Death and Night--A Star-Touched Novella

by Roshani Chokshi

  But it seemed that wasn’t my choice to make.

  “I’ll go to Teej.”

  10

  DEATH

  The days blurred. I walked the halls, fed the hounds, stood before the Tapestry. Everywhere I moved, thoughts of her robbed me to the point where I sometimes didn’t recognize where I stood or where I was going. Fear is like a curse. But I choose differently. I wish I could say the same for you. I couldn’t shake those devious thoughts out of my head. She bent the way I saw the world. But she couldn’t bend it to the point that it broke a curse.

  Today was Teej. I tried to forget it, to lose myself in some other thought. But I couldn’t.

  The sky tilted to dusk. I fled to a part of the kingdom where souls waited to be categorized and organized, remade and reshaped. There, a familiar soul caught the light. And I remembered the request of the wife from so long ago, the woman whose words had spurred the listless existence that would very well be my future.

  “Do you wish to wait for your wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because life does not look how it should without her. It is a piece gone missing, a perspective that reminds me what it means to live. Without her, my life would be colorless. Life does not owe me fairness. But I will see beauty, even if I must fight for it. So will you let me stay beside her? And wait until she comes?”

  Maybe the words hadn’t truly come to me until now. But finally, finally, I saw it. And the truth was a latch in my heart. The soul reached out and touched me, and in it, I saw the barren wasteland of my thoughts. How the world had lost shape and color and texture since I had not seen her. What she coaxed out of me was a visceral need to live, and wasn’t that what fueled immortality and made it worthwhile anyway? That there were wonders still left to be uncovered? Perhaps she could not bend the world such that it would break a curse. But she had bent my thoughts until I saw hope around its meaning, silver in its bleakness. I wanted to believe the curse had broken. Because I did love her. I couldn’t remember where it started and I couldn’t fathom it stopping. And she had left. And the pain of it had sucked the color from my world.

  “I grant you this request,” I said.

  And then, I ran.

  Gupta was waiting for me, a dark green sherwani jacket in his hands.

  “I have been waiting out here for so long, I thought I had started aging.”

  “I don’t have time for this. I have to get to her—”

  “She won’t be at the grove. She’s at Teej.”

  My heart dropped.

  “Even if I go, how will she recognize me? Don’t most of those lovers use ridiculous signals or secret words on their palms or something?”

  “Maybe that’s the test,” said Gupta, shrugging. “You saw through a curse. Now she has to see through you.”

  * * *

  Choose me.

  I stood behind the podium, curtained off from everyone else. There were all kinds of tricks to Teej. People tattooed their hands with hints so that they would not end up with the wrong mate. But there was the leap of faith in this exercise, the same leap of faith required of a relationship. Maybe it was a fool’s errand, but I had made my hand indistinguishable. We had never studied each other palms but perhaps that was where the beauty lay. Whatever form she took, I would recognize her. Because it was not me that knew her, it was my soul. And it could never forget her.

  11

  NIGHT

  Hope is light. It shines its way into crevices and shadows you wouldn’t recognize. I held that hope within me, and I let it flare into a fire until it laid to waste my every doubt. I hardly remembered walking to the Teej celebration and waiting my turn in that line. Nritti held my hand tightly and waited beside me.

  “Uloopi told me to give you this,” said Nritti, opening my palms.

  A necklace with a round-cut sapphire and strung with delicate seed pearls fell into my hands.

  “What is this?”

  “She said this was what she created the first time she tried making the resurrection stone.”

  “Does it bring back the dead?”

  “No. But it calls forth our happiest memories.”

  I clasped the necklace around my neck, savoring the strange warmth of the pendant between my collarbones. It was magical, but not enchanted. No memories surged before my eyes. And yet, I felt a thread of warmth from my head to my toes. Like the afterglow of a long laugh.

  When I ascended the stage, some of the lesser beings taunted me. But I pushed past them, clutching that hope within me. This was a beginning. Maybe it would not be the beginning I wanted, but it was a beginning I deserved. I surveyed the row of hands, one by one, stopping when I saw the hand covered in soot. At first glance, it looked like it belonged to a raksha. But when I looked closer, I saw cracks in that paint. I saw that the monstrous was little more than a flimsy coat of color. More than that, it was an invitation—to start a life with a different way of seeing. Starting now. I reached out. The curtain fell back with a crumple of silk. Dimly, I heard the audience suck in their breath. There … there he stood. Tall and shadowed, with a crown of blackbuck horns threatening to pierce the split sky above us. Guilt flashed in his eyes, before it became something else entirely: relief.

  “I hoped you would choose me,” he said.

  I fought back an impossible laugh as that hope and light broke inside me.

  “I have no dowry.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Then what do you want from me?”

  “I want to lie beside you and know the weight of your dreams. I want to share whole worlds with you and write your name in the stars. I want to measure eternity with your laughter. Be my queen and I promise you a life where you will never be bored. I promise you more power than a hundred kings. And I promise you that we will always be equals.”

  “Not my soul then?”

  “Would you entrust me with something so precious?”

  I reached for one of my slippers and held it out, grinning.

  “Here, my love, the dowry of a sole.”

  He held me closer than a secret and when our lips met, the world between us became a charged and living thing.

  12

  DEATH

  I knew little of curses, but much of stories. These were the tales collected in teeth, passed down from the mouth of one generation to the next. I heard the dead murmur them like talismans when they walked through my halls. They shared stories of curses shattered by moonlight or splintered by kisses. In all the years since the Shadow Wife had pronounced my heartbreak, I had never believed them until now. Because here, with Night’s lips to mine, and the world yielding its treasures one by one … I knew that I was free.

  Read on for a preview of

  A Crown of Wishes

  the new novel from Roshani Chokshi

  Available March 2017

  PROLOGUE

  THE INVITATION

  Vikram had spent enough time with bitterness that he knew how to twist and numb the feeling. Tonight, he didn’t draw on his years of experience. Instead he let the acidic, snapping teeth of it chew at his heart. As he walked to the network of wooden huts that formed the ashram, the echo of laughter hung in the air. He stood in the dark, an outsider to a joke everyone knew.

  Since he was eight years old, he had spent part of every year at the ashram, learning alongside other nobility. Everyone else resented the part of the year where they returned to their kingdoms and endured having to put their lessons to use. Not Vikram. Every time he returned to Ujijain, he was reminded that his education was a formality. Not a foundation. He preferred that. No expectations meant learning without fear of being limited and growing opinions without fear of voicing them. His thoughts preferred the fertile ground of silence. Silence sharpened shrewdness, which only made him embrace the title his father’s empire had, albeit grudgingly, given him: Fox Prince.

  But shrewd o
r not, the moment he entered the ashram, he wouldn’t be able to ignore the celebrations of another prince called home to rule. Soon, Ujijain would summon him home. And then what? The days would bleed together. The hope would shrivel. It would be harder to outwit the council. Harder to speak. He tightened his fists. That bitterness turned taunting. How many years had he spent believing that he was meant for more? Sometimes he thought his head was a snarl of myth and folktales, where magic coaxed ignored princes out of the shadows and gave them a crown and a legend to live in. He used to wait for the moment when magic would drape a new world over his eyes. But time turned his hopes dull and lightless. The Council of Ujijain had seen to that.

  Near the entrance of the ashram, a sage sat beside the dying flames of a ceremonial fire. What was a sage doing here at this hour? Around his neck, the sage wore the pelt of a golden mongoose. Not a pelt. A real mongoose. The creature was napping.

  “There you are,” said the sage, opening his eyes. “I’ve been waiting for you for quite some time, Fox Prince.”

  Vikram stilled, suspicion prickling in his spine. No one waited for him. No one looked for him. The mongoose around the sage’s neck yawned. Something tumbled out of the creature’s mouth. Vikram reached for it, his heart racing as his hand closed around something cold and hard: a ruby. The ruby shone with unnatural light.

  The mongoose yawned … jewels?

  “Show-off,” said the sage, bopping the mongoose on its nose.

  The creature’s ears flattened in reproach. Its fur shimmered in the dark. Bright as true gold. Bright as … magic. When he was a child, Vikram thought enchantment would save him. He even tried to trap it. Once he laid out a net to catch a wish-bestowing yaksha and ended up with a very outraged peacock. When he got older, he stopped trying. But he couldn’t give up hoping. Hope was the only thing that lay between him and a throne that would only be his in name. He clutched the ruby tighter. It pulsed, shuddering as an image danced in its face—an image of him. Sitting on the throne. Powerful. Freed.

  Vikram nearly dropped the ruby. Magic clung to his body. Starlight raced through his veins, and the sage grinned.

  “Can’t speak? There, there, little Fox Prince. Perhaps all the words are knocking against your head and you simply can’t reach out and snatch the right one. But I am kind. Well, perhaps not. Kindness is a rather squishy thing. But I do love to lend assistance. Here is what you should say: ‘Why are you here?’”

  Shocked, all Vikram could do was nod.

  The sage smiled. Sometimes a smile was little more than a sliver of teeth. And sometimes a smile was a knife cutting the world in two: before and after. The sage’s smile belonged to the latter. And Vikram, who had never been anxious, felt as if his whole world was about to be rearranged by that grin.

  “I am here because you summoned me, princeling. I am here to extend an invitation for a game that takes place when the century has grown old. I am here to tell you that the Lord of Wealth and Treasures caught a whiff of your dreams and followed it until he found your hungry heart and cunning smile.”

  The ruby in Vikram’s palm quivered and shook. Crimson light broke in front of his eyes and he saw that the ruby was not a ruby, but an invitation in the shape of a jewel. It shook itself out … unfurling into gold parchment that read:

  * * *

  THE LORD OF WEALTH AND TREASURES CORDIALLY INVITES YOU TO THE TOURNAMENT OF WISHES.

  Please present the ruby and a secret truth to the gate guardians by the new moon.

  This ruby is good for two living entries.

  The winner will be granted their heart’s wish.

  But know now that desire is a poisonous thing.

  * * *

  Vikram stared up from the parchment. Distantly, he knew he should be frightened. But fright paled compared to the hope knifing through him. That shadowed part of him that had craved for something more was no childhood fantasy gone twisted with age. Perhaps it had always been a premonition. Like knowledge buried in the soul and not the sight. True but hidden things.

  The sage nodded to the ruby. “Look and see what awaits you.”

  He looked, but saw nothing.

  “Try singing! The ruby wants to feel loved. Seduced.”

  “I wouldn’t call my singing voice seduction,” said Vikram, finding his voice. “More like sacrilege, honestly.”

  “It’s not the sound of your song that coaxes out truth. It’s the sincerity. Like this—”

  The sage sung no song, but a story. Vikram’s story. An image burned in the ruby. Vikram clutching the Emperor with one hand and tightly holding a bundle of blue flowers in the other. Voices slipped out of the gem: muffled displeasure, the title “heir of Ujijain” spoken around a laugh. He saw the future Ujijain promised him—a useless life of luxury wearing the face of power. He saw the nightmare of a long life, day upon day of stillness. His chest tightened. He’d rather die. The sage’s voice had no tone. But it had texture, like a scattering of gold coins.

  “If you want a throne, you’ll have to play

  The Lord of Treasures loves his games and tales

  A wanting heart will make his day

  Or you can waste your life recounting fails

  But say it, little prince, say you’ll play this game

  If you and a partner play, never will you be the same.”

  The ashram huts loomed closer and the fires crackled like topaz. The idea took root in Vikram’s mind. He’d built his life on wanting the impossible—true power, recognition, a future—and now magic had found him the moment he stopped looking. It breathed life into all those old dreams, filling him with that most terrible of questions: What if …

  But even as his heart leapt to believe it, the sage’s words made him pause.

  “Why did you say partner?”

  “It is required of your invitation.”

  Vikram frowned. The princes in the ashram had never inspired his faith in teams.

  “Find the one who glows, with blood on the lips and fangs in the heart.”

  “Sounds as though they would be hard to miss.”

  “For you, doubly so,” said the sage. His voice expanded. Not quite human. The sound rose from everywhere, dripping from the sky, growing out of the dirt. “Say you will play. Play the game and you may yet win your empire, not just the husk of its name. You only get one chance to accept.”

  The sage sliced his hand across the flames. Images spilled out like jewels:

  A palace of ivory and gold, riven with black streams where caught stars wriggled and gave up their light. There were prophecies etched on doorframes, and the sky above was nothing but undulating ocean where discarded legends knifed through the water. A thousand yakshas and yakshinis trailed frost, forest brambles, pond swill and cloudy coronets. They were preparing for something. Vikram felt as if he’d tasted his dreams and starved for more.

  Magic plucked at his bones, begging him to leave this version of himself behind. He leaned forward, his heart racing to keep up with the present.

  “Yes,” he breathed.

  As if he could say anything else.

  The moment split. Silently, the world fell back on itself.

  “Excellent!” said the sage. “We will see you in Alaka at the new moon.”

  “Alaka? But that’s, I mean, I thought it was myth.”

  “Oh dear boy, getting there is half the game.” The sage winked. “Good for two living entries!”

  “What about two living exits?”

  “I like you,” laughed the sage.

  In a blink, he disappeared.

  PART ONE

  THE GIRL

  1

  TO BE A MONSTER GAURI

  Death stood on the other side of the chamber doors. Today I would meet it not in my usual armor of leather and chain mail, but in the armor of silk and cosmetics. One might think one armor was stronger than the other, but a red lip was its own scimitar and a kohl-darkened eye could aim true as a steel-tipped arrow.

  Death migh
t be waiting, but I was going to be a queen. I would have my throne if I had to carve a path of blood and bone to get it back.

  Death could wait.

  The bath was scalding, but after six months in a dungeon, it felt luxurious. Gauzy columns of fragrance spun slowly through the bath chambers, filling my lungs with an attar of roses. For a moment, thoughts of home choked me. Home, with the pockets of wildflowers and sandstone temples cut into the hills, with the people whose names I had come to murmur in my prayers before sleep. Home, where Nalini would have been waiting with a wry and inappropriate joke, her heart full of trust that I hadn’t deserved. But that home was gone. Skanda, my brother, would have made sure by now that no hearth in Bharata would welcome me.

  The Ujijain attendant who was supposed to prepare me for my first—and probably last—meeting with the Prince of Ujijain didn’t speak. Then again, what do you say to those who are about to be sentenced to death? I knew what was coming. I’d gathered that much from the guards outside my dungeon. I wanted intelligence, so I faked whimpering nightmares. I’d practiced a limp. I’d let them think that my reputation was nothing more than rumor. I’d even let one of them touch my hair and tell me that perhaps he could be convinced to get me better food. I’m still proud that I sobbed instead of ripping out his throat with my teeth. It was worth it. People have a tendency to want to comfort small, broken-looking things. They told me they’d keep my death quick if I’d only smile for them one more time. I hated being told to smile. But now I knew the rotation of the guards’ schedule. I knew which ones nursed battle wounds and how they entered the palace. I knew that no sentinels guarded the eastern gate. I knew which soldiers grinned despite their bad knee. I knew how to escape.