The Star-Touched Queen

by Roshani Chokshi

  * * *

  I remembered the night I awoke all alone, my eyes still puffed and swollen from weeping. Our bed was empty, the room echoing. I heard my name called through a mirror portal that Nritti had once used. Silently, I walked through the halls, my hair unbound and catching along the newfound icicles hanging across marble eaves.

  Nritti was there. Waiting. I ran to embrace her, not once seeing that her fingers were stained red, that the smell of rot clung to her. I was blind.

  “I forgive you,” she said tonelessly. “And I come in warning.”

  “Of what?”

  “Your Dharma Raja has turned on you, sister.”

  Her words became my poison and I let it fill me, blind me, until all I saw was betrayal.

  * * *

  Nritti fed me images through an obsidian portal—Amar tearing out the tapestry threads like throats, of him gloating in the fallen lives, of him ignoring my words, waiting for the moment where he could use the agni pariksha to exile me forever.

  “You were nothing but his dark plaything,” Nritti said.

  And I let myself believe her.

  * * *

  On the day of the agni pariksha, light transfixed Amar’s face.

  “I have every faith in you, my love,” he said, trailing fingers along my jaw. “This will put an end to every rumor. This will keep you safe from them. I know our days have been cold, but after this, we will be as we once were.”

  Inside, my heart snarled, but I kept my face blank. “I will not disappoint.”

  All the members of the Otherworld assembled for my trial. I wore white, the dress of mourning. In the Night Bazaar, a dim glow lit up the faces of the attendees, clinging to well-oiled horns and scaled skin. Leonine rakshas waited patiently, weapons quivering in their grip. If I failed, they were free to depose me. If I succeeded, they would end their bloodshed in the human realms.

  Sacred flames lapped up from the ground. Ribbons of fire snaked out like tongues and grasping hands. I looked to Amar. His face was stern. Hopeful. For what outcome, I thought I knew. But I was wrong.

  The agni pariksha scraped through me, burning talons that combed through my being. Survive unscathed and it was proof of my worthiness as queen. I did not doubt that I would pass. The question was what to do after. Nritti’s words floated through my mind as I burned and burned and burned. He wants you to fail, sister. He does not know how strong you are. When you succeed, leave. Leave his horrible kingdom. Let him fend for himself. Let him weep. Let him fail. Start anew. With me.

  Nritti had fed me so many images—Amar dancing with a beautiful nagini in a sea palace carved of glass. Amar flinching from my touch. My tongue was full of smoke and heartbreak. My mind was full of lies.

  I don’t remember when the agni pariksha ended. I only remembered emerging, my ankles encircled with ash. A deafening roar—applause or resentment, fury or joy—as I left. And I remember Amar’s face, one dark eyebrow arched as he surveyed the crowd, a proud smirk on his face as though he expected this all along.

  All that time, I thought he was merely pretending.

  * * *

  In Naraka, a feast awaited me. Every room dripped silver, glass blooms and petals carpeted the floor. The walls of our kingdom shimmered as if underwater and moonlight glimmered through the lattice windows. Sweet kafir cream and pista cakes in golden bowls lay piled high among the tables. But I would touch none of it.

  “Are you disappointed?” I asked coldly.

  Amar slipped his arms around my waist. “I always believed in you. It is the world outside who needed convincing.”

  “Liar,” I hissed, stepping out of the ring of his arms.

  “What is the meaning of this?”

  “You humiliated me. You left me to them like carrion before vultures. And like vultures, they devoured me.”

  My voice was hoarse and brittle. I hated him. I hated him for abandoning me. I hated him for needing him.

  Amar stepped back, his jaw clenched. “I did it to quell dissent. To keep you safe. I was ashamed that I had to ask you to undergo the agni pariksha.”

  “So ashamed you distanced yourself from me the moment you demanded that trial?”

  Amar looked stunned. “I am the Dharma Raja for a reason. I would not have my own impartiality questioned by favoring you. Surely, you knew this.”

  “What would you have done if I failed?”

  “You couldn’t fail,” said Amar. “That’s why I did not worry. You were meant to be the queen of these lands. We were meant to rule together. For all of eternity.”

  “I would rather die than rule by the side of a coward.”

  Shadows curled away from Amar’s body.

  “Coward?” he hissed. “Cowardice is running from the difficult choices made by the ones that love you most. If I have been a coward, so have you, jaani. But we may start anew. Let us not speak of this time any longer.”

  He tried, once more, to tilt my face into a kiss, but I moved away.

  “I saw you spread the rumors yourself in the Otherworld. I watched you take solace in another’s arms. And if surviving the agni pariksha means spending eternity with you, then I would rather live life as a mortal.”

  The room became damp and sticky with darkness.

  “What lies you hurl at me,” he murmured.

  “I don’t trust you.”

  He stepped back, wounded. “Has your judgment become so compromised? If you truly do not believe the truth in my words, then you have no place here.”

  We stared at one another, fury swelling between us. The silence expanded, solidifying our words like manacles.

  “Once, I thought you loved me,” I said in a broken voice. “I refuse to live in your shadow for the rest of eternity.”

  His eyes widened, obsidian eyes searching and disbelieving.

  “Then leave!” he said, gesturing to the door angrily.

  * * *

  So I did.

  I stepped into the reincarnation pool, letting the waters tease my life apart, inflicting upon myself the same curse that had forced me to undergo the agni pariksha. In the distance, Amar’s voice roared for me. Pleading. But it was too little. And far too late.

  * * *

  I blinked furiously and the images spun away. The two threads lay against my palm, scalding and writhing like twin serpents. My head was full of what I had seen and what I now knew. I had allowed myself to hear lies and never questioned their truth. I had let suspicion rule me at a terrible price.

  My grip on the threads tightened. I had to release myself from her hold.

  Outside, the sky pulsed yellow and the marble floors of Naraka sweltered with heat. In the distance, I heard the faintest shattering sound and my heart lurched. Nritti had gotten through. Any minute now and she would run into the throne room. She would wield her powers and I—still powerless, still mortal—would fall.

  I tugged at the threads. But they wouldn’t budge. My lungs filled with fire. No. No, please … not now. The tapestry was leering and weighing, waiting and wondering. The weight of its magic was a crushing thing and my mind was splintering beneath it. Images skittered across my skin, pushing up beneath my fingernails, prickling against my feet. I heard Nritti’s voice filtered through the threads—“unworthy.” I heard my own thoughts echoing, tilting around my hurt.

  And then I stopped. Those moments were mine, but they didn’t define me anymore. I wouldn’t let my doubts cripple me. I had to accept who I was, what I had done and, more important, who I could be. Amar’s voice wrapped around me. Trust yourself. Trust who you are. I hadn’t listened to him then, but I would now. I stared down the tapestry. I knew, now, why it had refused my touch. It didn’t know me because I didn’t know myself. And so I spoke as if in greeting:

  “I am Maya and Yamuna and Yamini. I am a frightened girl, a roaring river and night incarnate,” I said. My voice was strong and clear. Around me, the tapestry shrank back, like a scolded animal. “I have been a forgotten princess, a stubborn queen
and a false sadhvi. And I will not be tethered.”

  Calm spiraled around me. I no longer saw Naraka’s livid sky, nor heard the scrape of glass along the halls. I had slipped into a moment of lost time, a moment for me alone, something sacred and inviolate—as precious as self. I grasped hold of my thread, untwisting it slowly from Nritti’s.

  “My life belongs to me,” I said.

  And then I pulled.

  29

  AN END. A BEGINNING.

  Light seeped through my skin like water. Light pressed its fingers against the cracks in my being, patched the rifts and ravines with memory until I was drenched in color, in sound, in life. When I stepped away from the tapestry, I felt … heavier. As if all this time, my existence was an ethereal thing spent searching for myself.

  It was time. Time to leave this limbo. Time to embrace the light that was neither banished nor tainted, but buried deep within me, waiting until I could claim it once more. The tapestry shivered. I thought I heard a sigh of relief echo in the halls. Before me, the threads convulsed, weaving an entirely different image—Amar. His eyes were still open and unseeing, but I knew he wasn’t lost. The tapestry was trying to tell me something. I thought about his last moments, his last actions … he had called me jaani and tapped his lips twice before his hands fluttered to his heart.

  And then I understood. I knew why Nritti couldn’t destroy him.

  I was his jaan. His life. Kill me, and he would be rendered useless, an echo of himself.

  “I will save you,” I whispered to his image.

  The tapestry sank away, shimmering into a mirror-portal where I could see the Otherworld’s reflection glittering in the distance. I could see Amar’s body sprawled out, waiting for me. I was about to push through the portal when the sound of a blade dragging through dust stopped me.

  “Found you,” sneered Nritti.

  I didn’t turn immediately. Her voice rippled in my head. Despite everything, I mourned her. I mourned us. I mourned for the girls that had crouched beside a riverbank and fished out tortoises and pearls. I gathered all that sorrow … and then I let it go.

  “I was not hiding,” I said, turning to face her.

  Her face blanched. “You’ve … you’ve changed.”

  I looked down. I had changed. But not in looks. I was not splendidly clothed like Nritti and neither bangles adorned my wrists nor did tiaras sparkle at my temples. Instead, inky clouds scooted across my skin before fading softly into rose-gold and plum-velvet. Warm stars dusted my palms and storm clouds danced about my ankles. I was wreathed in light.

  “So did you,” I said softly. “Is this what Vanaj wanted? He loved you.”

  Nritti stepped back, flinching. “He did. And you wouldn’t save him. You were too weak to do anything for me.”

  “No, my friend. It was you who was weak.”

  I looked past her, to the ruined Night Bazaar in the portal. The sky should have shown the sun and moon dancing above. Instead, there was only clammy dark. And I was tired of the dark. I closed my eyes. In my mind, I pictured the mango grove outside my room in the harem. I pictured the sweetness of Amar’s kiss, the fierce look in Gauri’s eyes, Kamala’s blood-curdling laugh. Those moments were parsed pieces of myself and they held a power more potent than chaos—it was life, strong and pulsating.

  I stretched out my fingertips, letting their strength leak onto the ground, pooling into golden puddles that sent a force of light between me and Nritti. She screamed, throwing her hands to shield herself. And as she did, Amar’s noose was thrown out of her hands and soared into the air. I reached out—

  —and caught it.

  I grinned. This time, I didn’t look back to see what I had lost. I felt the mirror-portal against my hands, let hope swell between my ribs, and then I pushed.

  * * *

  I stumbled through the portal. The sounds were deafening. Outside the small room where Amar lay, voices hollered for war, for blood. Nritti’s enchantment of hunger hadn’t ceased. If anything, it had only grown. Within seconds, they could storm through the barriers of the Otherworld and sink their teeth into the human realms. I couldn’t let that happen. But I couldn’t stop them alone.

  I gathered Amar in my arms. For the first time, there was no nagging absence in the seams of my soul. I was whole. All the frayed patches of my spirit mended. The tapestry’s glittering threads had climbed through the fissures of memory and half-dreams and filled them with color. I looked at him and love filled me. I loved him with the force of a thousand lifetimes, made greater by the fact that my love was returned.

  I clasped his hands around the noose. A touch of color returned to his cheeks.

  “You are my life too,” I said and then I pressed my lips to his.

  A burst of heat met my hands before it tempered to something cool and distant. Amar stirred on my lap, solid hands reaching to clasp my fingers. He blinked, shaking his head. Slowly, as if he was approaching something fragile and hallowed, he traced the length of our tangled fingers before his gaze trailed past my arm, my neck, before fixing on my eyes. We were truly, finally visible to one another.

  Neither the secret whirring song of the stars nor the sonorous canticles of the earth knew the language that sprang up in the space between us. It was a dialect of heartbeats, strung together with the lilt of long suffering and the incandescent hope of an infinite future. Amar searched my face, his fingers hovering over my jawline, lips and collarbones. But he didn’t touch me. Instead, he took in a shuddering breath.

  “Are you real?” he managed, his voice a shadow. “Or are you an illusion? Some final punishment for losing my way?”

  “I’m no illusion,” I said, staring into his eyes.

  The ferocity of his stare laid my soul bare for him to judge.

  “I thought I would be lost forever,” he said hoarsely, pulling me to him.

  His hands tangled in my hair, the kiss resonating at my core. He pressed his lips to mine with the intensity of lifetimes and when we finally broke apart, his lips curved into a fragile smile.

  “You’ve saved me.”

  “Did you have any doubts that I could?”

  He hesitated. “Your abilities are something I could never doubt. Your will, however, I was unsure of. When I could finally bring you back, I thought you would leave again. I’d never have a chance to explain. Forgive me—”

  I stopped him. “I will not let us be beings of regret. I know my past. What I want is my future.”

  He smiled and moved to kiss me again, when the entire room quivered. The flimsy walls of the room split and tore. The obsidian mirror before us snapped in half and Nritti tumbled out. She stared at us and her mouth curled into a snarl.

  “Not again,” she hissed.

  Amar tried to protect me, but I slipped out of his arms and rose to my feet. I wasn’t the one in need of protecting. It was Nritti. Amar smiled and joined me. He stamped his foot against the earth and the walls around us fell. The din of the Otherworld rose riotous around us. Nritti’s enchantment nearly claimed my balance, but I held strong.

  All that hunger. It was plain in the faces of the Otherworldly beings. Rakshas the size of elephants had sunk to their knees, filling their mouths with dirt. Even the great timingala had begun to keen, slapping its tail into the water and drenching the Otherworld. I watched as a bull-aspect demon slammed his horns into the ground, upheaving dirt. My stomach flipped. If Nritti wouldn’t lead them to the human realm to sate their bloodlust, then they would dig their way to the human realm.

  In the fray of people, my gaze flew to the only two beings not moving: Gupta and Kamala. The moment he saw me, Gupta dropped his hold on Kamala. He stared at me, a huge smile tugging at his lips. Kamala snorted and stamped the ground before galloping to me. I caught her around the neck, burying my face in her mane.

  “Certainly a false sadhvi, but not a false queen…,” she said, nuzzling me.

  Eyes like lamplight turned to us, glances cutting away from the dirt to witness me
and Amar. When the Otherworld beings saw us, they paused, brows furrowing as if they had forgotten something important and had only just remembered. I flexed my fingers. Some of the darkness lifted, blotted away like ink on a page. The space around me was a pelt in need of mending. Even now, I could feel through its rifts, sensing all the pieces that had been knocked askew in chaos like broken bones. Somewhere under the muddled air of sweat and dried blood was the bright scent of fairy fruit. Somewhere between those ragged strips of night lay moonbeams tangled with lightning, stars ripped and furious. I could mend it all.

  The whole of the Otherworld fell silent. Some of the Otherworldly beings shook their heads and stumbled backward. Others dropped their weapons and prostrated themselves on the ground. But most of them didn’t fall as easily. Instead, they turned their attention toward Nritti, waiting for directions.

  “You have gone too far,” said Amar.

  Nritti grinned. “You have not even begun to witness the destruction I can wreak.”

  “We won’t give you that chance,” I said.

  Amar moved to my side. He didn’t crouch behind or run in front. He stood by my side as an equal. He laced his fingers in mine, his expression handsomely severe.

  “What should we do, jaani?”

  “Restore the light,” I said.

  Amar grinned. He wrung his hands like he was balancing an invisible sphere, his face drawn in focus. In the space between his fingers, a small pinprick of light began to whirl faster and faster. Nritti roared, flashing her palms up. But I was faster. Stronger.

  She screeched at the nearby rakshas and bhuts, pointing wildly at me, but the monsters refused to budge. “What’s wrong with you fools?” she yelled. “Forget it! I’ll do it myself! You’re weak,” she seethed at the shrinking fey, “and when I’m the Rani of these realms, I will find each and every one of you pathetic excuses of monsters and show you the meaning of hell.”

  “For that,” I said, “you’ll need some experience.”