“They were nothing,” I lied. “They meant nothing.”
I didn’t look at him. And then, a bloom of cold erupted beside me and Amar was at my side. His fingers traced a secret calligraphy along my arms.
“Nothing at all?”
My heart twisted. I reached forward, my hands tangling in his hair as I kissed him. It was a kiss meant to devour, to summon war. And when I broke it, my voice was harsh:
“My kisses mean nothing.”
“Cruel queen,” he murmured, tilting my head back. His lips skimmed down my neck. Amar’s hands gripped my waist, before tracing the outline of my hips. Heat flared through my body. But just as I pulled him closer, a sudden clash echoed in the hallway, and we sprang apart.
Gupta’s screams thundered through the walls, lingered in the air. In an instant, small lanterns sprung up on the blank walls. Amar took off at a run, following the path of light, and I chased after him.
At the end of the row of lanterns, Gupta lay half slumped on the floor. He was shaking violently. His clothes were singed. I looked around, but there was no fire, no scorch marks on the ground or the walls. The only thing that bore signs of damage was Gupta. For all I knew, he might have spontaneously combusted where he stood.
I moved toward him, but Amar blocked me.
“He’ll be fine,” he said coolly.
I stared at him. Danger had unleashed itself from this very spot and we were standing around like nothing was the matter.
“If there’s danger, I should know,” I protested.
“Your intentions are admirable, but let me handle this.”
“You haven’t answered my question,” I said in a steely voice.
Gupta’s gaze never wavered from Amar. “There was an accident.”
“How?” I nearly yelled, pointing to the emptiness of the room, the vast, leering space of the palace.
“Maya,” said Amar through clenched teeth. “Return to the room. Immediately. It is not safe.”
I stepped back, scolded. Here I was, a child playing queen. Anger flashed through me. I turned on my heel, marching down the halls as shame lit up my cheeks. I stood before my bedroom door, but I refused to enter. If the doors responded to power, then power is what I’d use. I concentrated, curling my power in my palms like a handful of dust, and blew, seeking all the time for one thing—the charred door wrapped in chains. The door with the voice.
***
The door did not take long to find. I felt like it had been waiting for me and had only made itself known when it sensed my power fluttering against it like the lightest of knocks. Despite the chains and charred frame, it looked oddly ordinary. Just a slab of wood, as any other. At first, the chains wouldn’t budge, so I gathered my will and imagined it melting the metal. Like the weather that had bent to my will, the chains wilted beneath my hands. Soon, they were nothing more than a pile at my feet.
I pushed open the door.
Inside, a gigantic tree stood in the middle of the empty room. Unlike the slim trees of my father’s court, gnarled trunks and twisted roots swelled this tree to an impossible size. Nestled in its branches and obscuring its leaves were thousands of small candles enclosed in glass cylinders. From a distance, it looked like a tree with stars caught in its limbs.
I rested my hand on the trunk but immediately yanked it away. The tree had a heartbeat. It should have been impossible. Then again, many things that should have been impossible were possible in Akaran. The pulsing light of the tree beckoned me, singing with familiarity. How would it feel to cup the smooth glass against my palm, bathe my face in the candles’ light? But I couldn’t. This was the first place in Akaran that felt holy. Even the silence was hallowed.
A length of obsidian mirror shined against the wall. I walked toward it, expecting it to be like the other mirrors of Akaran—windows into different worlds—but this showed nothing but an expanse of black space.
Turning back to the tree, I walked around it in circles, staring at the limbs that spun out dark and forbidding, sharp as arrows. But also familiar. Like a beast tamed to know my hand. I reached for the trunk, shocked by its warmth. Slowly, I started to scale the trunk, my hands gripping the smooth dark wood until I was balancing on a tree limb. Out of breath, I leaned against the tree. Below me, the floor gleamed with silver veins.
Reaching for one of the candles, I took it slowly from its niche. It gave way easily. Only when I brought it to my eyes did I see that it wasn’t even a flame. It was little more than a slice of bright mirror. And there was something inside… an image. Aface. Startled, I nearly dropped the candle, but the image had taken hold. It spread over me, slipping behind my eyes. In the candle, I saw a girl whose face glowed with the kind of beauty and slow smile that can make a man believe in magic. She spun happily in a grove of trees, her hands pulling someone along… another girl, whose face was obscured by a curtain of black hair. I leaned closer. And I knew who she was even before the other girl turned around.
It was me.
I saw myself laughing, calling to the other girl, “Nritti! Slow down!”
My mind was grasping, carding through years of memory, trying to sieve through every moment to explain the impossible: I knew that would be her name. And it wasn’t a guess. It was a knee-jerk reaction in my soul.
I stared at myself spinning on a hill. My skin echoed the night sky, velvet black and spangled with diamonds that matched the stars above. Even if we didn’t look the same, I knew it was me. There was something more in the image that I couldn’t ignore. The pulse of friendship, of warmth. Of memory.
