Instinctively, my eyes clasped on Amar’s. He was shocked, his face pale. He grabbed me; his hands entangled in my hair even as my fingers were wrapped around the hilt that destroyed him.
“I love you,jaani. My soul could never forget you. It would retrace every step until it found you.” He looked at me, his dark eyes dulling, as if all the love that had once lit them to black mirrors was slowly disappearing. “Save me.”
The glow of the candles cast pools of light onto the ground, illuminating his profile. I knew, now, why Nritti begged me not to look at him. His gaze unlocked something in me. It was both visceral and ephemeral, like heavy light. The eyes of death revealed every recess of the soul and every locked-away memory of my past and present life converged into one gaze…
I was weightless, my vision unfocused and hazy until the memory of the woman in the glass garden engulfed me. Slowly, the woman turned and a wave of shock shot through me—I was staring at myself.
I remembered another life…
Once, my skin wasn’t covered in smooth snake scales like thenagawomen or striped in hide like the shape-shifting maidens. Once, my skin bled from one hue to the next, shifting to reflect the transition from evening to night. Before, I never left the riverbanks unless my skin was the cream and pink of a newborn sunset.
But something had changed… I had met someone. Someone who had seen me the way I was and had not sneered. He hadseenme, reached for me when my skin was velvet black and star-speckled. I could still feel his stare—lush as obsidian, star-bright and pouring into the crevices of my dreams.
***
I remembered meeting the Dharma Raja’s gaze and wreathing his neck with a wedding garland of sweet marigold and blood red roses. Death clung to him subtly, robbing the warmth of his eyes and silvering his beauty with a wintry touch. And yet, I saw how he was beautiful. It was his presence that conjured the brilliant peacock shades of the late-season monsoon sky. It was his aura that withered sun-ripe mangos and ushered in the lush winter fruits of custard apple andsinghorachestnuts. And it was his stride that adorned the Kalidas Mountains with coronets of snow clouds.
His hands moved to my shoulders, warm and solid, and his arms were a universe for me alone. He had enthralled me, unwound the seams of my being until I was filled with the sight of him and still ached withwant.
“I hoped you would choose me,” he said.
I blushed, suddenly aware of my unbraceleted arms and simple sari.“I have no dowry.”
He laughed, a hesitant, half-nervous sound that did not match his stern features. “I don’t care.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
“I want to lie beside you and know the weight of your dreams,” he said, brushing his lips against my knuckles. “I want to share whole worlds with you and write your name in the stars.” He moved closer and a chorus of songbirds twittered silver melodies. “I want to measure eternity with your laughter.” Now, he stood inches from me; his rough hands encircled my waist. “Be my queen and I promise you a life where you will never be bored. I promise you more power than a hundred kings. And I promise you that we will always be equals.”
I grinned. “Not my soul then, Dharma Raja?”
“Would you entrust me with something so precious?”
I was silent for a moment before reaching for my foot and slipping off the worn slipper. “Here, my love, the dowry of a sole.”
I began to laugh, giddily, drunkenly, before he swallowed my laughter in a kiss. I melted against him, arcing into the enclosure of his arms, my breath catching as his fingers entwined in the down of my hair. The music of the songbirds could not compare to the euphony billowing inside me, pressing against my bones and manifesting in a language of gentle touch.
In Naraka, he drew me into the small universe of his embrace, laying kisses at my neck, the inside of my wrists, the dip in my abdomen. Now, the hum had settled to a lustrous melody, ribboning us like silk. And when we clung together, we drank in the other’s gaze, reveling in the secret hope and happiness that blossomed in the space between our lips.
***
Amar wore many names. Samana, “the leveler”; Kala, “time”; Antaka, “he who puts an end to life.” But I had called himjaan, “my life,” and kissed the gloom from the tips of his fingers. Together we had sleeved souls in new bodies, slipped the soul’s crux into a golden-ruffed sunbear or a handsome prince or a troublesome gnat. Together, we danced a quiet happiness, fashioning a room for stars and skimming our palms across cities kept behind mirrors. We drank ambrosia from each other’s cupped palms and tended to our garden of glass. And on and on it went.
I remembered…
… how acrid heartbreak tastes. I remembered the walk to the edge of the reincarnation cycle—the chill of marble, my plumed breath, betrayal prizing apart my heart.
I remembered fury enthralling me body and bone. I remembered light lapping over my eyes and my soul unraveling, fracturing into prisms of amethyst, lapis, topaz. I remembered a needling twinge of regret and the secret, terrible knowledge that somewhere in Naraka my abandonment would leave behind a chasm of obsidian threads—a chronic rift.
I saw…
… Amar slumped onto his throne, refusing to look at the empty seat on his left. Gupta was at his side, his face pinched, skin sallow.
“Go over every birth record, every horoscope until we find her again. I want—” He stopped, jaw tightening. “I need her back. I made a mistake.”
“How will I know it’s her?”
“The stars will not lie,” said Amar. “A girl partnered with Death, a marriage that puts her on the brink of destruction and peace, horror and happiness, dark and light. Find her.”
