The Star-Touched Queen (30 page)

I was a stranger.

26

A DUEL OF RIDDLES

Nritti was staring at us and her face was blank and controlled.

I leapt from Kamala’s back. The gaze of a thousand eyes slapped against my skin.
Think, Maya.
Anger flared inside me. Anger that she had ousted those who belonged here and ushered in those who did not. Anger that Amar was by her side. Anger that she had lied. But I tamped it down, swallowing my fury like a bitter draught. And then I did what anyone would do before a false sovereign—

I bowed.

Kamala glanced at me sidelong, a ghoulish grin across her face, “I know what she is hungry for and she is starved as the earth. Her teeth are grinding, grinding, churning stars. Do you hear it, false
sadhvi
?”

“What are you talking about?” I muttered back, my head still bent to the ground. “What is she hungry for?”

Kamala leaned closer. “
You.”

A whip cracked through the air and I jerked my head up, only to see Nritti standing right in front of me. She tilted her head to one side and the movement was so slight, so emotionless that I thought she would slide a blade through me just to see what would happen.

“I do not believe I asked your opinion,
sadhvi
,” she said.

I dropped my gaze, my neck burning. She didn’t seem to know me. Then again, I was unrecognizable as the girl who had eaten up her lies in Naraka. But just to be sure I pulled one end of my robes over my head.

The point of a knife pricked my throat, tilting my head up.

“Perhaps I should just use
you
instead…”

I froze, twisting down the fear that had stolen my breath. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of letting my heartbeat pulse against the metal. My hands curled into fists, ready to grab her blade, when someone’s voice echoed in the ruined Night Bazaar.

Amar.

He was standing, his hands outstretched. Fury shadowed his face, but in a blink, it was gone. His expression warred between lost and enraged.

“I want her to speak,” said Amar. “Speak your mind,
sadhvi
. You are under my protection.”

Nritti dropped the blade by a fraction, but her gaze wasn’t on me. It was on Amar. Hope fluttered in my ribs. Nritti looked at Amar like he was a tame tiger who had unexpectedly torn out the throat of an animal. She looked at Amar with a flash of fear in her eyes, and hope poured through my veins.

No amount of captivity could strip the wild from the tiger. Amar was no different. He was feral. He was
mine
.

Nritti, recovering from her lapse of silence, delivered a low bow.

“As you wish, my lord. But if we are to follow through with our plans, we need a soul. What better than one that offers itself so freely?” She pointed to the little boy at the edge of the dais, knees drawn up to his chin, staring at Nritti like she was his salvation. “Look at him, he longs to be cut. I should do as he asks.”

“Your enchantment has robbed his will,” I shot back, the words tumbling out before I had a chance to stop them.

Wrong move. Kamala moved closer, her nose nudging into my shoulder, nostrils flaring protectively. I wanted to hug her. Beside me, a
churel
sucked in her breath and a
rakshasi
stumbled backward, as if my words would put all of their lives at risk.

The crowd around us laughed but it was thin and forced. Nritti leaned closer to me.

“When we have hollowed the world above, wouldn’t death be a kinder fate to the boy? Do you want him to return to find his home destroyed? Because that is what they will do.”

In the ruins of the Night Bazaar, I was all too aware of my own mortality. My heartbeat enthralled them. I was food. If they could not have the boy’s blood, they would take mine.

“You are bound to be a great ruler, my lady. But on the eve of your victory, perhaps you can spare a favor to a lowly
sadhvi
?”

Nritti glared, her jaw tight, but she nodded.

“How about a game?” I asked. “Give me a riddle. If I answer correctly, you will grant me the boy.”

Nritti grinned. “I will play your game,
sadhvi
. But if you answer wrong, you will take his place.”

Kamala hissed into my ear, “Are you so eager to die, young queen?”

“But on one condition,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed. “What?”

I looked from her to Amar. This whole time, his eyes had never left my face.

“I request a private audience with the Dharma Raja.”

His face was impassive, but he nodded in my direction and the smallest of victories lodged between my ribs, light as a heartbeat and just as hopeful. Around us, the crowd of darker beings sank into the shadows. Some licked their lips. Others just stared.

“You will receive no help,” said Nritti.

She reached down, tugging at the air like it was a handful of chains. Gupta was yanked out from behind the throne of thorns. His face was haggard, dirt creasing his skin. I lunged toward him, but Nritti slammed her heel into the ground and a wall of wind threw me back.

“None of that,” she chided. “Take the
pishacha
.”

Gupta nodded. I tried to make eye contact with him, but he refused to meet my gaze. Kamala whinnied, rearing onto her legs, fighting to stay close to me.

“We have a deal,” Kamala whispered into my ear. Her voice trembled. “You may not die. Not until I have a bite, or two, of that lush-lush arm, like you promised. If you die, I will kill you.”

I searched myself for a smile. “Have you grown fond of me, then?”

“As one who has grown fond of a particular dish. Nothing more.”

She huffed but she wouldn’t look at me. Gupta dragged her away. My hope felt bruised and cold. Winds teased the ends of my shorn hair and the
sadhvi
robes did nothing to keep out the chill.

“Which animal is the most cunning?” asked Nritti, stroking the blade between her fingers.

I frowned. That wasn’t a riddle. It was a matter of opinion.

“Flustered so soon by our game?” asked Nritti. She raised the blade, tracing small, sharp circles on the exposed tops of my feet.

Bear? Too lumbering. Tiger? Too noticeable.
Sweat broke out between my shoulder blades. I didn’t know the answer. I paused.
I didn’t know the answer
.

I cleared my throat. “The one we have yet to discover.”

Nritti’s smile curled into the barest of snarls. Behind her, one corner of Amar’s lips quirked into a grin. Kamala laughed, stamping her hooves and tossing her head. But our game hadn’t ended yet.

Nritti stepped forward. “I am clothed but cannot grow; what am I?”

I swallowed my fear. “You’re either referring to one of two things. It’s either me or moss over stone.”

Behind Nritti, Amar let out an exhale that might—if I strained that weak hope in my ribs—have been a laugh.

“I am pleased with her answers. Give over the boy,” said Amar, with a lazy wave of his hand.

Nritti smiled like her throat was full of broken glass but she did as he said. She walked the boy to me and lifted her hand off his shoulder. The room was silent and still. I reached for him immediately, but no sooner had I done so did she snatch him back.

She laughed and tilted her head. “I said I would give you the boy. I didn’t say for how long.”

She swiveled toward Amar, and as she moved, I saw that there was something more than just a blade clasped to her
salwar kameez
. It was Amar’s noose, coiled tight against her hip. She gripped it tightly. “We need a soul, my lord. You said so yourself. If I do as you ask, the
sadhvi
must take his place. A soul for a soul.”

Amar wasn’t laughing anymore. The muscles in his neck tightened. His jaw clenched. But he didn’t say anything. Nritti’s grip on the noose turned her knuckles white. She was controlling him. I bit back a snarl.

Nritti turned back to me and her face was triumphant. “No soul, no bargain.”

Kamala whinnied, pulling against Gupta. I dropped my gaze to the ground, my heart frantic when I saw my sandals—mud crusted, tearing at the seams. I grinned.
Don’t worry, Kamala,
I thought,
I’m not dying
.

“I have one.”

When I spoke, my gaze was for Amar alone.

“Here,” I said, tearing off the sandal and throwing it at Nritti’s feet, “a sole for a soul.”

Kamala began to laugh and the deranged sound pitched off the walls, scattering between the bodies of the dark Otherworld beings. They stood slack-jawed and still. Only their eyes moved—bounding between me and Nritti and back. Before Nritti could speak, a creaking sound clattered through the room.

Amar scooped the dirtied sandal in one hand before pulling me away from Nritti. His grip crushed into my arm, strong as iron. But there was something else … he was trembling. I could feel it through my skin.

“I accept her barter. Release the boy,” he said tonelessly. “But have her locked into the chamber to Naraka.” He turned to Nritti. “Her demand insulted your honor. That cannot be allowed.”

The blood drained from my face. Scaled and roughened hands tugged at my arms, and I was dragged from the dais. I kicked, trying to throw off my assailant’s arms, but they were like shackles. From his throne, Amar stared and beside him, Nritti’s face glowed smugly.

*   *   *

The beasts of the Otherworld threw me behind a metal door sunken into the knotted trunk of a banyan tree. Inside, the sounds of the Otherworldly beings outside stuttered into silence. In this shadowed room, softly glowing moths lit up the walls. Fear left me trembling. They were going to kill me.

I turned around, looking for escape. Behind me was a great obsidian mirror, like the one I had once found in the room with the tree full of memories. In its reflection, the stone halls of Naraka glittered.

“You are not a
sadhvi
,” said a voice.

I looked up, stunned to see Amar standing before me. He helped me to my feet, but I couldn’t look at him. Every time I glanced into his face, that flat look of no recognition slashed through me.

He jerked my chin up. “Do not lie to me. Who are you?”

Tears prickled hot behind my eyes and the answer I gave him was so true, I could feel it echoing through all my hollow spaces: “I don’t know.”

He released his hold on my chin but he didn’t step away. “You asked to see me alone. Why?”

Because I love you.
But that didn’t matter. Any moment now, Nritti could rush inside. All she would have to do was hold tightly to that noose and Amar would be powerless against her. Maybe I couldn’t save us or what we once had. But I could save him. I could save Gauri.

“You need your noose back,” I said, my voice low and urgent. I looked to the door, my heart thudding. “Nritti is
controlling
you. I know you. You would never drag a thousand children to these depths or unleash monsters into the world. Power is about
balance
, remember?”

He stepped back, his face paling, black eyes narrowing to slits. “I did not ask for your wisdom, false
sadhvi
. You do not know me.”

My heart was breaking. I thought I knew, finally, what it meant to be a ghost. It meant speaking your words around a mouth full of loss. It meant grasping onto echoes and hoping, praying that the words still meant something.

“I know your soul,” I said, my voice cracking. “Everything else is an ornament.”

“You have a strange effect on me … why is that?” he asked softly. “Beside you, I am reminded of something I have forgotten.”

My hands fell to my sides. There, beneath the rags of my robes, the fabric was raised and bumpy and I knew what lay beneath it—a broken circlet of hair. I fished it out of the pocket. My whole body was trembling, shaking against its restraints of bone.

Amar reached out to cup the back of my neck. I shuddered. I had forgotten how cold his hands were, like the soul of winter had tangled itself in his fingers. He stared at me and his gaze had all the finality of death—it was ferocious and terrible, a ravel of locked horns. He was
searching
me. I knew exactly what he was looking for—

Himself.

I twined the bracelet together, letting it hover mere inches from his skin. I had no expectation, no method, no strategy. I was blind and clinging to a bruised piece of hope. But it was all I had.

“You once said your soul could never forget mine,” I said, sliding the mended bracelet around his wrist. “Do you remember now?”

He inhaled sharply, like something had rent through him. Around his wrist, the bracelet glowed like a caught star.

“
Jaani
,” he breathed, staring at me.

He clutched his chest, an amazed smile turning his face incandescent. I grinned so widely that I thought the air would bend around us, pushing us together. His fingers entwined in my hair and he tilted my face up. I was leaning toward him hungrily, but in the next instant, his smile faltered. Amar’s brow crumpled with pain. He stumbled, his knees buckling.

“What’s wrong—” I started, moving to help him.

The door swung open. Nritti stepped in and our eyes met. I knew, then, why she had avoided looking at me. She had known who I was the whole time.

“Let me kill you,” she said soothingly, drawing out the blade. “I’ve already told all the beings outside that you have corrupted the Dharma Raja
.
They will descend on you like dawn upon the vestiges of night, and I will do nothing to honor your memory.” She paused and spared me a smile that sent icicles blooming across my chest. “I will not wipe up your blood. I will not mourn you. I will not
care
.

“Trust me,” she said, stroking the edge of the blade. “It is better this way.”

Nritti spared a glance at Amar. He had sunk to his knees, his hands clutching his heart.

“Stop this,” I said through gritted teeth. “Give him back the noose. You’re killing him.”

She tilted her head to one side, staring at the blade.

“I’m not killing him,” she said calmly. “Not yet. The Dharma Raja is weak.” She stretched the noose tight and Amar seized up, his breath coming out in staggering gasps. His face paled.