***
The moment he touched me, my universe constricted to the space between our lips. We were a snarl of limbs and bright-burning kisses. Amar held me to him, strong hands burning against my neck and waist. And even though vengeance thrummed in my skin, a part of me drowned in the feel of him. He murmured my name with each kiss until it no longer seemed to belong to me. It was a song, a prayer, a plea.
But when I pulled him to the bed, he paused. His breathing was ragged and when he looked at me his eyes were damp with desire.
“Wait, my queen,” he breathed. “I want you to know me first. I want you to know this place where you are empress.”
He rubbed his thumb along my jaw and the braceleted noose around his wrist glared. Disbelief coiled sharply in my throat. I already knew about this realm. I already knew who he was. But I almost forgot when he reached out to trace my lips.
“Any farther,” he started, his voice hoarse with want, “and I would not know how to stop.”
***
We spent the evening in each other’s arms. Amar plucked glass blossoms from the air and slid them one by one into a crown around my forehead. He conjured the lightest of snowfalls, each flake teasing out into gleaming feathers before melting into the silk. All through the night, he smiled daggers into my heart.
“I love you,” he murmured into my hair. “You are my night and stars, the fate I would fix myself to in any life.”
I had chosen vengeance and freedom. I would not back down for sweet words, no matter how much I wanted them to be true. No matter how I felt.
“I know,” I said.
***
While he slept, I betrayed him.
I wove my own magic. A dream of sleep full of silvery spangles that I slipped over his eyes in the same moment that I stole away the noose. The noose fought against me, perhaps aware that I was not its rightful owner. I gathered Gauri’s necklace from its hidden place in the corner of the bedroom and pushed open the door.
I didn’t look back.
***
Nritti was waiting for me.
“Do you have it, sister?”
I nodded numbly. When I bit my lip, I could still taste him. Smoke and cinnamon.
“Give it to me,” she said, extending a hand through the reflection.
I hesitated. “What will happen to him?”
Nritti arched an eyebrow. “What he deserves. He will be rendered powerless. Don’t tell me you have grown to care for him? After all he’s done? To you and to so many other women?”
Nritti stepped aside and behind her, another image wavered in the obsidian mirror. A hundred trees filled with lights. The trees of other girls. Other victims. My hands clenched around Gauri’s necklace. Wordlessly, I handed over Amar’s noose.
The moment I did, something sizzled and snapped through the air. My heart plummeted. Behind us, the great tree full of memories seemed to gasp and twist. The tree—once massive and stretching toward the ceiling—had begun to decay. Thick branches lay around it like bones. Its trunk was rent, entrails of wood and root rising, shattering the marble floor and uncurling toward us. My gaze trailed toward the branches—everything was on fire.
Flickering memories began to drop, falling out of the branches. I stepped back, horrified. The memories fell like a score of dying phoenixes. All around us, the air was suffused with smoke; violet-bruise flames snaked around the edges of the marble, gorging themselves on branch and root.
The blue arch of the door glowed, swinging open. I threw up my arms against the sudden wave of heat. In the doorway, cut like a silhouette of night, stood Amar. He looked between me and Nritti, his gaze fixed on the noose in her hands before he turned to stare at the great tree. Horror was etched into his face. He looked at me and I felt like collapsing. His shoulders sagged and in his expression there was more than heartbreak. It was sorrow given shape.
“No,” he whispered, his face gaunt. “What have you done?”
I flinched, as though slapped.
“You lied to me. About everything.”
I thought of Bharata littered with the refuse of war. I thought of Gauri. “My home… my people were destroyed. You knew, but refused to tell me. Do you deny it?”
