Star-Touched Stories

by Roshani Chokshi

  “Enchanted pair of eyes! Useful for seeing through all kinds of things,” he shouted. “Like deception and jars of wine. Or even”—he stopped and grinned—“a lovely apsara’s clothes.”

  A group of men crowded the raksha. I moved past them and flicked my wrist. A night wind rattled through the bazaar, kicking up the silk skirts of tents and display tables and stealing the eyeballs straight out of the raksha’s hands and into my palm.

  The raksha blinked. “What happened to it?”

  “You lied to us!” yelled one male.

  “THIEF!” roared the raksha.

  I grinned, ducking beneath a silver rope strung with colored glass lanterns before disappearing into the crowd. Nritti hated the way some of the men and women of the Otherworld looked at her. Some women would lust after her. Some women would blame her for love unrequited. Some men would lust after her. Some men would blame her for love unrequited. And when everyone in this world had power, beauty could become a dangerous thing.

  By the time I got to the apsaras’ dancing podium, a huge crowd had gathered. I watched as the apsaras soared through the air, silk trailing behind them. Each time they stamped their feet, the gunghroo bells around their ankles released tiny blooms of petals and gold dust. The crowd sighed. Tablas dropped low beats and the sky broke, sending golden flakes to rain down on the audience. They were near the final movement of the dance. Flutes and bells, horns and silvery voices grew louder in urgency, spinning a story to which the apsaras danced. A tale of kings vanquishing demons who wandered beyond their realm and invaded the mortal world in the dead of night. Nritti had mentioned that tonight’s performance would be held in honor of the human prince. Maybe the song was about him and his deeds. I spotted an opening near the back of the crowd and edged closer. I couldn’t stay for the finale, but I always tried to see Nritti’s dance before I set up the vendor stall of dream fruit.

  From the sudden intakes of breath, I knew that Nritti had taken over the stage. She leapt into the air, soaring above the others. The light clung to her, and her steps echoed in the very vaults of the heavens.

  Here was why they called her the Jewel of the Heavens.

  When Nritti danced, the world felt too small. Spectators leaned out, crowding themselves elbow to elbow to watch her. Except one. Seated at the front of the stage and flanked in an ivory throne carved of clouds, sat a young man. His crown was mortal-made, for it did not gleam with Otherworld jewels and even his finest silks were not as resplendent as the most common of our garb for it did not contain a single thread of moonlight. In profile, he was handsome. When he turned his head, he was shockingly beautiful. Even Nritti—who had walked past the god of love himself without a second glance—could not keep her eyes off of him and he, even though he was not looking at her, seemed to tilt toward the sound of her. His whole body seemed shaped to the light she cast. It was only when he turned his head to face the crowd that I saw why he didn’t bother to look at her:

  He was blind.

  * * *

  “… I asked him twice about the talon marks down his back,” said a harried yakshini. She had a long multicolored beak and bright gold hair that ruffled furiously about her face. “And do you know what he said?”

  I faked a grin. Sometimes I’d get customers who considered purchasing a dream fruit little more than telling someone all about their horrific day. This was one of those occasions. The line had been long at first, but once this yakshini had gotten in line, half the beings behind her had dwindled. The other half were either smiling smugly—probably thinking of how to leverage the long wait time into their haggling methods—and the other half were one word away from leaving. I wanted to scream. This woman was jeopardizing my ability to empty out the Night Bazaar of its sari collection.

  “No, I don’t. But I do think that you’ve paid generously for a dream fruit. Perhaps even two!”

  She cocked her head to one side. “Two?”

  “Yes.”

  I shoved the fruit into her arms.

  “One for you and one for your mate,” I said loudly and quickly. “Nothing makes a couple stay together more than mutual dreams.”

  “I suppose so,” she said, gathering the fruit. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you.”

  I did not say: Please come again soon.

  The next person in line was a handsome asura. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with sparkling eyes that glinted green as the jungle in one moment and blue as the sea in the next.

  “That line was horrifically long, but had I known that a thing as lovely as you waited on the other side, I wouldn’t have complained.”

  A thing. I suppressed a recoil.

  “I am sorry about the wait.”

  “I could wait forever.”

  Please stop talking.

  “But compensation is necessary. My time is precious. I’m a king, you know.”

  So are half the people here.

  “What do you want?”

  “Three dream fruit.”

  “For the price of what?” I asked, bristling.

  “Oh no, beauty. I’m not paying. This is compensation. I can guarantee you that just by standing here in your line and letting my presence be felt, I’ve increased the size of your customers.”

  Or chased away a third.

  “That’s out of the question.”

  “Forget the dream fruit then,” said the asura. He leaned forward, bracing his elbows against the table. “Let us talk about what I may offer you.”

  “Remove yourself.”

  “You know what I find interesting?” he said, reaching for my hand.

  I yanked it back.

  “Half the people here always think that you summon demons to your side. How would you like to prove those rumors true, beauty?” He smiled. “What do you do all day? Tend to your dream orchard and wait on nightfall? Surely, you would prefer my company to all those lonesome trees?”

  “I would prefer the company of feral tigers with foul breath and a lightning bolt for a tail instead of you. Get out. You’re not interested in these wares. And I am certainly not interested in yours.”

  “Oh, dear Night. So delicate. So lonely. So unfamiliar with the ways of demons and men. Let me teach you. You are wrong, you know. I am interested in your wares,” he said, grinning. “Just not the fruit.”

  “You’re interested in my wares?” I asked, tilting my head. I smiled, looking at him through the veil of my lashes. Light skittered over my skin, as if my fury had piqued the stars’ interest.

  He was hardly a hand span away from my face. Up close, his eyes were pond swill. His breath reeked of blood. “You see, no one else would ever want you. You spend so much time in that human world, you might as well be one. Who would ever pair themselves with something so sullied? No husband would share your bed for fear that you may bring demons upon him when he sleeps. But me? I’m different. I would touch you. Only I could ever bear to touch you.”

  Wrong, I thought. An image of the Dharma Raja bloomed in my mind. He was at my side, a cold smile and poor flattery on his lips. I raised my hand to the asura. White light winked in my palm.

  “Could you truly suffer my touch? Me and all my delicate, lonesome, cursed weakness?”

  “Yes,” he said hungrily.

  “How selfless of you.” I brought my palm to his skin. His eyes widened, ringed around with white. My arm tensed in the struggle, the star-spangled and black velvet of my skin twitching in restraint. I could burn you, I thought. But that wouldn’t bode well for my reputation. Still, I kept him there and for a terrible moment, the knowledge that I could burn him to a stunted pair of horns rushed through me in a delicious wave.

  “The stars are rather delicate, aren’t they?” I whispered low in his ear. He was sweating now. The air had the metallic tang of flesh collapsing under heat. “Do you forget that I wear the stories of the world on my skin? I don’t care that demons take advantage of my hours to kill and plunder. That is not my concern. You are too small fo
r me, little monster. I keep time aloft. I keep the promise of tomorrow. And you are nothing.”

  He broke away, gasping. A ghostly imprint of my hand spanned across his cheek. Glittering bits of stars clung to his singed eyelashes and burnt ear.

  “Monster,” he hissed.

  I grinned. “Only at night.”

  He ran.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow if you want some more!” I hollered after him.

  The line went quickly after that. A few of the customers rushed through their orders. Eager to get away from me perhaps. The last person in line slithered forward, sinuous and languid. Small gems sparkled off her serpent tail. Dramatically, she flung back her cobra hood. Then again, she did everything dramatically. Uloopi, the princess of the nagas, braced her elbows on the table and winked at me.

  “I see you’ve been making friends,” she said, nodding in the direction where the asura had disappeared. She grinned.

  The first time I opened the stand for dream fruit, no one came. No one wanted to pay the price with their own stories and secrets. And yet they all wanted to dream. Uloopi was the first to slither toward the stall. She had promptly scattered all the passersby who refused to purchase anything and loudly proclaimed: “Finally. I’ve been waiting to tell someone all the sordid details of my life.” Most of her sordid details were other people’s gossip, but I reveled in it anyway. Every day since, Uloopi left her subterranean palace to wander through the Night Bazaar, criticize every person’s outfit, reluctantly tell me her secrets and eagerly tell me other people’s, and buy a dream fruit.

  “Are you going to Teej?” I asked.

  She shuddered. “What would I want with an immortal consort? They live far too long for my taste.”

  “You prefer human princes.”

  “Always.”

  “It doesn’t hurt to love them?”

  She looked at me sharply and then her gaze darted to something behind me. “Of course it does. But I’d rather feel that pain than nothing at all. That is always the problem with immortality, is it not? That one day we will outlive our love of life.”

  “You may find someone who makes you feel otherwise.”

  Uloopi waved a disinterested hand. “That day has yet to come.”

  “I’m sure you’ll tell me all about it when it does.”

  “If I do, I want your whole supply of dream fruit.”

  “Deal.”

  “Excellent,” said Uloopi. She raised one slim eyebrow. “Want some gossip?”

  “Absolutely not!” I fluttered my hand to my neck before leaning over the counter. “Why? Who’s it about?”

  Uloopi laughed. “Did you see that man who grew three other heads last week?”

  “I think I’d remember if I saw that.”

  “Well, I heard that it’s because he wanted to keep a couple extra eyes on his wife. Honestly, if you want to keep your wife, is your head the thing you should be investing in?”

  I swatted her. “Blasphemy.”

  She held out her hand: “Dream fruit, please. Or I’ll tattle on you to Nritti.”

  “You know you don’t get any dream fruit until you tell me something about yourself. And besides, Nritti wouldn’t believe you.”

  “A serpent tail was not the only thing I inherited from snakes, you know. I have hypnotic eyes.”

  “That’s just myth.”

  “Am I a myth so soon? You’re making me feel ancient. Only thing noteworthy today was that I’ve nearly perfected a resurrection jewel.”

  “That sounds useful considering you can’t die.”

  “I wanted to see if I could make the impossible and as usual I outdid myself.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Is that exciting enough for you? We can’t all have absurd and tragic tales like the Shadow Wife.”

  “Who’s that?”

  Uloopi rolled her eyes. “Don’t you know anything?”

  “I spend most of my time outside of the heavens and in the human world. I don’t get much gossip.”

  Uloopi huffed, which I took as tacit acceptance that she thought I had a point.

  “The last scandal I remember was when the Lady Saranyu, the wife of the Sun god, decided she could no longer stand the brilliance of her husband. So she ran away and left her shadow, the Lady Chayya, in her place.”

  “He didn’t notice?”

  “Of course not! They were twin images of one another.”

  “But they were different people?”

  Uloopi’s gaze turned sly. “Of course! But men can be fools. And so it was not the Sun god who discovered the deception, but the child that the Lady Saranyu had left behind. The Shadow Wife bore her own children from the Sun god. And she favored them above Lady Saranyu’s child.”

  “What happened?”

  Uloopi’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “The child knew and told the Sun god. He was furious and went out into the world to bring back the Lady Saranyu.”

  “And the child?”

  “Cursed by the Shadow Wife.”

  “With what?”

  “My friend, that is the question. No one knows.”

  “What happened to the Sun god?”

  “He ended up with two wives.”

  I shook my head. “And the child?”

  “I have no mind to ask him how he’s faring since that incident.”

  “It’s a boy? Who—”

  Uloopi jumped back, smiling. “Ah! Look who it is. The Jewel of the Heavens.”

  Nritti floated down from the air and sank into a graceful curtsy. “I’ve come to pay my respects to the Terror of the Deep.”

  “Is that what they call me?” asked Uloopi, her brows creasing. She smiled. “I love it.”

  “Of course you do, monster.”

  Uloopi stuck her tongue out. I tossed her a dream fruit, and she caught it with one hand. Nritti summoned a cloud and fell back into it like it was a bed, while Uloopi settled into her emerald coils. I leaned against the table where I’d sold dream fruit and surveyed the Night Bazaar. The three of us went through the same ritual at the end of every day. We’d huddle together, watch the beings, and recite all the things about our day that had gone right and wrong.

  Nritti took a deep breath. “Something happened today.”

  “The blind princeling,” Uloopi said, not taking her eyes off the sky. She had an obsession with the sky, perhaps because she saw so little of it in her sea palace.

  “What’s his name?” I asked.

  “Vanaj,” she said. Sighed, rather. She exhaled his name like it was something precious and teased out of her.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Did you have anything to drink?”

  In answer, she swatted my arm. “No. We talked for a long time.”

  “Talked. That’s a modest euphemism,” said Uloopi. “And for a long time you say? My, my.”

  “Don’t be crude.”

  “Too late for that.” I smiled. She seemed happy, and my heart welled in happiness for her. Nritti was kind and giving. She deserved joy. “You seem smitten.”

  “Perhaps a little.”

  “I’m sure he feels the same.”

  She smiled. “I hope so.”

  Uloopi spent the next hour mercilessly teasing Nritti, while I tried not to laugh. I kept fighting the urge to tell them about the Dharma Raja. But I was still in disbelief. And part of me didn’t want to reveal this secret. I didn’t want it prized apart and examined under Uloopi’s harsh humor, or poked and prodded by Nritti’s questioning. So I kept silent.

  When a new day lightened the sky, we stood up and made our way to the edge of the Night Bazaar. The market had already begun to shift and gather itself for the next day. Tents turned transparent as glass before spiraling into pillars. Golden motes of pollen fell through the air and landed on the discarded and the spent. Broken jewelry clasps, silk cones full of half-eaten iced fruit, trampled shatranj pieces and bits of paper with predictions of true love. No sooner had the golden dust touched them, and then they disappe
ared into the ether.

  “I met someone too,” I said, so softly that neither Uloopi nor Nritti heard.

  The words still felt unfamiliar and impossible on my tongue. I wanted to savor the sound of them, each word a bright candy for me alone. I knew they’d be supportive and teasing, loving in their own way.

  But I wanted to keep the secret of him close.

  3

  DEATH

  YESTERDAY

  In Naraka, the mirrors gloated. Behind their silver faces, cities spied on me just as I spied on them. I wondered what they thought of this pacing mess of a king. From the corner of my eye, I could have sworn that I saw a tree quivering with laughter. Even the palace, which was usually restrained in its mischief, taunted me, and voices from a hundred directions whistled smugly:

  Is the Dharma Raja nervous?

  I ignored them and tipped backward just as an onyx throne spiraled from the ground to catch me. Leaning back, I squinted up at the glittering mirrors. In the smudgy darkness of the palace, they looked like shards of stars.

  The sight of the Teej podium had unsettled me. I could not forget the scent clinging to those lotus blooms, the way a specific desire had been fitted to every gap within me. Every time I closed my eyes, I thought I caught the perfume of the companion in my dreams. A girl who smelled like night-blooming flowers and silver on roses. I needed to meet her. And yet, a part of me couldn’t stomach the thought. A word echoed in my thoughts: cursed, cursed, cursed.

  I had to be careful not to love her.

  “Hungry?” called Gupta.

  He was whistling as he walked toward me, carrying a silver platter full of the strangest fruit I’d ever seen. It was night-black; each inky slice looked flecked with stars. A curious smell filled the air, like a dream that had ended at the best part.

  “Where did you find this?” I asked. I didn’t want to take a bite. I already felt unfulfilled as it is.

  “You should really read my reports.”

  “Not in this life.”

  He rolled his eyes. “They’re dream fruit. Created by Night herself.”

  “What’s her name again?”

  I’d never seen her in the courts of the heavens, but that was because she spent so much of her existence in the human world. I had heard her name before on the lips of the dead and dying. They thought she heralded me. Ridiculous. No one could summon me.