The palace. Or rather, two specific people within the palace.
“The Spider is supposed to be here in a fortnight,” I say.
“What about the Scorpion?”
The Scorpion. General Tahmasp’s—or the Spider’s—right-hand woman, Major Shayla.
“When I saw her this morning, she was crushing a child’s hand under her boot.” The serving boy’s screams were ringing outside the stables. Apart from their stiff backs, none of the other servants gave any indication of having heard them. It might have continued for longer—Major Shayla has a fondness for sadism—if not for the king, who had sent a messenger summoning her to Raj Mahal. “She’s still staying in Ambar Fort.”
Latif looks unsurprised by my comments. The only person Latif never asks me about is the king. Perhaps he knows more than I do, or perhaps he’s simply not interested. The latter seems unlikely to me, but again, these are secrets I am not privy to. Latif gives me a nod and then, as he always does, drops a bag of coins into my hands. Enough for a month’s worth of Papa’s medicine. Latif joins his palms in a final farewell.
The first time we met, it happened so quickly that I missed it. But afterward, Latif always made sure I saw him leave. Tonight, he is even slower than usual, the pointed tips of his jootis disappearing first, and then his knees, hips, elbows, and finger joints. He gets creative with the head today, skin disappearing first so that I see the veins and tendons underneath, until even those disappear and all that remain are a skull, eyeballs, and a mouth.
“Remember the girl you saw today,” the mouth says before disappearing completely, leaving me with another puzzle that I don’t expect to solve anytime soon.
5
GUL
The fireflies failed me tonight.
I felt them flitting around me, burning bright and glorious when I planted that kiss on the boy, and then later when we talked, drawing that awful merchant back to me, along with the burliest thanedar I’d ever seen.
“This is the last time I ask a group of giddy insects to help me find someone during mating season,” I mutter to myself.
Had it not been for the fireflies, I would have been quicker to realize that the person I was supposed to meet at the moon festival was a no-show. Had it not been for the fireflies, I would have left the boy behind, without answering his questions.
I ignore the voice in my head that accuses me of not wanting to leave. That I wanted to keep talking to the boy under the bright, flickering lights, to touch the stubble on his rough cheek, taste the salt-sweet flavor of his mouth again. I failed so miserably tonight I can barely stand to think about it. I click my tongue softly and, within seconds, feel the brush of a wet nose at my shoulder.
Agni, at least, does not fail. She knows when she’s needed, where she’s needed, before even I do—finding her way to Javeribad two years ago, a fortnight after Juhi and the others sneaked me there from Zamindar Moolchand’s haveli in Dukal. I reach up, grip Agni’s thick red mane, and climb onto her back.
You smell like boy, Agni accuses. Boy and lust.
I grimace. Agni lets out an odd, high-pitched neigh—her version of a mocking laugh. It’s not like I haven’t lusted in the past—or even thought of acting on it at times, when invited to walk through the bajra fields in Javeribad with the farmer’s handsome son.
But, in two long years, my lust has never interfered with my goal of finding a way into Raj Mahal and seeing the king—a flame that began burning ever since the day my parents were killed. It would not do, I knew, to be distracted by a boy’s touch or to be ensnared by a binding that would mate me to him and his babies, forcing me into a life of complacency and forgetfulness.
I don’t want to forget. Or forgive.
You nearly got caught today, Agni scolds. I roll my eyes. I love the magic that allows me to whisper to animals; there are nights when I wake up, terrified of losing it as suddenly as it came. But I do not need a horse playing the role of a nag and my conscience. Agni shifts, forcing me to hold on more tightly so I don’t slide off. A warning.
“It wasn’t my fault,” I say out loud. Not my fault that the merchant whom I touched thought I was a thief when I wasn’t planning to steal anything. “I was really there to see someone. I thought they’d be … there.”
A snort. Agni breaks into a gallop, the sound of her feet so light, I can barely hear them on the ground. Papa told me that the horses of Jwala were thought to have wings, with feathers that sprouted from both sides of their backs, letting them fly in the sky.
I know Agni’s right. I took a big risk by sneaking out tonight—only to meet a stranger who’d whispered the following words in my ear at the Javeribad inn last week: Be at the moon festival in Ambarvadi after sunset for a way into the Walled City. I had not seen the person’s face, seen nothing except shadows in the crush at the inn. But I remembered the brush of their cold lips on my skin. Felt the shift in the air that had come from another presence. An invisible presence. Invisibility wasn’t unusual at the Javeribad inn during happy hour; the old innkeeper never asked questions as long as enough silver slid across his table in exchange for the drinks. That this unseen person approached me wasn’t unusual, either—I’d spent the past hour flirting with a pair of drunken palace guards, not-so-subtly making inquiries about getting into the Walled City.
I wonder now if I had been dreaming. If the words had been a figment of my imagination—the hope of a desperate girl still haunted by her parents’ deaths. It’s not difficult to imagine ghosts being out on this night, the tops of the thatched roofs of Javeribad lit blue and yellow under the two moons.
Agni slows to a canter; even with quiet feet, sounds can be magnified in sleepy, little villages. Unlike Ambarvadi, where celebrations for the moon festival will continue into the wee hours of the morning, Javeribad is as quiet as a cemetery. Here, festivities begin when the blue moon is first sighted, a little after sunset, at the sky goddess’s temple, where a long prayer ceremony takes place, followed by an even longer distribution of prasad—food and fruit made in offering by the worshippers and blessed during the course of the ceremony. Afterward, families head home for quiet celebration; the revelry and mischief so prevalent in Ambarvadi are frowned upon here. “We are not like those promiscuous city people,” Kali often says, mimicking the baritone of Javeribad’s head thanedar so perfectly that we always burst out laughing.
I suppress a snort at the memory. It will not do to laugh now, not in this silence, when a single barking dog can wake the whole street, when house after mud-brick house is shrouded in darkness except for the white filigree moons painted on the doors.
The Sisters live on the street behind the temple—in a two-story building that once housed the village orphanage. Some of the novices mock the villagers for not guessing that it no longer functions as one, for never questioning why we don’t take in boys. Yet I can’t entirely blame the villagers for being ignorant. I’ve seen how their eyes glass over whenever they enter the orphanage, especially when Juhi is in the room. The speed with which Juhi modifies memories is both impressive and frightening. Even the village elders are unable to remember exactly when the orphanage changed hands (three years ago, with stolen coin, the novices say). For all they know, Sister Juhi and her orphans have been in Javeribad forever.
The gate is still partly open from when I left it earlier this evening. I heave a sigh of relief and dismount before leading Agni to her stall in the stable. “Anyone still awake?” I whisper.
You’ll see, the mare taunts, which means it could be anyone from ornery Cook, who always accuses the novices of stealing from her kitchen, to an angry Amira to Juhi herself.
I sigh, more out of resignation than nerves. Agni was right when she said that I am not supposed to be out tonight. Or any other night, really. Juhi does not trust me with the jobs she gives out to the other Sisters. They are the sort of magi who, unlike me, can cast fighting spells, who are able to wield death magic the way it should be: like a long, sharply gleaming swo
rd instead of a stubby, rusty dagger.
“You are the most useless creature here,” Amira has told me countless times, and in my darkest moments, I can’t help but agree.
Agni nickers, sensing my thoughts in a way only she can. It will be all right, she assures me before shooing me from the stable. It’s a warm night, but I still feel the blue moon’s chilly, spectral glow. In the courtyard of the Sisterhood’s house, I see the shadow of someone waiting: a slender figure still wearing her dueling sari, flipping two daggers round and round. Up close, I know I’ll see her namesake—a kali or a flower bud—engraved in the pommels.
Kali. Only Kali.
Well, not only Kali. Kali is as capable of handing out punishments as Amira and Juhi, but she tends to give them out less often than they do.
“Out for a midnight rendezvous, are we?” she asks, having sensed my presence around the same time I spotted her.
I say nothing. Kali is capable of picking out my lies in an uncanny way, and these days she doesn’t even have to touch me for it.
“Come closer, my girl.”
I reluctantly do. Kali rises to her feet and circles me with a look that eviscerates from head to toe.
“Let’s see.” She sniffs the air. “You reek of sugar and horse and sweat—and not the kind that comes after a roll in the fields. You were at the moon festival in the city.”
It’s an obvious guess. If the moon festival in Ambarvadi is a firecracker, then the one in Javeribad is a doused lantern. None of the novices would break curfew for something like that. But the festival wasn’t the reason I was really out tonight, and the less Kali knows about that, the better.
“So what if I was?” Defensiveness can work sometimes—especially when coupled with round eyes and hurt looks. “So what if I wanted to get out of the house for once on my own in a whole blue moon? It’s not like you’d let me out if I asked.”
Kali’s face is still stern, but her mouth twitches, which means she’s at least considering my excuse. “You know you can’t go out by yourself. Not to the festival; especially not to Ambarvadi. Not only that—you are still not of age.”
“I will be of age soon,” I remind her. Right after the Month of Drought blurs into the Month of Tears. Eight more weeks. Sixteen years old.
“And neither Juhi nor I want you to be dead when that happens,” Kali says, her voice hard in a way that tells me there will be a punishment, no matter what I say.
“It’s not like I did anything!” I only got mistaken for picking pockets. I only kissed a boy. I only nearly got arrested.
“And I suppose those bruises on your wrist mean nothing, do they?”
I automatically glance down and, for the first time, notice the fingerprints on my left wrist, left by the merchant who accused me of stealing. My face grows hot. Of course Kali would notice. If I have the ears of a shadowlynx, Kali has the eyes of one, capable of seeing things in the dimmest of light.
“Show them to me.”
It’s not an order I dare refuse. I hold up my wrist while Kali examines the skin with gentle fingers. “What happened?”
“A merchant thought I was trying to steal from him. I wasn’t!” I insist when Kali raises an eyebrow. “I swear!”
Kali nods, accepting the truth she senses by touching me. “You’re lucky he didn’t break your bones or do further damage. You need to be careful, Gul. Remember what Juhi taught us?”
“No target is worth a Sister being seen. I remember that.” I withdraw my hand before Kali asks more questions and figures out the real reason I was in Ambarvadi. “But I’m not even a Sister, am I?” I flip over my hands, showing Kali my untattooed palms. “Juhi keeps saying I’m not ready.”
I’m unable to keep the envy out of my voice. At mealtimes, some of the Sisters occasionally boast about their exploits. Magically tying up zamindars who deceive farmers into signing over their land—and not releasing the former until the land is restored. Rescuing girls who get harassed by men in marketplaces. Standing up to women who beat their daughters-in-law.
The only real job Juhi has given me so far is picking pockets of rich merchants in Ambarvadi and leaving the stolen coin outside the gateway to the city tenements. And even then, I’m always supervised by another Sister.
A part of me knows I can’t exactly blame Juhi for this. Not with my poor performance at Yudhnatam, Juhi’s martial art of preference, and during magical training. The one and only time my magic did emerge over the past two years, it injured another novice so badly that she nearly died.
The novice had been criticizing my techniques during our practice fight—something that the other girls usually left to our instructor, Uma Didi. I remember getting annoyed at first and then angry. Then, the girl rose high into the air, her kick knocking me flat on my back, my head hitting the ground so hard that I saw stars. Her bare foot was descending, ready to crush my nose, when a scream rose into the air. Hers, not mine.
It’s one of the last things I remember about that fight, along with my hands gripping her foot and the searing pain in my right arm, moments before I blacked out. I’ve refused to participate in any magical battles since then, despite Kali’s encouragement and Amira’s shouts.
“Juhi doesn’t trust me,” I say now.
“It’s not about trust,” Kali corrects. “It’s about samarpan, as Juhi calls it. Juhi doesn’t make anyone a Sister unless they’re ready for that.”
Samarpan. A Common Tongue word synonymous with dedication, submission, and sacrifice. With immersing oneself so completely in the Sisterhood’s main mission—protecting the unprotected—that everything else ceases to exist. The truth of it doesn’t take away the sting of Kali’s words.
“Perhaps there is more to your destiny than being a Sister,” she tells me. “Have you ever considered that?”
“And what destiny is that? A common pickpocket?” I ask sarcastically. “The way things keep going, I’m probably better off selling myself in the Ambarvadi flesh market—aaah!” I nearly scream when Kali pinches my arm.
“Don’t you dare joke about such things. The flesh market is no place for you. For anyone, for that matter. I don’t know how you even heard of it.”
“Everyone knows, Kali. It’s not exactly a secret,” I say, even though this time I’m more careful with my tone. “People offering themselves up as servants. Being sold for hundreds, thousands of swarnas at auction. Even Raja Lohar sends buyers there.”
My last sentence hangs in the air, spoken without real thought. Words that I would on any other occasion have bitten back.
“The king isn’t the only person who buys from the flesh market.” Kali’s eyes are icy in the moonlight. “There are others as well. Ministers, Sky Warriors, shopkeepers, merchants. They don’t care for the rules binding masters to their servants. Even if you do make it into the palace, there’s little hope for your survival. The life of an indentured laborer is little better than that of a non-magus living in the tenements. In many cases, it’s even worse. You must promise me you’ll never take such a step. Promise me, Gul!”
“I”—another pinch—“ow! All right! I promise! I promise!”
Kali stares at me for a long moment and then, as if satisfied with my answer, releases my arm. “Power comes in many shapes and forms. You keep doubting yourself, Gul. That’s your biggest weakness. When you don’t, you can take down men twice your size. Remember that shopkeeper in Ambarvadi last year?”
I’m tempted to tell the truth. That the shopkeeper, though huge, had been distracted by the gold sheen of a swarna I’d planted on his floor. That luck and finely milled glass powder had a lot more to do with his eyes watering than the blow I’d managed to land on his hand when he grabbed at me, freeing my ankle from his grip, before escaping with a sack of his money.
“Come now,” Kali says after a pause. “You must be hungry.”
Perching on top of the short staircase leading into the courtyard, Kali takes the cloth off a metal plate and hands it to me. I tear off a p
iece of the thick khoba roti and scoop up the lentils in the container next to it before dipping into the spicy lotus sabzi on the side. I chew slowly, relishing the taste.
“So. Was he handsome?”
I nearly choke on my food. “Wha—who?”
“The boy you kissed,” Kali clarifies.
I scowl. She must have scanned my mind when she touched me. “I suppose he was handsome.”
Handsome the way a cactus is handsome, the way metal is when shaped to form a mace. Sharp edges. A soft mouth. A neatly trimmed mustache and dark-brown eyes. Warmth unfurls in my belly when I think of the kiss, making my toes curl. My next bite into the roti is savage, a grisly grinding of teeth.
“That good?” A note of amusement has crept into Kali’s voice.
“It wasn’t that good,” I mutter.
Kali laughs. “You can lie to me if you want, but at least don’t lie to yourself. We’re all allowed a kiss that makes our head spin. Even if it is with a stranger.”
“You mean like the one between you and that girl during last year’s moon festival?”
“Maybe.” Kali gives me a sly smile. “But we’re not talking about me right now. We’re talking about you.”
“My head did not spin.” Though I did feel insatiable, reluctant to break away from the boy’s kiss, the warmth of hands that were strong but didn’t hurt.
While the boy and I were talking, I’d seen something else on the front of his simply wound orange turban: a brass pin with the king’s symbol of a warrior wielding an atashban. From eavesdropping on various conversations over the past two years, I know that Ambar Fort is self-sufficient, surrounded by a fortified city with its own small farms and irrigation system, its own clothing shops and libraries. A part of me longed to start interrogating the boy immediately, to flirt my way into more information.
But when he mentioned he was from the tenements, the words had washed over me like a bucket of cold water. As a boy with no magic in his veins, Cavas took a great risk to save me by pretending to be my mate in front of that crowd. I nearly said yes when he asked if I was from the tenements: I didn’t want the warmth in those brown eyes to get overshadowed with disappointment. I only hope that he hid when I told him to. That he didn’t get caught. Thieves aren’t treated kindly in Ambari prisons; non-magi even less so.
Hunted by the Sky Page 5
