“It is a sign that the world has forsaken us!”
Kamala was laughing again.
“The horse is also holy! Make way! Make way!”
“The first holysadhuamong us is here!”
“We are not forsaken. Make way!”
“Hear what she prophesies!”
The crowd around us parted. People’s hands were outstretched, running their fingers through my hair, across my collarbones, along my arms. They tried to touch Kamala, but she took it less kindly and snapped her teeth.
“You’re a holy horse now,” I chastised. “None of that.”
Kamala growled at me. “Don’t forget that I get to take a bite of your arm when all of this is through.”
We stopped short of the iron gates of Bharata. My father had never closed them. From what I remembered, they were just symbolic and never meant to keep anyone out. In the distance, I could see Skanda sitting on a pavilion wreathed in lotus blossoms and flanked with serving girls. He was, as I had guessed, fat. And in his golden jacket, he indeed looked like a toad.
“Ah, I remember him,” muttered Kamala.
“He’s my half-brother.”
“Nasty, nasty.”
“I know.”
“Would you like me to eat him?”
“Definitely not,” I said, a little too quickly. I patted Kamala’s neck. “But I appreciate your offer. It was almost nice.”
“It is nice to be nice,” said Kamala with a sage nod. “And it is also nice to eat people,” she added as an afterthought.
The crowd of people pushed forward. The iron gates were beginning to open.
“A king would never deny a holy person that has come to his doorstep,” said Kamala.
My skin was damp with terror as I allowed the crowd to buffet me to the front. A man pulled me from the swarm, his eyes so bright they looked like gems.
“You must beg the Raja’s audience. He has sent so many of our sons into that war. He has claimed so many of our daughters and not returned them. And now he has forsaken our war hero.”
Another woman ran forward, pressing my hands to her cheeks. “Sadhvi, please. Please help. The Ujijain emperor will not let any of them go. He is calling them all prisoners of war and the Raja Skanda will not ask for their release.”
The Ujijain emperor… could that mean Vikram? I remembered his mother walking through the Otherworld. She had died the same day, still carrying a bundle of wilted flowers. It meant that Amar had chosen to pull out the red thread. It meant that many of my people would die, but that the kingdom would be saved. Peace would come.
I couldn’t look the villagers in the eye. Another person tugged on my arm. I looked down to see a boy with a gap-toothed grin. “Tell him to send Gauri-Ma. She will win him back.”
I stopped walking. “What name did you say?”
“Gauri-Ma,” said the boy again, this time staring at me as though I were a fool.
The man who had first approached me nodded fervently. “Everyone knows her. The princess with the dimpled smile and the deadly aim.”
“She is there now,” said the woman by my elbow, still clutching my hand. “The courtiers are talking about forcing her to break her vow of chastity. The Raja will make her marry. He will make her leave Bharata and her wedding will be her exile.”
“He is furious,” whispered the boy. He mimicked his hands as if he had a swollen belly.Skanda.
Joy and fury warred inside me. Gauri wasalive. But now they wanted me to send my own sister to the forefront of a war against a kingdom that would claim so many of Bharata’s people. The crowd pushed us forward, smiling around mouths full of blessings as they damned my sister.
