“Wonderful performance, though misdirected in the end. What do you remember?”
I strained to remember anything… but all I saw were flashes. Vikram’s dormant red thread, a glint of lightning and the surge of something nameless and powerful snaking through my veins. The tapestry loomed in my mind. A taunt. And then, with the full force of fresh shame, I remembered my failure. The thread wouldn’t move.
“What happened?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Amar sat up and began pacing the room. “Something wonderful.”
He grinned and I flinched. His smile was far too knowing to be mistaken as comforting.
“You’re beginning to show a sense of power and ability that has always been yours,” he said in his silky voice. “It’s why I came to Bharata in the first place. To free you. This awakening is what makes you a true ruler of Akaran, it’s what lets you control the tapestry.”
Nausea roiled in my stomach. The choices I’d made—throwing the wedding garland around his neck, agreeing to flee Bharata—were they ever mine to begin with? In the grand tapestry of Akaran, everything andeveryonehad a thread. Including me. My stomach turned.
What control did I have? The tapestry had rejected me. Perhaps he knew that and that’s why he chose me. I would be malleable to his will. But I was done. Done being treated like a child, done being left in the dark, done being instructed. Fury rent through me.
“You know just as well as I do that Vikram’s thread never budged,” I said stonily.
Amar bowed his head.Good, I thought. At least he could fake some guilt.
“I know.”
“Why couldn’t I? Why did you made it sound like I could? All this talk about being a true ruler here, this… awakening of power. Or control. I had no control over that thread. I couldn’t even pull it from one side to another.”
“It takes time. But it’s a start. It’s a new beginning,” he said. A chill ran up my spine. “For you and me.”
He braced his elbows against his knees, the sleeves revealing the bracelet of my hair around his wrist. He had tethered a part of me to him, but I had nothing of his. He kept all his secrets from me.
“Trust me,” said Amar. “And tonight, we shall celebrate. Where shall I take you, my queen? Your will is where I lay my head.”
My mind twisted into a snarl.
“How can I trust you?”
Amar’s grin slipped off his face and his eyes narrowed. “Have I not proven myself? I rescued you from death—”
“You don’t know that,” I retorted, my voice raising. “Perhaps I would’ve made a last-minute escape. Perhaps the kingdom would’ve changed its mind.”
“But they didn’t, did they?” said Amar coldly. “I’m the one who took you to safety. I’m the one who made you a queen.”
“Queen? I’m no better than a caged bird,” I bit out. The words tasted like bile.
“What would that make me? An owner? You have free rein, as always, over this kingdom. Much more freedom than any caged bird. Think on that. All I ask, for now, is that you don’t—”
“Walk alone? Question you? Breathe without your permission?” I offered, knowing what he would say. “I have free rein except when I don’t.”
I pushed aside the covers, ready to storm out when the silk sheet in my handchanged. The entire night sky had become our bed, stars glinted in and out, comets zinging across the part where I had clutched a corner of the sheet. I pushed my hands into the fabric, but they seemed to fall through and through, as if this really was the night sky…
The floor had changed too. Deep teal and translucent, the waters of a hundred seas. Beneath the waves, something turned a sightless eye toward me. Amakarawith a tail gleaming long and emerald. The salt smell of the ocean burned my nose. I felt overwhelmed with awe, fright… envy. Isthiswhat I was capable of? Could Itrustthe person who could do this?
I blinked and the images were gone.
“A strange illusion,” I murmured shakily.
“Not an illusion,” said Amar. His voice was brittle. “Didn’t I promise you the power of a thousand kings?” He crossed the marble floor that had once been an ocean. Water glistened on his feet and a gray fish flopped helplessly in a corner.
He stood in front of me, his eyes hectic and alive. Even through my fury, I couldn’t look away from him.
“You and I are the ground and ceiling of our empire,” he said, his voice harsh and desperate, pleading and ruthless at once. “You and I can carve lines into the universe and claim all that we want. We need only share between ourselves. Don’t you see?”
