I looked away from him, feeling the slightest twinge of guilt.
“If I were you, I’d remember the answers to those riddles when you’re walking around the palace.”
“You yourself said that you held the key to anything dangerous.”
“Even so,” he said, mirroring Amar’s response.
I tried to think of something to say, but Gupta had turned from me and the tight, closed-off expression on his face said that I shouldn’t even bother trying to push the subject.
“You seem quite absorbed in your work,” I said, trying to change the topic as he bent his head toward the endless scrolls.
“If only I wasn’t,” said Gupta.
“Can I help?”
He smiled, but it was a weary thing. “The fact that you are even here is help enough.”
But I wasn’t doing anything. I was wearing clothes set out for me on a bed, wandering allotted spaces of a hall, feeling around for questions they could answer. I was in a limbo of waiting.
“How did you sleep?” asked Gupta, his gaze once more fixed on the parchment.
I thought of the nightmare and masked a shudder.
“Well enough,” I lied.
***
After breakfast, Amar stood waiting for me in the center of a marble vestibule. Around him, the mirror portals flashed through the settings—a fox napping in tall grass, a shining cave strung with ghost-lit threads and a cliff jutting a stony chin to the sea. Amar grinned and once more, I was transfixed by the way a small smile could soften the stern angles of his jaw and the haunted look in his eyes.
“Are we going to the tapestry room?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. Those decisions take time. There are other things to see and know here.”
I shivered at the thought of yanking the threads. I was in no rush to condemn someone. Amar stepped toward a door I hadn’t noticed until now, inky black and studded with pearls and moonstone. He pushed it open and a chilly gust kissed my face.
“I promised you the moon for your throne and stars to wear in your hair,” said Amar, gesturing inside. “And I always keep my promises.”
***
Infinite. That’s how it felt to stand there in a realm, a field… a marvel… of stars. Cold light spangled the space around us. Darkness so old that the shadows felt like relics twisted between the lights. The air was scentless, laced with frost. We stood on nothing but air and yet it was solid. In the half-light, Amar’s face glittered and starlight clung to his hair. I stared around me, my heart skidding. The things I had called bright and blind enemies shimmered all around me. How many times had I cursed them? And now I was in their world.
Amar reached for my hand and put something in my palm. I looked down: string.
“For conquering,” he said.
I stretched the string into a taut line.
“Conquering what? Insects?”
“No. Your enemies.”
The stars. Fate.
The string drooped in my fingers.
“Why do you hate them?” he asked.
“If Akaran has its eyes and ears in Bharata, then you already know,” I said darkly, thinking of the horoscope that had shadowed the past seventeen years.
