There are other rumors, too—about how the king poisoned his way to the throne, killing every potential threat, including Rani Megha herself. But I don’t say any of that out loud.
“Do you want to move out to the rain?” I ask, a few seconds before we get sprayed by more water and wind. We hasten to the shade of the stables, our feet leaving behind tracks in the earth that’s now softening to mud, and stand in silence. Gul stares again into the distance, her lower lip caught between her teeth. I am tempted to smooth away the indents with my thumb.
A faint whistle weaves through the wind in a tune that sounds like a children’s song—only it’s like no children’s song I’ve ever heard:
Rooh was born without a heart
Some say without a soul
But when he ripped his chest apart
He found a girl of gold
Gul frowns. “Did you hear…”
Her voice trails off, eyes locking with mine and widening. The wind shifts, spraying the roof—and us—with more fat drops of rain, but all I can see is how one of them pauses in the parting of her hair before sliding into it like a melting jewel. Behind me, a door opens, followed by a voice:
“Cavas, I need you in here,” Govind says. “The storm is making the horses anxious.” Even though I can’t see the stable master, I hear the disapproval in his voice. Feel it like a touch on my nape.
My hand, which was on its way to Gul’s face, curls into a fist. I draw it back.
“Go on, boy,” she says coldly with a swift glance behind me. “The stable master is looking for you.”
It’s the way she would behave if I were a stranger, exactly what I told her to do a little earlier today. I ignore the tightening of my heart, the bitterness I taste at the back of my throat. I give her a quick bow and walk toward Govind, who is waiting for me by the stable doors.
22
CAVAS
The rain grows vicious once I step inside, spewing from the sky like rice grains from a torn gunnysack. The wind howls. Water hammers the wood. Some of the horses whose stalls are closest to the windows get spooked, and it takes a long time for us to calm them down.
“You’d think they’d be used to it by now,” a stable boy mutters, then jumps nearly a foot in the air when a flash of lightning splits the sky.
I’m filling a stallion’s trough with new hay when I hear a throat clearing behind me.
“Have you thought of getting bound, boy?” Govind asks.
Heat crawls up my neck. I don’t dare look into the stable master’s shrewd eyes.
“You should find a good non-magus mate for yourself,” he continues sternly when I say nothing. “At your age, I was already bound to my Kamala, and we were already on our way to becoming parents. A mated man is harder to distract from his work.”
I nod. What girl will bind with someone who earns ten rupees a month, whose money goes entirely into keeping his sick father alive?
“You’re a good boy,” Govind says, a sudden, surprising pronouncement that makes me look up, even though he’s frowning in the way he does before launching into a scold. “I don’t want you to lose your way at the sound of a pretty laugh.”
“I won’t.”
Even though my mind tells me it’s too late for that. Too late since the time I first clashed eyes, then lips, then words with Gul. Too late since Latif ensnared me in this strange web of sorcery and deceit. But Govind does not know my thoughts. He simply nods and tells me to put more buckets outside to fill with fresh water.
* * *
The rain falls through most of the day, tapering off only when night falls, Sunheri a waning crescent in the sky. I squelch across the grass, mud coating the soles of my thin leather shoes. My stomach rumbles—the palace provides lunch to day workers like myself, but no evening meal, and I’m already longing for the onion pakodas Ruhani Kaki makes on rainy days in the tenements, along with moon-shaped rotis that fluff up to the size of a man’s face.
I might have not noticed, perhaps not even cared about who else was around, if I hadn’t heard the whistling again:
The golden girl that Rooh found
She had a heart of stone
She caught his wrists and had him bound
She chewed him to the bone
This time the words are distinct, as clear as if they’d been whispered in my ear. A giggle breaks the haunting melody, and I spin in its direction, squinting against a sudden fog. Trailing the sound of the whistle around the back of the stables, I pause at the front of a small marble edifice near the queens’ palace, a pair of moons filigreed over its entrance.
Chand Mahal. A palace forbidden to everyone except Queen Amba and the king—a palace the queen was rumored to use only on very special occasions. Every time I’ve passed Chand Mahal, the doors have been closed and the windows dark, not a sound emerging from within. Today, however, music floats out from a lit doorway—so loud that I wonder how no one else has heard it so far. Perhaps it’s the fog that has obscured things, that now chills me on a night that was merely cool when I first stepped out of the stables.
Another giggle, followed by a finger lightly running down the center of my back. I spin in place and reach out, catching hold of something solid, something that, by the sound of the gasp it makes, might be human. The fog shifts, revealing gold eyes and frizzy black hair, a face whose shock likely reflects my own. Gul.
“What are you doing here?” I demand. “Were you the one singing?”
Did you touch me?
“Do I look like a peri to you?” Gul’s eyes narrow into slits. “I was going back into the palace when a fog appeared in front of me. A voice was coming from it, singing a strange song.”
The back of my neck prickles. “I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you want. I heard it this morning as well. Along with whistling.”
Low-pitched and playful, the sound emerges again as if summoned by her words:
They heard Rooh’s voice at the mountain bend
They heard it in the bog
They searched and scoured from end to end
They lost him in the fog
A series of childish giggles follow, and we both stare at the entrance, which glows so brightly the inside might as well hold two full moons.
“We should find someone,” I say at last. “A guard.”
“We should,” she agrees.
But the fog is thick, and no matter where we turn, we end up at the entrance, a light giggle mocking us the whole time, singing bits and pieces of the song. I can’t tell if the door is moving or if it’s just the fog that’s confusing me by turning everything else into a blur. Tricky, I remind myself. This palace is tricky.
“Looks like we don’t have a choice.” Gul pushes a strand of hair off her forehead. “Whoever it is wants us to go in.”
I’m quiet for a long moment. “I’ll go in first. See if it’s safe.”
Two steps in, a hand reaches out and grabs hold of mine. “No,” she says firmly. “There’s magic at work here. We’ll go in together.”
Another girl might have let me go. Might have even sent me in herself. But then I see a dagger blade gleaming green in her hands, the hard glint in her eyes. My mouth grows dry.
“Good thing I went to check on my weapons before dinner,” she says. A tiny dimple creases her right cheek, one I’m sure I haven’t seen before. “Grabbed one of these right when the fog hit and I heard that creepy song.”
The pretty smile doesn’t fool me. Gul holds the dagger like it’s a part of her, her grip on the weapon relaxed and comfortable. Though I will never admit it out loud, I’m glad she’s here with me right now.
“Right,” I say. “Let’s go in.”
The moment we step into Chand Mahal, the lightorb overhead disappears. Moonlight pours in through the beehive windows, throwing shadows like lace over the ground. Mirrors embed the walls and the ceiling in octagons and tiny crescents, darkening only when our reflections fall on them. We are not alone. The sin
ging, though softer now, is still audible. As if the thing that drew us in here is waiting. Watching.
“What do you want?” Gul asks sharply, and I know she can hear it, too. “Why did you bring us here?”
The singing stops abruptly, leaving behind a silence so thick it could choke.
Then, a laugh. Followed by a hand—a child’s hand—appearing in thin air.
“Do you see that?” I murmur.
“See what?” Next to me, I hear Gul spinning, her feet squeaking once on the marble floor. “What are you talking about? I don’t see anything.”
“She will never be able to see what you see,” the voice says. “Though she can hear me.”
I stare at the hand, which now extends to an elbow and then a full arm. A girl with pigtails, perhaps half my size, appears slowly, wearing a tunic with a slash through the middle, dark liquid staining the edges of the tear. The grayish tinge to her skin is simultaneously familiar and skin-crawling.
“Did Latif send you?” I ask the girl.
She laughs—scornfully this time. “Latif is not my master. Neither is he the only one of us.”
“There are more of you?” Who—what—is Latif?
“More of who?” Gul interrupts. Her eyes scan the room, looking past the gray-faced girl and focusing on empty space. “Cavas, what do you see?”
“It’s a girl,” I say slowly. “She’s…” My voice trails off as I stare at the stain on her tunic, which is too dark to be anything but blood. “I think she’s dead.”
“We prefer the term living specters,” the girl says. “Though, for your purposes, dead is also acceptable.”
“That’s impossible,” Gul responds before I can. “Living specters can’t be seen!” She spins around, not seeming to realize that her back is to the girl. “You’re playing a trick on us with an invisibility spell! Show yourself before I force you to with my dagger!”
My skin prickles the way it does when warming after a chill. What Gul says makes perfect sense. Living specters are invisible to magi and non-magi, and the little girl’s invisibility should be because of a spell. But then …
“If that is true, then how can I see her?” I ask. Invisibilty spells work exactly the same way on magi and non-magi. There is no way I could see someone Gul couldn’t.
Gul frowns, opening her mouth to argue, but then shuts it almost at once. I can see realization sinking in, the incredulous look on her face replaced by a strange sort of understanding.
“Cavas, are you a see—”
“No,” I cut in. It’s not possible. I am not a seer. Or a half magus. Ma had no magical blood in her veins. Papa would have told me if she did.
Right?
I look at the little girl again—the living specter, as she calls herself. There is a strange smile on her small face.
“I’m non-magus,” I tell her in a hard voice. “Both of my parents are non-magi.”
“If that is true, then how can I see her?” she mocks back. Gul winces, covering her ears to muffle the sound of her high-pitched voice.
“I have not come here to go delve into your messy family history, Seer,” the living specter tells me. “I have only come to deliver a simple message to you both: Stick together, no matter what happens. Do you hear me, Savak-putri Gulnaz?” Her last sentence reverberates, pulses in my ears.
I turn to Gul, who has paled on hearing her full name. “Yes,” she whispers. “I hear you.”
Around us, the wind howls like a dustwolf. The little girl begins disappearing again, rapidly, her legs fading to her knees. Gul tugs on my arm, her mouth moving, forming my name. But I can’t hear her. The young girl’s voice is the only one audible in this wind:
Rooh the lost, Rooh the loon
You cannot touch his soul
But see him in a bright-blue moon
And a star will turn him whole.
By the time the last word is sung, the girl is already gone, her mouth the last bit of her to disappear.
“She’s gone, isn’t she?” Gul breaks the silence, her voice soft, quivering.
“Yes. I can’t see her anymore.” I shake my head. “Though I don’t know why exactly I could see her in the first place. And no,” I snap the last word as Gul opens her mouth again. “I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not a seer! I’ve lived in the tenements my whole life. My parents are non-magi.”
“Are you sure about that?” Gul asks quietly.
My hands turn cold, sweat beading the palms. Whore. Slut. You know nothing about your mother or the sacrifices she made.
“Don’t you dare question me about my family, magus!”
Anger flashes in Gul’s eyes for a brief instant and then, almost immediately, dissipates. Someone’s coming, she mouths before placing a finger to her lips.
A second later, I hear the footsteps.
The light metal tap of a Sky Warrior’s boots.
23
GUL
The dagger, sensing the shift in my mood, begins to glow in my hand. Glancing at Cavas, I tilt my head sideways, gesturing to an arched doorway jutting from the wall. I am hoping for an exit, but it merely leads to another room, a gallery full of miniature paintings I might have appreciated had it not been for the blue-and-silver bodies reflected in the arch’s tiny mirrors.
Two Sky Warriors. I press into the wall, willing myself to disappear into it. My hand brushes Cavas’s arm. He doesn’t pull away.
“No one appears to be here,” someone says after a pause. A voice, low and musical, embedded in nearly every innocuous dream I’ve had over the past two years as well as my nightmares. “You better not be mistaken about this.”
“I—I swear I saw them, Major,” a man responds. A new recruit, I sense, from his stammer.
It’s only when Cavas makes a small sound—a grunt of pain—that I realize my nails are digging into his arm. I loosen my grip and glance sideways in apology when I see the expression on his face. Terror. The kind that blanches color from skin and lips, that loosens bladders without warning.
I hear the Scorpion prefers boys serving her.
The words made me angry before, and they make me angry now. The fury helps, slows the racing beat of my own heart. My hand slides down, curls around his.
I will not let her hurt you, I think, and instinctively I know this is true. Somewhere between the moment I first kissed this boy at the moon festival and now, he has become important to me. Even though I don’t like thinking about why.
The shield spell I mastered with Amira will be useless in a battle with two fully armed Sky Warriors. As for the attacking spell—even though I performed it during my test, I’m not even sure I could do it right now, or control it effectively if I did. The best thing at this stage would be to disappear—to become a living specter without dying in the process.
Use your mind, Amira always told me while doing magic. So I draw on every kernel of my will, calling on whatever bits of power I have running through my veins.
I want us to disappear, I think. To vanish from their sight.
Warmth rushes from the birthmark on my arm to my hands. Cavas must feel the heat as well, because his fingers tighten around mine in a sudden, painful moment. A strange, tingling sensation crawls up my wrist. When I look down, I see that Cavas’s hand is glowing white where mine glows gold. The white light pulses, traveling from his hand to mine, then up my arm, up my neck. It pauses at my throat, bright and hot, sealing my breath in my lungs.
“M-major. D-did you hear that?”
“What?” Major Shayla’s voice sharpens.
“It’s … it’s coming from this room, M-major.”
They step into the room.
And stare right at us.
* * *
It’s the first time I put a face to the voice of my parents’ murderer. Where the major’s voice is like disjointed music, her beauty is like flawed marble, cruelty lining the smile of her perfect red mouth, gleaming in her eyes. Her movements, likely due to her training as a Sky Warrior,
are precise and economical, as carefully crafted as her closely cropped gray hair and the three firestones glinting in her left ear.
No. This is not a woman to be trifled with.
The other Sky Warrior—a boy who appears no older than Cavas—stays in the major’s shadow, his shoulders shrinking even as I widen my stance and raise my dagger exactly the way I would at Yudhnatam practice, the way I did only three weeks ago with Amira. Major Shayla spins on the heel of her steel-toed boot and backhands her companion. Hard.
“First you see things others don’t,” she says. “Now you hear them, too? Do it another time and I’ll be the one who fills in your application at the asylum.”
“Major, I swear I saw shadows near the window!”
“Shadows,” she scoffs. Her cold, pale-brown eyes stare right through me at the painting on the wall behind. “Next you’ll be telling me that you saw the Pashu king Subodh risen from the dead.”
She stalks out, her boots tapping the sangemarmar tiles, her blue-and-silver tunic swishing in the air. The other Sky Warrior glances our way one last time before following her out. It’s not until the door to Chand Mahal closes that my grip on the magic loosens. My tongue unravels, a strange thickness to it, and my body tingles, as if doused in warm water after being frozen for a long time.
I turn to Cavas. “What happened?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He lets go of my hand as if burned.
Had we not evaded the most bloodthirsty Sky Warrior I’ve ever come across, I might have been kinder and left the interrogation for another day. “You turned us invisible.”
“That was you.” His voice is sharp, as harsh as it had been the morning Juhi and I first went to him for help. “You and your magic tricks. I had nothing to do with it.”
“That was no trick,” I tell him. “Your being able to see that living specter wasn’t a trick, either.” Cavas turns away from me, and I know he does not want to believe me. But I know what I heard. I saw the way Cavas’s head had moved—his eyes always focusing exactly where the specter’s voice came from. I know what I felt when I wished for us to disappear—finding Cavas’s magic drawn to mine like sparks, strengthening our combined powers into a flame.
Hunted by the Sky Page 20
