“You’ve saved me.”
“Did you have any doubts that I could?”
He hesitated. “Your abilities are something I could never doubt. Yourwill, however, I was unsure of. When I could finally bring you back, I thought you would leave again. I’d never have a chance to explain. Forgive me—”
I stopped him. “I will not let us be beings of regret. I know my past. What I want is my future.”
He smiled and moved to kiss me again, when the entire room quivered. The flimsy walls of the room split and tore. The obsidian mirror before us snapped in half and Nritti tumbled out. She stared at us and her mouth curled into a snarl.
“Not again,” she hissed.
Amar tried to protect me, but I slipped out of his arms and rose to my feet. I wasn’t the one in need of protecting. It was Nritti. Amar smiled and joined me. He stamped his foot against the earth and the walls around us fell. The din of the Otherworld rose riotous around us. Nritti’s enchantment nearly claimed my balance, but I held strong.
All thathunger. It was plain in the faces of the Otherworldly beings.Rakshasthe size of elephants had sunk to their knees, filling their mouths with dirt. Even the greattimingalahad begun to keen, slapping its tail into the water and drenching the Otherworld. I watched as a bull-aspect demon slammed his horns into the ground, upheaving dirt. My stomach flipped. If Nritti wouldn’t lead them to the human realm to sate their bloodlust, then they woulddigtheir way to the human realm.
In the fray of people, my gaze flew to the only two beings not moving: Gupta and Kamala. The moment he saw me, Gupta dropped his hold on Kamala. He stared at me, a huge smile tugging at his lips. Kamala snorted and stamped the ground before galloping to me. I caught her around the neck, burying my face in her mane.
“Certainly a falsesadhvi, but not a false queen…,” she said, nuzzling me.
Eyes like lamplight turned to us, glances cutting away from the dirt to witness me and Amar. When the Otherworld beings saw us, they paused, brows furrowing as if they had forgotten something important and had only just remembered. I flexed my fingers. Some of the darkness lifted, blotted away like ink on a page. The space around me was a pelt in need of mending. Even now, I could feel through its rifts, sensing all the pieces that had been knocked askew in chaos like broken bones. Somewhere under the muddled air of sweat and dried blood was the bright scent of fairy fruit. Somewhere between those ragged strips of night lay moonbeams tangled with lightning, stars ripped and furious. I could mend it all.
The whole of the Otherworld fell silent. Some of the Otherworldly beings shook their heads and stumbled backward. Others dropped their weapons and prostrated themselves on the ground. But most of them didn’t fall as easily. Instead, they turned their attention toward Nritti, waiting for directions.
“You have gone too far,” said Amar.
Nritti grinned. “You have not even begun to witness the destruction I can wreak.”
“We won’t give you that chance,” I said.
Amar moved to my side. He didn’t crouch behind or run in front. He stood by my side as an equal. He laced his fingers in mine, his expression handsomely severe.
“What should we do,jaani?”
“Restore the light,” I said.
Amar grinned. He wrung his hands like he was balancing an invisible sphere, his face drawn in focus. In the space between his fingers, a small pinprick of light began to whirl faster and faster. Nritti roared, flashing her palms up. But I was faster.Stronger.
She screeched at the nearbyrakshasandbhuts,pointing wildly at me, but the monsters refused to budge. “What’s wrong with you fools?” she yelled. “Forget it! I’ll do it myself! You’re weak,” she seethed at the shrinking fey, “and when I’m the Rani of these realms, I will find each and every one of you pathetic excuses of monsters and show you the meaning of hell.”
“For that,” I said, “you’ll need some experience.”
Nritti turned her glinting eyes on me, her lips stretching into a sneer. “And you’re going to do that for me, are you? You don’t know the first thing about power.”
“Then let me demonstrate.”
Magic crackled at my palms, twisting serpentine around my legs and arms until my limbs bowed under the weight of it all. I breathed deeply, sensing the movement of life around me as though it were light through prisms. From one angle, Gupta charged toward the crowd, wallopingrakshasandasuraswith his scrolls of bone. Kamala pulled her lips back to reveal sharp teeth, laughing to herself as she ripped out the throat of the bull-aspectraksha. I felt Amar’s power beside mine, a shadow to my light, a rhythm to match our music. And in that unknown space before me, I sensed Nritti. Her power was a wrenching thing, starless black and sorrow, but my magic was something more… it washope.
A rupturing sound echoed and the Night Bazaar transformed into an unlikely arena.Rakshasthe size of boulders flung themselves at Gupta and Amar. Gupta danced around their bludgeoning movements. From the palms of his hands, inky tendrils of smoke fell over therakshasandpeysand they fell backward, their eyes glassy. He jumped forward, spinning in tight circles, drenching enemies in sticky, blinding black.
Gusts of wind knocked backrakshas, sending them tumbling like avalanches down the ranks of the uprising beings. Nritti screamed, throwing up pillars of black. She darted through them, her reflection scattering. Shadow arrows sprayed across the ruined Night Bazaar.
Nritti didn’t seem to care who she hit. My eyes widened in horror as the feathers found less likely targets—peyswho fought at her side, their last expression choked and bewildered; writhingnagaswith their cobra-hoods flared open, baring fangs the size of scimitars.
Chaos lit up the riot of Otherworldly beings. They flew at each other, all sense of a common enemy gone. Blood sank into the ground of the Night Bazaar and the earth gathered the offering greedily, leaving nothing in return save for damp plots of dirt and ash. The cacophony of grinding hooves and entangled horns joined the din of lightning and thunder above. Steam rose languidly from the ground, burning where demon blood had evanesced.
I summoned magic to my fingertips until it gathered like a cloud around us. And then… I released it, letting it ribbon around the ruined Night Bazaar, bolstering shattered beams, siphoning away its cloak of broken gloom. Beside me, Amar dropped the diamond of light between his hands. It hit the ground and then the air stood still. Pinpoints of light burst in the air. Explosions erupting with heat, with screams…
Through the din, Amar’s gaze sought mine. Around us, the walls converged, shattering to the ground in thunderous claps. Light sang as it spread across the floor. Above, a great ripping sound echoed through the Night Bazaar. Nritti’s sneer faded, pale skin draining to an absolute white. She froze in mid-scream, wild eyes flashing between vacant and livid.
