Like yesterday, when I returned after washing up, the bed had been made, and a new sari was waiting for me. This time it was a rich amber, studded with topaz stones and small mirrors so that when I wrapped it around me, the colors shimmered as if they had borrowed some of their brilliance from the sun. A similar set of matching jewels lay in piles on the bed.
Something about wearing a necklace other than my mother’s felt wrong. Inevitably, my thoughts turned to Gauri. Who was telling her stories in the dark?
When I stepped outside my room, Gupta was already standing there. The air felt tense. As if someone had smothered the palace into silence so that it could watch… and wait. I paused outside the door. I thought I heard something. A voice? My name?
Shaking my head, I walked down the familiar hall toward the dining room, but my glance kept darting from the walls and doors, ignoring the beautiful sights flashing in the mirrors. What had happened to that door from before? Around me, muddled voices filled the palace.
Sometimes the voices were incoherent, but today, I heard a sound sonorous and riven as an ancient stream:
You can have him, but not hold him
He gives you gold, but your bed is cold
You’ve seen his eyes, but not his spies
Who is he?
“Amar,” I breathed.
Gupta looked up. “Did you say something?”
“The riddle you asked,” I said, a little dazed.
“I didn’t say anything.”
A chill shot through me. There was no one in the hall but us. I said nothing, and walked quickly down the halls, trying to shake the doubt and fear that kept creeping up my arms.
When we got to the dining room, it was decorated in a sun-drenched yellow. Carven statues of mynah birds with ruffs of silk around their stone necks dotted the room. Outside, there was no flash of the sun. No hint of clouds.
Gupta pulled out a chair for me.
“I figured out your riddles from yesterday.”
I looked at him, my mind still twisting around the words I heard in the hallway.
“And?”
“Your first one was, ‘I am a nightmare to most, and a dream for the broken; who am I?’ and the answer to that is death.”
“Correct.”
“Your second riddle was, ‘I am your future, who am I?’”
“And?”
“The answer to that is ash.”
“Again, correct. And the last?”
“‘I hide the stars but am frightened by the sun. I am not the night; who am I?’ The answer is darkness.”
I smiled. “All three are correct.”
He stared at me. There were dark circles beneath his eyes. He looked aged in the space of a day. “You ran off last night.”
“I got lost.”
“You’re smarter than that, and so am I,” said Gupta.
