“Run.”
And she did.
Nritti raised the knife, her head tilting, voice crooning. Her voice broke my heart, but still we kept moving. Never stopping. Lightning flickered above us. Apeylay trampled in the rush. I never once looked away from Nritti. I didn’t know what had happened to the girl who had been my best friend. Whatever reasons once existed had gathered moss and dust in their edges. All that mattered now was the scene before me—laughter seeping into my ears, the floors thick with spilled blood, hunger that hollowed your innards and coated your tongue with dust.
Kamala reared to a halt, her forelegs clinging for purchase.
I leaned across her back, my hand outstretched—“Stop!”
There was a moment where I didn’t know if anyone had heard. My word felt like little more than a croak. Silence fell around us. Nritti’s blade clattered to the ground and the boy stumbled back, unscathed.
Amar’s head snapped up and for the first time since leaving Naraka, we stared at one another. His expression hadn’t changed since the glen. It was flat, but not unkind, just… out of reach.
He looked as though someone had summoned him from stone. The more I looked at him, the more images prickled behind my eyes—him walking toward me, in one hand carrying a glass rose while his fingers reached for me, eager to close the space between us; his hand slung over my waist while we slept, two bodies curled into the shadow of each other.
But those images were mine alone. Amar blinked, his brows furrowing before he looked away. My heart slammed against my ribs. If I had any doubt about his last words—that he wouldn’t remember me, that I would be lost to him—this moment cured them.
I was a stranger.
26
A DUEL OF RIDDLES
Nritti was staring at us and her face was blank and controlled.
I leapt from Kamala’s back. The gaze of a thousand eyes slapped against my skin.Think, Maya.Anger flared inside me. Anger that she had ousted those who belonged here and ushered in those who did not. Anger that Amar was by her side. Anger that she had lied. But I tamped it down, swallowing my fury like a bitter draught. And then I did what anyone would do before a false sovereign—
I bowed.
Kamala glanced at me sidelong, a ghoulish grin across her face, “I know what she is hungry for and she is starved as the earth. Her teeth are grinding, grinding, churning stars. Do you hear it, falsesadhvi?”
“What are you talking about?” I muttered back, my head still bent to the ground. “What is she hungry for?”
Kamala leaned closer. “You.”
A whip cracked through the air and I jerked my head up, only to see Nritti standing right in front of me. She tilted her head to one side and the movement was so slight, so emotionless that I thought she would slide a blade through me just to see what would happen.
“I do not believe I asked your opinion,sadhvi,” she said.
I dropped my gaze, my neck burning. She didn’t seem to know me. Then again, I was unrecognizable as the girl who had eaten up her lies in Naraka. But just to be sure I pulled one end of my robes over my head.
The point of a knife pricked my throat, tilting my head up.
“Perhaps I should just useyouinstead…”
I froze, twisting down the fear that had stolen my breath. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of letting my heartbeat pulse against the metal. My hands curled into fists, ready to grab her blade, when someone’s voice echoed in the ruined Night Bazaar.
Amar.
He was standing, his hands outstretched. Fury shadowed his face, but in a blink, it was gone. His expression warred between lost and enraged.
“I want her to speak,” said Amar. “Speak your mind,sadhvi. You are under my protection.”
Nritti dropped the blade by a fraction, but her gaze wasn’t on me. It was on Amar. Hope fluttered in my ribs. Nritti looked at Amar like he was a tame tiger who had unexpectedly torn out the throat of an animal. She looked at Amar with a flash of fear in her eyes, and hope poured through my veins.
No amount of captivity could strip the wild from the tiger. Amar was no different. He was feral. He wasmine.
Nritti, recovering from her lapse of silence, delivered a low bow.
