Airavata batted his ears. “And what do you expect me to do?”
“We need that cloud bridge.” I turned to Kamala. “When we get back, there’s something I must do, and I hope that will tell us at least where the Dharma Raja will be. And then we can use your… talents… to get us all the way.”
“Delightful,” murmured Kamala. “I have not been so excited since a massacre twelve years ago. All those bodies. So delicious.”
Airavata bowed his head in assent.
Hooking a cloud between his curved tusks, he began to comb it. A billowy vapor formed a mist over the ocean before flattening into a uniform stretch of white, dotted here and there with iron and purple storm clouds. I reached for Kamala and swung myself onto her back.
Gently, I kicked my heels into her side and we took off onto the cloud bridge. I had thought the cloudy material would be soft, like running on sand or fresh grass, but the cloud bridge was as hard as stone. Airavata walked beside us, sinking ever deeper into the waves until only his head was visible. His eyes twinkled, a knowing glint in his eye. But if he had a secret to tell or a thought to give voice to, he would not share it with me.
And with that, he sunk beneath the water. As Kamala raced over the bridge, I leaned over, reveling in the occasional spray of seawater. Tears burned in my eyes, but I wouldn’t let this failure set me back. I had to succeed. I clutched my mother’s necklace tight around my throat, praying it would give me strength, and looked around me. On my left, I could see what the ocean looked like at night. Its waves were higher, the crests of its ripples stretching far onto the shore. I caught glimpses of luminescent creatures bobbing just under the surface. Occasionally, a dorsal fin cut the water. On my right, sunshine capped the waves gold. Fish as green as parrots wriggled by the cloud bridge and twice I saw a limpid pink jellyfish.
Where was Amar? I turned back to the shore. Already the beach seemed like a distant gray line. I drew out the bracelet of my hair. With my memories came the love I had always felt for Amar leaving me heavy and weightless at once. I hated that I didn’t tell him that I love him. And I hated how those memories—though fleeting—felt like wounds reopened. But even then, I found hope. My heart had not been false and that knowledge was unshakable and scrawled on the secret joints of my soul, like a spell that kept it whole.
“Are you weeping, young queen?” asked Kamala.
“No,” I lied, “the salt is stinging my eyes.”
“Pity,” grumbled the horse. “I have not tasted tears.”
My whole body felt worn out from tension and I closed my eyes, my arms wrapped around Kamala’s neck as I fell asleep. In my dreams, I danced with Amar. We spun in circles to the heavenly music of thegandharvas. We danced around a wide courtyard filled with colorful birds until I stumbled forward, my arms spread out to brace my fall. I cried out loud and my eyes fluttered open—
“We are here,” said Kamala.
The ocean remained, but the sky above was a normal hazy gray-blue. Before us, a great jungle unfurled dark green leaves in invitation. I rolled my neck. Whatever peace I had found in sleep vanished. All I could feel now were my aching muscles. My skin reeked of salt water and my hair was whipped around my face. I glanced at Kamala and bit back a gasp. Her once thin flanks bulged with muscle and her coat gleamed with soft white hairs. Even her eyes were now a dark crimson instead of the rheumy white from earlier. Kamala plodded forward carefully, occasionally warning about low branches.
“Is death nearby? Is that why you look—” I faltered, gesturing at her dramatically different body.
“We are fully in the human world, so death is always nearby. You should see me when we are truly close, false queen. Then, I am a sight to be reckoned with. Sometimes I have lulled away beautiful maids and handsome youths just with my borrowed glory alone.”
I didn’t ask what happened next.
“Now what?” asked Kamala.
I took the small onyx stone and pressed it to my lips. The memories shifted under my gaze, translucent and wispy.
“Now I find out where he will be.”
I sank myself into that memory, into the moment where we first met, bending my whole body into a single event captured within one of those glittering pinpricks.
***
I had been walking through the Chakara Forest. Fat moths the size of palms wreathed my hair like pearls and moonstones. And then, as I had done since before language burgeoned in the velvet clefts of the mind—I danced.
Not a slow dance, but sharp, punctual movements. My dance organized the shadows of trees, canceled the cloying plumes of wind-fallen fruit, aligned the moonbeams themselves. My back arced gracefully as I moved, neck extended like an oryx, fingers conjuring sharpkathasof rhythm, when a sound crunched not far from me.
I spun around. “Who’s there?”
From beneath the heart-shaped leaves of apeepaltree, something rustled. And a voice, so lush it made ambrosia acrid, answered me.
“Only the lowly painter who tries each night, in vain, to capture evening herself.”
“What do you want? Show yourself.”
The stranger stepped out of thepeepaltree. He was broad-shouldered, his features as severely beautiful as a strike of lightning. He wore a crown of blackbuck horns that arced in graceful whorls of onyx, catching the light. But it was his gaze that robbed the clamoring rhythm in my chest.
His stare slipped beneath my skin. And when he saw my eyes widen, he smiled. And in that moment, his smile banished my loneliness and limned the hollows of my anima with starlight, pure and bright. He moved toward me, grasping my hand, and his touch hummed in my bones like an aria. A song to my dance. The beginning of a promise.
