The Star-Touched Queen

by Roshani Chokshi

  “Tell me everything,” I said. “How do we know each other?”

  “We grew up together,” said Nritti. She pointed vaguely at the memories above. “Our story is somewhere in that tree. We were like sisters, you and me.”

  I frowned. But what about the memory of Amar and the other woman? That had been his, hadn’t it?

  “There was someone else,” I began, “a woman, she—”

  “There’s always a woman,” said Nritti, with a flippant wave of her hand. “He traps them here. He finds one girl, lovely or not, it doesn’t matter. And he feeds off of them. He is Death, he can do anything he wants.”

  “But why was it in my memory?”

  “You must have found out what he was up to,” said Nritti in a rushed voice. There was sweat gleaming on her brow. And a smell, like metal, perfumed the air. “I am sure you figured out in the end what he had planned. Perhaps you found the other girl’s memory tree and that’s why it’s there.”

  I felt a leaden pit in my stomach. “There’s more?”

  “Oh yes,” said Nritti. “Hundreds of trees, hundreds of girls. Just like you.”

  I fell silent. Had I been wrong the whole time? I thought I had seen an expression of love between the woman in the flame and Amar. But he was ancient and deathless. Perhaps he had just learned how to cull a heart, like he had a soul.

  “But how do you know?”

  Nritti flashed a thin, pitiful smile, like she was explaining a child’s redundant question. “Was your horoscope something horribly grim?” asked Nritti.

  I nodded.

  “All of them are,” said Nritti with a sigh. Her words were so casual, but they slid into me, sharp as knives. He finds one girl, lovely or not, it doesn’t matter. I didn’t matter. “And then he seduces them, tricks them with power, makes them think that it’s real…”

  I remembered how the weather had changed outside the throne room. How the floor had shifted beneath my feet, and at the end of it, I had collapsed in the glass garden, falling straight into his arms. He had planned all of it. My hands curled into fists, and I pressed them against my chest. In Bharata, at least I had the solace of holding my mother’s necklace. But I had nothing to hold on to, nothing but words and thin air and false hope.

  “Last time, you got away,” said Nritti, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I don’t know how, but you did it. And I thought,” she stammered, “I thought you were dead. But something led me back to you.” She smiled, but it was a cold thing, feverish and burning.

  “What was it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. Another smile. Another burst of cold. “Maybe it was something in the wind or a change in my heart.” She brought her fingers to her heart, her beautiful eyes cast downward. There was so much desperation in her eyes. I felt heartless for not trusting her. “But I knew I only had a number of days before I could get to you.”

  “The new moon?” I guessed.

  Her head snapped up, and something dark flared in her lovely eyes.

  “Yes,” she said. “Why? Has it already happened?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I murmured. “I just remember that that’s when—”

  “That’s when he’ll kill you,” said Nritti. “You’ve seen him. He cannot stand being crossed. The first time you were here, you got away. Somehow you must have gotten to the reincarnation pool to escape him. It must have taken him years to find you again. But he locked away all those old memories. He would never want you to find out who you had been. His arrogance couldn’t stand that a girl escaped his grasp.”

  I thought of those oaths Amar had promised. The beads of blood brimming on his palm. That kiss. Even the memory of him saving me. He was keeping me alive to kill me for later. I scolded myself. My own foolishness was looking for scraps to grasp at, something that would validate all of the poor decisions I had made. How weak I had sounded. I clenched my teeth. I wouldn’t be weak for him.

  Something splintered inside me. Nritti had to be right. No wonder Gupta and Amar had warned me away from all the hidden doors in Akaran. No doubt, they didn’t want me to find out. All those voices I had heard. Who did they belong to? Girls trapped inside of trees? Or were they the plaintive voices of the dead, calling to me. Warning me.

  “Who was I in my last life, then?”

  Nritti smiled. “You were my friend. I am an apsara, but I left all of that behind the moment I lost you. I don’t know why you went away with him. But I can see why you were seduced … a powerful kingdom … leaving behind a place of obscurity.”

  An apsara? That made her a heavenly nymph. I wasn’t surprised. She was easily the most beautiful person I had ever seen. And as for the reason why I would be seduced to follow Amar … even that made sense. It was the same in Bharata. That constant need to leave, to prove myself, to rise above the nameless, dreamless ranks of the harem women.

  “You meant so much to me,” said Nritti, tears shining in her eyes. “You still do. I would’ve done anything to keep you safe. I know you would have done the same for me. I just needed you to lead me.”

  “Was I, also, an apsara?”

  I felt stupid asking such a question. Of course I wasn’t. Nritti flashed a sympathetic smile.

  “No. You were a forest yakshini and you knew those woods so well.”

  I nodded, trying to wrap my mind around this version of myself that she was telling me. I sounded like a cowering thing, resigned to silence and shadows. But maybe that was the way it was always supposed to be. Here, I was nothing more than an imposter playing at power and failing miserably.

  Nritti placed her hand against the glass. “I don’t know how much longer I can stay at this portal. I’m risking my life for you with every passing minute, but I won’t let you be unsafe. There’s something you need to do. To be free.”

  “What?”

  “Bring me his noose and destroy the tree. He’ll never find you again after that. And then you and I can escape. We can go back to the Otherworld. We can free all the other girls trapped in this kingdom.”

  All the other girls. My throat tightened and I nodded tersely.

  “Where does he keep the noose?”

  “It is always on his person. Perhaps not in the same form.”

  My heart clenched. The black strip of leather around his wrist. Right next to my own circlet of hair. It had to be the noose. The source of his power. The noose was how the Dharma Raja dragged the souls to his dread kingdom before they were assigned to a new life.

  “The tree needs to be destroyed. Do you understand?” Her reflection wavered and her voice was strangely harsh. “He will kill you if you give him the chance.”

  Before I could say anything, the door glowed blue. Someone was near.

  “I have to go.”

  “Are you ready for this, sister?” asked Nritti.

  I nodded. “I’m ready.”

  Footsteps echoed outside the door. I clambered down the tree, throwing one last glance at Nritti’s waning reflection in the obsidian mirror before running out into the hall. The door closed with a soft thud behind me, the glowing blue of its walls fading and melding back into white. I breathed a sigh of relief, my hands still pressed against the wood.

  Voices snaked through the halls, hushed and urgent. I was still reeling from Nritti’s words. He will kill you if you give him the chance. I knew I had to be on guard. I’d only seen a few of the memories in the tree, but they had all the intimacy of realness. My friendship with Nritti, even the way my instincts told me to trust her. That she wouldn’t hurt me. Even then, I clasped the memory of the days Amar and I had spent together close to my chest. The way he looked at me, an amazed smile turning his face incandescently beautiful. The embraces of fire and starlight when he kissed me. How could they be false?

  But then I heard Gupta’s voice in the hallway … his words reached me. Roped around me.

  “Tomorrow is the new moon. You need not worry any longer. Everything you’ve done, saving her life and bringing her
here … it will all be worth it,” he said. “Now that she’s here, we can get rid of her the way you always wanted. I am confident of it.”

  I backed against the wall. In that second, every space was too tight and each light glinted with malice. Here was the reason. He had been waiting for the right time to get rid of me, the right way to exact vengeance. Nritti was right.

  He would kill me if I gave him the chance.

  18

  THE TRUTH, AT LAST

  I stayed in the shadows, waiting for their footsteps.

  “There is still much to do before then,” said Gupta. “You must anticipate her response.”

  “She’s ready,” said Amar impatiently. “I have waited long enough and I will not be denied.”

  I pressed myself against the wall, praying I wouldn’t be caught. I thought back to Amar’s words in the tapestry room. Weakness is a luxury you can no longer afford. How right he had been. Friendship had weakened me. Even Gupta’s friendship had been a ruse, a means of distracting me, a blindfold as they trapped me in the halls of death.

  Soon, their voices faded into the distance.

  I stepped out, my breath clammy in my lungs. Outside, a hundred mirrors loomed, each displaying a picture of night. Some of these nighttime scenes looked out over lush valleys sprinkled with snow. Others stretched out over huge tracts of sea, reflecting the skies in the water so that the stars seemed endless. At the end of the hall, the door to a new room was cracked open. A strange smell unraveled from the door, heavy with the stench of blood. I felt the hairs at the back of my neck rise. Slowly, I pushed open the door and glanced inside. What I saw nearly froze my heart.

  It was filled with all the objects from my father’s palace.

  Torn chain mail, scraps of silk, an ink-blotted scroll bearing my father’s sigil. Something sparkling caught my eye and I blinked rapidly, convinced my eyes were playing tricks on me. Even before I reached the object, I knew what it was—my mother’s blue sapphire necklace. The one I gave Gauri.

  The invisible prospect of everything that could have—must have—gone wrong wrenched inside me as sharp as any dagger. I sank to the ground, refusing to touch the thing. Scuff marks framed the delicate strands of pearl, the dull pendant of sapphire. Someone had tried, and failed, to kick it out of sight.

  Someone had not wanted me to see.

  I pulled the sapphire necklace from its hiding place. Red and gray spots flecked the seed pearls. I traced the sapphire orb just as something crumbling and brown fell onto my fingertips. Dried blood. The whole necklace was soaked in blood.

  A cold veil fell about me. Time leeched, memories heavy with Gauri’s bright smile spilling behind my eyes. My shoulders caved as I clutched the necklace. My lips formed around Gauri’s name, but I wouldn’t speak it aloud. I refused to say a name that pulsed with life while I held this bloody necklace in my hand.

  I inhaled a shuddering breath. I understood now. Amar’s silence about Bharata, the fact that none of the mirror portals looked over my father’s kingdom. Everything was fitting together. Horror—bright and heavy—gripped me. My mind flashed with images dredged up from the depths of my nightmares—

  Gauri holding the necklace.

  Gauri screaming.

  Gauri bleeding to death on the harem floor.

  And I knew what I had to do. No matter what it cost me. Tonight, I would steal his noose and deliver it to Nritti. Tonight, I would bring him to his knees and make him pay for all that he had done.

  Tonight, I would destroy him.

  * * *

  The whole evening, I paced across the floor. I tried not to look at the bed we shared, but it was impossible. The light kept catching on the gossamer veils, a reminder that some terrors were silk-cloaked and lovely as a dream. I knew Amar would come. I knew what I had to do. The problem was my own weak heart, lulled by his words, his touch, his presence.

  For tonight, I had slipped into a black sari. I wore no bangles or anklets. My hair was brushed away from my face and a single pearl hung from a silver circlet around my forehead. I slid my hands along the silk and small stars flickered into life against the fabric.

  The door creaked open and there he was.

  “My star-touched queen,” he said. “I missed you.”

  He walked toward me. In the candle-lit glow of our bedroom, every feature was more pronounced. The sweep of his shoulders, the short hair that curled at his neck. The glow of his skin, honey-drenched and russet. My beautiful nightmare.

  I caught his hand in mine, my fingers trailing over the band of leather around his wrist. The noose. Against my skin, the noose was a cold pulse. There was a small knot at its base, lazily tied. He probably hadn’t expected it was in any danger.

  “We lost an entire day together,” he said.

  I loosened the silk around my waist and Amar raised an eyebrow. Around him, the shadows rippled silkily. I met his gaze and he stared at me, his breath shallow and waiting. The silk fell noiselessly to the floor.

  “We still have the night.”

  * * *

  The moment he touched me, my universe constricted to the space between our lips. We were a snarl of limbs and bright-burning kisses. Amar held me to him, strong hands burning against my neck and waist. And even though vengeance thrummed in my skin, a part of me drowned in the feel of him. He murmured my name with each kiss until it no longer seemed to belong to me. It was a song, a prayer, a plea.

  But when I pulled him to the bed, he paused. His breathing was ragged and when he looked at me his eyes were damp with desire.

  “Wait, my queen,” he breathed. “I want you to know me first. I want you to know this place where you are empress.”

  He rubbed his thumb along my jaw and the braceleted noose around his wrist glared. Disbelief coiled sharply in my throat. I already knew about this realm. I already knew who he was. But I almost forgot when he reached out to trace my lips.

  “Any farther,” he started, his voice hoarse with want, “and I would not know how to stop.”

  * * *

  We spent the evening in each other’s arms. Amar plucked glass blossoms from the air and slid them one by one into a crown around my forehead. He conjured the lightest of snowfalls, each flake teasing out into gleaming feathers before melting into the silk. All through the night, he smiled daggers into my heart.

  “I love you,” he murmured into my hair. “You are my night and stars, the fate I would fix myself to in any life.”

  I had chosen vengeance and freedom. I would not back down for sweet words, no matter how much I wanted them to be true. No matter how I felt.

  “I know,” I said.

  * * *

  While he slept, I betrayed him.

  I wove my own magic. A dream of sleep full of silvery spangles that I slipped over his eyes in the same moment that I stole away the noose. The noose fought against me, perhaps aware that I was not its rightful owner. I gathered Gauri’s necklace from its hidden place in the corner of the bedroom and pushed open the door.

  I didn’t look back.

  * * *

  Nritti was waiting for me.

  “Do you have it, sister?”

  I nodded numbly. When I bit my lip, I could still taste him. Smoke and cinnamon.

  “Give it to me,” she said, extending a hand through the reflection.

  I hesitated. “What will happen to him?”

  Nritti arched an eyebrow. “What he deserves. He will be rendered powerless. Don’t tell me you have grown to care for him? After all he’s done? To you and to so many other women?”

  Nritti stepped aside and behind her, another image wavered in the obsidian mirror. A hundred trees filled with lights. The trees of other girls. Other victims. My hands clenched around Gauri’s necklace. Wordlessly, I handed over Amar’s noose.

  The moment I did, something sizzled and snapped through the air. My heart plummeted. Behind us, the great tree full of memories seemed to gasp and twist. The tree—once massive and stretching towar
d the ceiling—had begun to decay. Thick branches lay around it like bones. Its trunk was rent, entrails of wood and root rising, shattering the marble floor and uncurling toward us. My gaze trailed toward the branches—everything was on fire.

  Flickering memories began to drop, falling out of the branches. I stepped back, horrified. The memories fell like a score of dying phoenixes. All around us, the air was suffused with smoke; violet-bruise flames snaked around the edges of the marble, gorging themselves on branch and root.

  The blue arch of the door glowed, swinging open. I threw up my arms against the sudden wave of heat. In the doorway, cut like a silhouette of night, stood Amar. He looked between me and Nritti, his gaze fixed on the noose in her hands before he turned to stare at the great tree. Horror was etched into his face. He looked at me and I felt like collapsing. His shoulders sagged and in his expression there was more than heartbreak. It was sorrow given shape.

  “No,” he whispered, his face gaunt. “What have you done?”

  I flinched, as though slapped.

  “You lied to me. About everything.”

  I thought of Bharata littered with the refuse of war. I thought of Gauri. “My home … my people were destroyed. You knew, but refused to tell me. Do you deny it?”

  My anger was an element. Heat slashed through the air between us, dragging claws of invisible flames. That nameless power growled at my heels, like a beast ready to rend flesh at my word.

  I wanted to hurt Amar. I wanted my anger to bruise him, burn him, as if all that heat and fury could weld back my mangled heart. But at the sight of him … I hesitated. In the pale light, Amar’s hands trembled.

  “The deaths were fixed. There’s nothing you could’ve done.”

  Behind me, Nritti let out a deranged laugh. “Lies. Oh, so many lies you spin, oh Dharma Raja. Without you, there would be no fixed death. There would be no death at all.”

  I shivered at the sound of her words.

  He turned from me, hands raking through his hair, pacing across the marble. I shrank back. “Those memories were not to be disturbed until you were deathless! They were to protect you, Maya.”