t directed toward me. “Feet.”
Once I’m shackled, he turns my hand over gently, before dropping a single green swarna into my palm.
“From the stable master, Govind,” he says quietly. “We guessed this might happen at some time.”
“But this place … I can’t communicate with living specters here. They’re blocked out.”
“That’s true,” the vaid says. “It’s the old magic in these walls. But if you rub the swarna and whisper a specter’s name, they will still be able to sense it. They’ll know you’re in danger.”
With that final bit of advice, the vaid rises and leaves me to my thoughts, taking with him the lightorb that illuminated the cell.
I turn to the wall next to me. “Juhi?”
A moment later, I hear a scraping sound, see the partial outline of a face in the sudden flash of blue from her shackles.
“They found you out, did they?” Juhi sighs, and I wonder if she was expecting this outcome.
“It was my fault,” I admit. “I … I took a living specter for her word. I should have trusted Gul.”
“Loving someone is often easier than trusting them.”
I curl my fingers around t
he green swarna, feel the reassuring weight of it in my palm. “Do you think they will kill me soon?”
“Not if I can help it,” Juhi says grimly. “They’re so focused on you right now that they’ve forgotten me and Amira. Forgotten what we can do.”
Instead of reassuring me, Juhi’s words only fill me with dread. Being imprisoned can play tricks with desperate minds, can make them believe in the impossible. I don’t ask Juhi what she’s planning to do. Or how she assumes Amira is in any shape to help her—and us—right now.
All I can do now is lie in a corner of my cell, the green swarna pressed to my mouth, whispering my mother’s name like a prayer, hoping that my stupidity did not cost us this war.
35
GUL
Hands lightly slap my cheeks, a voice urging me to wake, to focus on the world outside the dark corners of my mind. My eyes open to a worried face.
“Gul, are you all right?” Falak asks. “Gul!”
“Why am I lying on the ground?” I say, forcing myself to sit up. What was I doing before I slid into the meditative state?
“You were having breakfast with us when you said you had forgotten something in your tent. You were gone so long that Kali sent me to look for you. When I came, you were thrashing about on the ground. And you were glowing.”
Yes, I remember now. The faint call of Cavas’s voice fluttering through my head. The skip of a heartbeat, the sudden, desperate urge to be alone with him. To ask him everything. And I had.
Cavas took me by surprise, telling me he loved me. And fool that I was, I chose to kiss him instead of telling him that I loved him, too.
That’s when I heard that awful voice. Dirt-licking traitor. And though Subodh warned me how dangerous it was to be found connected to Cavas at a time like this, I reached out to him again and again.
Until the scene shifted and the temple shrank, its carved pillars turning into stone walls, iron bars gleaming in dim blue light. I squinted, trying to see where I was, but the darkness was almost absolute, the figures within wispy shadows.
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