A moment later, we stood along the shore. I caught my breath, dizzied from the sudden jolt of solidness beneath me.
“You were wrong,” he said.
“About what?”
“I have done the impossible,” he announced. “I have embraced the night sky.”
“You did no such thing.”
“Is that so?” he asked. His voice felt too close, and I realized that I hadn’t stepped out of the circle of his arms. It had felt too natural to lean against him. I looked up to see his brow arched, his lips tilting into a knowing grin. “Then what do you call this?”
I thought about the fall and how he had offered zero warning. I lifted my chin: “Opportunistic.”
A wolfish grin lit up his face. “You caught me.”
“Now who’s performing impossibilities?” I smirked. “Someone should write a story about me, for I have ensnared death himself.”
“Not ensnared,” he said, and his voice burned low in my ear. “Enchanted.”
“You’re getting far better at flattery.”
I stepped out of the circle of his arms and into the silky sand that hugged the ocean. When I turned to look at the water, I forgot everything. The ocean churned the constellations, rearranging a thousand tales in its ink-dark water. Water always had a calming effect on me. But standing before the ocean, I felt awed. The ocean stretched infinite, so that nothing but a delicate thread of land kept the sky and sea apart.
“What do you see?” asked the Dharma Raja.
I told him what I saw—ink and starlight, torn stories and new endings. And as I spoke, his obsidian eyes seemed to gleam in longing.
“I would give anything to see the world the way you do,” he said softly.
“And I would give anything to see the world as you do. You travel everywhere. Never tethered to one place or one allotted time.”
“True. But my eyes have squandered every sight I have been given,” he said, resentment deepening his voice. “I am trying to change how I see the world.”
“Are you following advice from the same instructor who taught you how to pay a compliment?” I asked, teasing. “If so, I might counsel you otherwise.”
“In truth, I think you have been my instructor in seeing the world differently,” he said. His fingers brushed against mine, just soft enough to be coincidence. “Lately, I have tried to summon wonder like a lens. But it does not come to me until I stand beside you.”
We walked along the shore. Water pooled around our ankles, and the shock of it was cold and welcoming. The Dharma Raja murmured something under his breath, and colorful glass diyas and white petals sprang up along the waves. Like wading through a festival.
“I envy you too,” I said suddenly. I couldn’t stop thinking of the legendary Tapestry in Naraka, an object where every mortal life possessed a thread and every life was held in fragile balance. “When a thread is frayed in a thousand directions, no one but you gets to decide which path to choose. Only your voice counts in that tale, and there is no story more potent than life.”
“So this is why you ask for your patrons to tell you about their dreams and their days. You wish to know whether the dream fruit you created made a difference?” I nodded, and the Dharma Raja murmured: “You want your voice to be heard. I understand.”
His words—simple and unfettered—rang in my ears. He understood. In the Otherworld, striving for things beyond what you were given was unreasonable. Even Nritti and Uloopi couldn’t fathom why I wanted so much.
I hadn’t realized, until now, how understanding could coax a small, shared world into existence. When I answered him, even my words felt new. Like they were spoken in a language birthed into being for this very moment.
“I believe you,” I said. And then, I gave away a secret. “Night resets the world. It is a blank page for a story to be writ upon. But I have no hand or voice in the matter. That is why I envy you.”
He stopped walking, and reached for my hand. “Is that what you want?”
His face bent to mine. This close, it was impossible to ignore the nocturnal beauty of him. This close, it was impossible to break his fathomless gaze.
“I do,” I said. “And now that I’ve told you what I want, it’s only fair for you to tell me what you want.”
“Fair?” He laughed. “No one is guaranteed fairness. Not in any life. And not by any god or goddess.”
“Fine,” I said, waving a dismissive hand. “Keep your secrets.”
I turned away just as his hand snaked out for my wrist.
“It’s no secret that I want you,” he said. He bowed his head to mine, and his eyes burned black. “Come with me. I will make you a queen among storytellers. I will give you a kingdom. A place full of mirrors where you can step into any world you please. With your perspective and my position, we could rewrite the world.”
I want you …
We could rewrite the world …
It was more than tempting. His offer sang to me. When he stood this close, my heart didn’t race. It slowed. As if my heart and mind had conspired to live in this moment forever.
“As your bride?”
“As my queen,” he said. “What can I offer? What can I give to persuade you?”
For one glittering moment, I wanted to press my lips to his. To taste all that he offered. But then I stepped away, and the moment between us broke.
“I will freely give away my opinions and perspective,” I said. “But I will not marry without love. Not for all the power in the world. Life, for us, is too long to live without it.”
“Love,” he repeated. He thought it over. A strange expression drifted over his face, as if he was remembering something.
“What do you have against it?”
“Nothing.”
“Have you been in love before?” I asked. The question had burned inside me ever since I met him. Had his heart already been bruised and that’s why he wouldn’t consider giving it away once more? Which forced another question in my head: did I want his heart?
“Never,” he said.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that I can’t. I … just can’t.”
He dropped my wrist.
“If it’s my perspective and opinions that you want, I would give that to you freely,” I said. “As a friend.”
“I have no need for friends. I have enough of those.”
“You do? How many do you have?”
“One.”
I laughed, choosing to drop the subject. “Come, I want to walk farther along the shore.”
And just like that, his offer seemed swept away by the waves. Once more, we lapsed into conversation. He told me of the places he had seen in the mortal realm. Places where lush jungles pulsed and swallowed ancient temples and kingdoms with forgotten names. And I told him of the people I had met in the Otherworld. People who sold fantastical ornaments in the Night Bazaar and sung prophecies in reverse or got drunk on bottled lightning.
“There are people with curses too,” I said. “One apsara was cursed to lose her beauty for half her life for the next five hundred years. Her husband had to choose whether he wanted her beautiful by day or beautiful by night. It was said the right answer from him could break the curse.”
“What did he choose?”
“I’ll tell you, but I want to hear what you would pick if you were the husband.”
We walked in silence for a bit. In the distance I saw Airavata rise out of the ocean. The great white elephant trampled over the waves, his trunk working quickly with a needle and a gauzy mist. He was spinning fresh clouds for dawn. A tightness in my chest gathered and fell. It was nearly time for me to return.
“Whichever she wanted,” said the Dharma Raja.
“Why do you think that would break the curse?”
“You said that the right answer from the husband would break the curse. But we all know that true curses are broken from within, thus the answer from the husband must have been one that gave
his wife the power. Not him.”
I smiled. “Most husbands would not have thought that.”
“I would not be like most husbands.”
“Pity you had not married the apsara.”
We continued along the shore. My thoughts turned to the apsara with her ruined face for day, and the resentment she carried for night. The curse would break, eventually, but five hundred years was enough time to lose whatever love she once had. Even if her husband had chosen right … would she still love him?
Around us, the ocean changed. At once, my limbs yearned to sleep, to fold myself up in the remnants of night until tomorrow. The Dharma Raja must have sensed my exhaustion because he placed his hand gently at my back and steered us once more toward the ivory mirror.
“I wish you would come away with me,” he said softly.
My smile turned drowsy. “Not without love. Although I will not say no to a whole host of presents until then.”
He laughed. “You’re exquisitely greedy.”
And then I was back in my grove. What was left of night looked like a flimsy sheath of ice upon a pool. And dawn chipped away at it with pink hunger. Slowly, slowly, sleep claimed me. I felt the cold of the Dharma Raja slipping from me. He was leaving. I reached for him then, taking his hand and holding it close as an oath. Exhaustion unraveled my thoughts. And I was glad, then, that I was too tired to speak. Because all I could think was how the last thing I wanted before sleep was his hand in mine.
5
DEATH
She faded with the dawn. One moment, her hand in mine. The next moment, I held nothing. When I finally left the grove, the sun had devoured the last vestiges of night and drenched the whole sky a sticky rose gold. I walked away half full of glee and half full of hurt. The best was feeling the ghost of her touch. The worst was knowing she’d simply touched me from exhaustion.
And then, a mind-numbing idea entered my thoughts. I hadn’t had the chance to ask whether I could visit her tonight. Or what gift she might want. Unease filled me.
This was …
This was awful.
In Naraka, Gupta greeted me with a steaming cup of soma. I downed the goblet in one swallow. My hounds circled my feet, ears raised and muzzles hopeful for some evil soul to chew on for a year.
“Once more, I am empty-handed,” I said to them, holding up my palms. The hounds slinked away, annoyed.
“You sound pitiful,” said Gupta. He crossed his arms. “You look pitiful too.”
“She didn’t say if I could come back.”
I told him what had happened. Gupta stroked his chin. For reasons I can only assume were meant to heighten his cognitive madness, he hovered upside down with his feet crossed and jacket flapping about his ears.
“She never said anything like … until next time? Or later I will see you?”
“No.”
I was pacing. Why was I pacing? It hit me, then, that I was anxious. Like I was hungry but wouldn’t taste the food. Thirsty, but nothing would slake me.
Gupta righted himself and lightly tapped my forehead. I batted away his hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Experimenting.”
“Can you experiment on someone else’s forehead?”
“I could. But I won’t.”
Tap tap tap.
“Gupta. I realize you cannot die. But there are many ways to make—”
“You’re smitten,” he said. Matter of fact. As if he was remarking on the phase of the moon.
“You’re a fool.”
“So are you. Love has made a fool of you,” he said. And then he frowned. “There’s a poem somewhere in there, but I am miserable at structure and rhythm, so I will spare you my attempt.”
“How merciful,” I said, crossing my arms. “And I am not smitten. I simply like order in my universe. And there’s no order because I don’t know where I’m supposed to be this evening.”
“Just go back to whatever it is that you used to do during the evening.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but the words caught in my throat. For a moment, I struggled to remember what it was that I used to do during the evening. But when I closed my eyes, I only saw her face. Day and night. That was the difference she left within me. Every day after that had become a lesson in seeing.
Night fell. I waited. I didn’t know what I expected. A message? Some sign? A flock of eagles attacking me and dragging me to her? But maybe I waited too long. Because when I finally arrived at her grove, it was empty. Night had already been seamlessly sculpted into the land.
She was gone.
* * *
When I got back to Naraka, Gupta was dressed in a simple cotton-spun sherwani. He wore a pagri over his head, strangely molded so that it looked like he wore a pair of horns. And he was holding out a length of black silk to me.
“Where are you going?”
“Correction,” said Gupta. “Where are we going? Stop pining. Your beloved is probably in the Night Bazaar surrounded by every other anxious and amorous person. It’s a big day today.”
“What’s today?” I asked miserably.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll take it upon myself to read you a bedtime story as one would to an infant who has fallen ill. We can start with The Way the Mountain Grows over a Handful of Centuries and move onto dissertations of the benefits of semiaquatic creatures guarding temple treasures. Once upon a—”
“Noooo.”
“Then put this on.”
I snatched the cloak from Gupta, tied it around my shoulders, and flung it over my head. The hood was enchanted, so I could see perfectly through the material. I found a blank mirror and grimaced. The top half of my face was obscured.
“You want me to enter the Night Bazaar like this? I look ridiculous.”
“You always complain about drawing attention to yourself.”
“Gupta. I have a hood covering my face. What part of this does not draw attention to myself?”
“The part where if your full face was showing not a single person would come near you. At least this way, they’re curious.”
“She won’t be there.”
“On the contrary, I expect she will. She’ll be curious. You see, there’s an interesting rumor floating around the Otherworld. It is said that this Teej, the Dharma Raja himself is seeking a consort from along the lineup of eligible demon maidens, nature spirits, goddesses, and guardians. And this marks the last full moon before Teej, so it’s bound to be full of people and celebrations, would-be lovers and betrothed couples.”
“Who. Spread. That. Rumor?”
Gupta tapped his chin and a thousand little ink blooms erupted behind him, shaping into tiny arrows that all pointed … to him.
“But I don’t want to look through a lineup of maidens, I only want her.”
“She doesn’t have to know that.”
“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?”
“She’ll be intrigued. She’s used to expecting you every day. Every day you’ve gone there and professed your undying love—”
“I never said those words…”
“Fine, you bored holes into her eyes with an intense be-with-me-forever gaze.”
I said nothing, but I felt my jaw tighten.
“Naturally, she will grow accustomed to that! Where’s the excitement? The tension?”
A few moments later, we were walking through the Night Bazaar. Every avenue was crowded with people of all shapes and sizes. The Teej podium floated over the crowd, a gliding bird with impossible wings.
Gupta kept patting his makeshift horns. “Do these make my head look big?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent,” he said, smoothing his jacket. “I had to do my best to look unattractive. Difficult to do, you know. Can’t have men and women falling over themselves because of me.”
Above us, small golden lanterns careened to the center of the Night Bazaar. Music poured out from
unseen instruments, and the rhythm was heady with wonder and yearning. Even Gupta had begun to bob his head to the beat. We walked closer to the sounds of dancing, the raucous cheering and countdowns. When a clearing appeared beneath the split sky, the Teej podium transformed into an unopened lotus bud. With one thunderous clap, the petals peeled back, revealing a golden stage filled with apsaras. The opening act before the dance of would-be lovers. I stifled a yawn, and kept looking.
Vendors crowded around the stage, hawking their wares before an entranced audience. Every time I looked around the room, something within me leapt eagerly. Was she here? A wisp of stars and smoke caught my eye. But it was nothing but iridescent serpent scales on a beautiful nagini woman. Across the room, I thought I saw the fall of impossibly black hair. But it was nothing but a ribbon of slow-moving shadows, eagerly wrapping themselves around whichever dancing couple most desired the privacy.
Beside me, Gupta inhaled sharply. I followed his gaze to the split sky above us. It was breaking. Rain. Rain from the side of day danced toward the ground like chips of amber only to transform into golden-throated birds. Rain from the side of night danced toward the ground like chips of opal only to transform into silver-tailed fish.
“The sky belongs to birds. The ocean belongs to fish. But love belongs to all,” said Gupta.
“Another horrific poem of yours?”
He pointed behind the stage, where the words stained a wall of ivy.
“This is nauseating. I’m leaving. She isn’t here anyway.”
“Are you sure about that?” he asked, jerking his head to the floating podium.
The apsara dance had ended. A yakshini with sea-foam hair lifted her arms to wash the stage of its discarded rose petals and broken bells. Shunted to one corner of the stage stood a small onyx podium. Halved fruit spilled across the counter. Dream fruit. And there she was, pointed chin resting in a star-touched hand. Her hair thrown over one shoulder, twisted around with opals and jasmine. She was laughing. With a man. A human man, no less. A moment ago, the sight of her had crowded out my very thoughts. Now, the sight of her—with him—left me feeling strangely punctured. Like the air had gone solid and I could not possibly breathe it in. I watched them.
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