Sisters of the Snake

by Sasha Nanua

  “Yes,” the raja concedes. “Your mother—she should know these developments. Where—?”

  “Oh! She’s in the infirmary.”

  We move hastily to the royals’ infirmary wing. The king, Shima, and my sister hurry inside, immediately drifting to the queen, who lies on a cot. Somehow she looks pristine despite what’s happened. I try to move past the curtain, but something roots me to the spot.

  Meet your mother, a voice tells me.

  She wouldn’t believe a peasant like you is her daughter, another says. So I watch from the curtain’s parting, nervously peering inside.

  “Mother,” Rani says, anguish marking her face. She lifts the queen’s wrists, both rope-burned. “I can’t believe Amara did this to you.”

  “Rani, what is going on? Natesh, why are you back so soon from the—”

  “I’m sorry, Maneet, but it must wait for later.” He looks back at me, then Rani’s gaze follows.

  “Mother . . . there’s someone we want you to meet.”

  Rani draws the curtain aside, her body blocking me from view of the queen. “Are you ready?” she whispers.

  I shake my head.

  “You need to do this,” she says. “No more fear.”

  I shiver but nod. Rani returns to the room. I shuffle out from my hiding spot, and the queen gasps. “How—”

  “Before you ask, it’s not a trick, Mother,” Rani says. “Amara erased your memories of it with her cuffs, but you gave Ria up when we were just babies because of an old prophecy.”

  The queen gulps. “I would remember my children. I would remember—”

  She stops and looks at me, the real me, for the first time. Meekly, I step closer. I swear I see something flash in her eyes. Recognition?

  “Natesh, what is the meaning of this? Twins?”

  I think of how the raja arrived back at the palace and found me and Rani. He saw me. He saw his daughter.

  “I know we’ve all done things we’re not proud of,” I begin. “I stole to survive. I lived on the streets until I found my twin. Then I pretended to be Princess Rani.” I pause. “You both gave me up to a midwife,” I say, and Rani raises her brows. She doesn’t know this part of the story yet. “There was a prophecy that I’d grow too strong, destroy the kingdom with my powers. The strength of my magic might’ve been true, but the outcome wasn’t.”

  “We were both locked into lives we never wanted,” Rani continues solemnly. “This was our opportunity for escape. Father, we’ve all been separated for too long. Now . . .” She squares her shoulders. “We have magic, both of us. If we work together to return your memories . . .”

  The king shakes his head. “Snake magic, despite being deeply tied to memory magic, has never returned anyone’s memories.”

  “But maybe it can,” I supply. Everyone’s eyes swivel to mine. “Amara took your memories away with her cuffs. But what if they weren’t fully erased? What if they were . . . locked away?”

  “In their minds?” Rani wonders.

  “No. Inside us.” I take Rani’s hand, reminding her of the times we combined our magic to access our memories. Once, during the engagement party, we even saw our parents’ memories. The moment they looked in the fountain and heard the prophecy. The moment they decided to give me up for my own good.

  “You mean Amara’s magical cuffs didn’t erase memories like she thought. She merely extracted the memories and kept them in another place without realizing!” Rani cries. “We just need to find a way to take the memories out of us and give them back to our parents.”

  I pace along the floor, thinking. “Shima, do you think you could help?”

  As the raja said, snake magic does not return memories. But . . . my snake venom might.

  “Snake venom?” Rani repeats, glancing at me.

  It takes a moment for the words to spur an idea. I recite what I learned while in the palace: “Snake venom was what Amara used to control Saeed’s dreams. Visions,” I correct. “He has some of the Memory Master’s powers.”

  The king gasps. “But that’s not—”

  “Possible?” I finish. “I thought so, too.” I gently place a hand on the queen’s arm. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever voluntarily touched her. Though her gaze is still one of hesitation.

  The raja and queen exchange a glance.

  “Amara used the snake venom tincture to block Saeed’s visions,” I explain. “But if your memories are already blocked, maybe snake venom—specifically Shima’s, since she’s bound to us—will have the opposite effect and release the memories.”

  Can you do it? I ask, heart slamming against my chest.

  Shima is hesitant. The risk is great, she warns. But it may restore the raja’s memories.

  After Shima gives me the instructions, I guide the king onto a cot. Understanding dawns on his face. He knows what needs to happen.

  Shima lowers her head to the raja’s wrist, sensing the magic, the life, thrumming in his veins.

  Then her fangs sink deep. His eyes shut from the pain. The darkening venom swirls through him, turning his veins black.

  When he lets out a cry of agony, the queen snaps up and holds on to his shoulders. “What’s happening?” she asks frantically. The raja shakes, but Shima continues to inject the snake venom.

  My heart skips. Tears fill my eyes at the sight of him. I dig deep down, hoping he can see, feel, what I feel. Even Rani’s lips quiver, unspoken apologies ready to be let loose.

  My sister clutches the raja’s hand. “I remember what I felt during my Ceremony,” she says, as if trying to reach him. “The pain. It was as if the world would crush me in its palm. Hear me, Father. You’re all right. You’re safe.” She steps closer. “I wish I’d never yelled at you. I wish we had only understood each other better.”

  Shima releases herself from the raja, venom dripping to the infirmary floor with a hiss. I don’t know if it’s because of Rani’s words or Shima’s retreat, but the raja stills. When his eyes open, they land on mine with an emotion I have never seen from him.

  Love. Remembrance.

  “Ria,” he says. “Rani.”

  “You remember.” I’m shivering. My father. He knows who I am.

  “You did it, Shima!” Rani says.

  You mean I reversed the curse? she says. I’ve always wanted to say that.

  The raja lifts himself from the cot. There’s something new in his eyes: recognition. Reclamation. “The fountain, the prophecy . . . I remember it all. You were right, Ria. We did give you up to the palace midwife. She delivered you both. And we trusted her to care for Ria even as our memories faded. Amara helped us do that.” The raja shivers. He looks at the queen. “But what of Maneet’s memories? Administering snake venom in such a way to a non-snakespeaker would be fatal.”

  Rani purses her lips. “I think I have an idea.”

  An older woman named Jas stands in the infirmary an hour later, holding a vial of green liquid between her fingers.

  “Is that it?” Rani asks the woman, and she nods, looking at me with curiosity.

  “I am learned in all medicines,” Jas tells the queen, who’s sitting on a freshly made cot, the raja by her side. “Including snake venom tinctures. This is a diluted dose . . . if all goes as it should, this will help restore the memories piece by piece, rather than attempting it all at once.”

  It was Rani who introduced me to Jas, a woman I’ve learned was Rani’s old tutor’s wife. The way she offers Rani a motherly gaze makes me wonder how close they’ve grown these past few weeks. I smile at the thought.

  Jas hands the queen the vial, and she glances at the raja and hesitantly takes a sip.

  The queen shuts her eyes against a sudden burst of pain, and I shoot forward on instinct, clutching her hands. “M-Mother,” I say for the first time, “look at me. Remember me.”

  A ghostly pallor replaces the queen’s brown skin. Her eyelids flutter.

  “She will need rest,” Jas says. “The liquid is still powerful for a non-
snakespeaker.”

  “Thank you, Jas,” I tell her. The woman nods, gives Rani a parting hug, and leaves.

  I don’t let go of my mother’s hands. I wait, watching her eyes shut, her breaths slow. I don’t know how long it takes—three minutes, ten, twenty—but Rani stays with me through it all. I watch my mother’s chest rise and fall with each breath, terrified that in the next moment she’ll go silent and still. Eventually, I hear a gasp of air.

  The queen of Abai’s breath shudders out, and her eyes snap open. As she straightens her spine, her gaze lands on us knowingly, and her cheeks flush.

  “My twins,” she says, glancing between us. She bursts into tears.

  “You remember me?” I say, lips wobbling.

  “The memory was simply locked away, not erased,” Rani says, looking at me with a smile. And right now, with my parents’ memories returned, we are beginning to unlock our true lives, piece by piece.

  Mother’s wrinkles deepen as she frowns, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “How are you both here? Alive? The fountain foresaw one of your deaths.”

  “‘The girl of light will perish at the other’s hand, while the victor survives,’” I recite. “That was just one path. One future. But we can make our own futures.”

  I will myself to mimic Rani’s strength, to call up that bravery lying deep in my bones. Because now we’ll both need it.

  I’ve always called myself the girl from nowhere, the girl who passed through Abai’s poorest villages just to survive. But now I have to act like a princess. For real this time. Maybe I can be a girl whose story is greater than she ever imagined.

  “Tutor taught me something I’ll never forget.” Rani takes my hand and says, “We can be more than what the stars wish for. More than we ever dreamed.” She says the words as if reciting.

  She doesn’t need to say more, because she’s right. We can be more than the fountain’s foretelling. We can change our fortunes—our future is ours to choose, and ours to dream.

  “Our daughters are right; the prophecy was only one path,” the queen says. I peer up at her. My mother, a woman whose gaze once drew shivers down my back. Now her eyes tell a greater story than she ever could with her own tongue.

  I’m sorry, they say. I’m sorry I forgot everything.

  “A princess never hesitates,” Rani replies. She stands firm. I’m struck by how easily all these words leave Rani’s mouth. How years of training have led her to this moment.

  “My twins,” our father says, his eyes shining with pride. “The true princesses of Abai. Our future queens.”

  “That is, if you’ll stay with us, Ria,” the queen says. “We would understand fully if you choose not to.”

  I swallow. I think of what being queen would be like. Living in this palace, forever. Will Saeed stay, with his mother gone? My heart pangs. I wonder if he’ll still want to be with me after all this is over or mend our relationship despite my lies.

  “I . . . I want to stay.” The thought of becoming queen is overwhelming but strangely familiar, like the task has been threaded in my bones since I was a child. But Mama Anita knew—that my destiny lay not in the hands of the stars but in my own. And I would forge that path myself.

  Now it’s my turn to be who I truly am. Past and present. Princess of Abai, and a thief. Both.

  “Then it’s settled,” Rani says. She takes hold of my hand once more. My sister doesn’t need to say anything else.

  Being royal never made me special. Never made me different, or better. But the two halves of me have always been there—thief and princess. The only difference now is they’ve come together. Maybe they always were.

  44

  Rani

  One Week Later

  It is a warm winter night at the palace.

  I pace the length of the Stone Terrace. Downstairs, the throne room is bustling with nobles and guests invited for a night of feasts, marking the beginning of a new era in Abai. What I once feared, I now embrace. I grew up believing only snake magic existed, but I was wrong. The world is full of magic, and that is a beautiful thing.

  After Amara’s disappearance, Father apologized, over and over, for what he and Mother had done. He promised that now was the time for change. To rewrite a long-written history.

  It was the beginning of everything to come.

  We are preparing negotiations with Kaama, trying to navigate the muddy waters of endless resentment. The Charts are searching for Amara in case she is still, somehow, out there. So far, there has been no word.

  I attempt to block my once-future mother-in-law out, focusing on other matters. Life has changed in many ways: The palace is no longer a cold choke hold, much like my new clothing. The servants’ quarters have been expanded at Ria’s and my demand; each servant has a full bed and free hours in the day to themselves. I’ve assigned Irfan, Sanya, and Jas their own rooms. I’ve spoken to Irfan very little as he’s readjusted to life at the palace and, despite his past, he’s staying with Father’s permission, though an uneasy tension lies between them. Ria has given Aditi her own special room, promoting her to be her personal helper. The servants are free to wear whatever they please—Ria’s suggestion. I proposed that Jas be their teacher, thanks to her education at the prestigious Retanian Academy.

  I think of the lessons earlier today; Jas and I taught physics, Saeed’s favorite, until Amir interrupted and took to less theoretical tasks. He brought the children to the gardens for sword lessons, and later, showed the kids “magic tricks.” Making coins disappear and reappear with smooth, liquid movements. “It’s good if you wanna get a few extra rupees . . . or impress someone.”

  I tried to hide my smile. Always a thief. Always.

  Although this week hasn’t been all smiles. The day after Amara’s disappearance, I held a formal meeting with Father and Ria. I could tell it was like a weight had been lifted off Father, now that Amara wasn’t the one spurring his actions. I no longer saw those eyes craving power.

  “I wanted a weapon. Something so powerful it was legendary,” he said. “But in my haste, I failed to see the truth. And now Amara has the most powerful object ever seen on the continent.”

  Ria and I told Father of Amara’s true plans: to resurrect her husband by becoming the Master of Souls. Avenge Kumal’s death.

  “I wish it were not true,” Father said. “Amara fooled us all. She was your mother’s closest friend. It seems her desire for the stone made her forget the people around her.”

  The future looked bleak, but one thing comforted me above all else: that it could always be changed. The fountain is a soothsayer, yes, but futures can be influenced. The fountain estimates, intones your paths—your possibilities. Our fates are ours to decide.

  Now, in the palace, I am dressed in a fancy lehenga threaded intricately with red and burnt gold. For once, it does not feel like a weight—or a burden. I wear it because I want to. Because I am Rani. Because I am me, and though I share my title, my name is mine alone.

  “You requested to meet, Your Highness?” a voice proclaims from the entrance. Irfan stands there, dressed in more formal clothing than I’ve ever seen him wear, and he bows.

  “No need for formalities,” I tell him, laughing. We both take a seat on the swing set. “There’s a lot we haven’t gotten the chance to discuss,” I relent after his silence.

  His silver eyes narrow. “Like what?”

  “Like your past as a Chart. I know apologies will never be enough for what life was like under my father’s rule. He’s . . . changing. It will take time, but . . .”

  I pause as he places his hand to the scar on his chest. Irfan’s gaze sharpens. He looks as if he’s seen a ghost.

  The ghosts of his past. Red coats, cruel smiles, cold numbers.

  I waver. Perhaps he still despises me for my blood.

  But instead of hatred, his tone holds warmth. “The raja hasn’t punished me for deserting my post. Why?”

  “I’m no snake girl,” I tell him. “You couldn’t condo
ne the cruelty of the Charts; how can I fault you? Father was war hungry. He channeled his thoughts into his soldiers. And though he is at fault for many things, we now know why he wouldn’t relent in his judgments. Because of the woman with the real Bloodstone, Amara. My father is indebted to you. As am I.”

  “Thank you,” Irfan says, albeit a bit bashfully—an interesting expression on such a hardened face.

  “You know, Irfan,” I start, “the moment I met you, I knew you were different. You thought you could forget your past, so . . . why did you keep the Abaian crest?” I think of the coin in my hand, the one that helped me connect Irfan and Father.

  Irfan stares straight ahead. “A reminder,” he clips. “I learned a lot as a Chart, even worked in a division where I was taught how to forge weapons. I brought my knowledge with me to the Foothills, to help people learn how to protect themselves.”

  Silence descends on us like fog. I only lift my head when Irfan speaks again.

  “I remember you.” His voice is tender now. “You were probably thirteen. I saw you peeking into the courtyard from the throne room. You hated it.”

  My eyes swell with remembrance. It was the first Charts’ ceremony in recent memory. Father told me I could not watch; he brushed me aside, telling me to wait inside, but I peered out anyway. I shuddered when I heard their oaths. Mother shut the doors soon after, right before the screams. I never understood the cries of pain until now.

  “I joined the Charts voluntarily,” Irfan reveals. “I had no money and nowhere to go. I thought it wouldn’t be so different from training to become an Amratstanian Sentinel. The branding was painful, but I had no other choice at the time.”

  “If I could mend your heart with magic, I would,” I tell him. I would heal Irfan’s. I would erase his self-deprecating thoughts, his worries.

  “Spoken like a true rani,” Irfan laughs. “How is the queen, anyway?”

  “She is healing in the infirmary,” I say. I have visited Mother every day for the past week. She’s still recovering from the return of her memories.

  “There you are,” a different voice interrupts. I spin to find Amir dressed so meticulously, it’s like looking at a different person. But his true self is still there: the scar, the callused hands that felt like honey on my own skin. “Sanya’s looking for you,” he tells Irfan.