“Do you know where he was?”
“That’s the thing I was trying to tell you, maybe-queen!” exclaimed Kamala, pawing at the ground. “He was at the Chakara Forest. You were right.”
I was right. There was a soft glow of warmth in that knowledge, even if knowing that I had just missed him rent through me like a new wound. I had trusted my instinct and it had been right. I could have reveled in her words if they didn’t make me furious.
Kamala sighed. “But there is something else.”
“What?”
“He left something in his stead.”
“In the same place?”
“Yes.”
“What did he leave behind?”
“I don’t know. My own senses do not tell me such things. Though that would be a great help. I wouldn’t have to lie in wait, hiding behind bushes and hoping some unsuspecting stupid person would wander past me. They might even wear such signs on their heads proclaiming, ‘Eat me!’ and such a thing would be—”
“Is the thing moving?”
“Yes, yes, but only in the area. I think it is dormant. It is waiting, I suspect, for something.”
“How do you know?”
“Oh silly Rani, sillysadhvi, I have had so much experience with death. I know that it is waiting. It is waiting for the soft thud of freshly culled souls. It is waiting to paint its lips red with blood. It is waiting to crunch bones and wear them like clattering raiment and robes.”
“Does that mean the Dharma Raja will return to the spot?”
“Yes.”
“How long does death usually wait?”
“Eons and blinks.”
I couldn’t abandon Gauri. Not now. Not when I had come so close to seeing her for the first time in weeks. I had to move quickly.
“Tell me the moment the Dharma Raja’s representatives seem to move. Or do anything. Can you do that?”
“I can, I have, I shall, I will,” sang Kamala.
“Good.”
I tugged her reins, about to lead her to the palace temple when I heard a soft jumping sound behind me and felt the pointed edge of a dagger at my neck.
“Stop where you are, imposter.”
I stopped.
Kamala bent her head to me. “Surely I can eat that one.”
“No,” I hissed.
“No? You won’t stop?” said the voice, laughing. Gauri.
“I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to the horse.”
Kamala snorted indignantly.
