We prefer not to have an audience.
I schooled my face into a blank mask. “Lead the way.”
I think I lived and died a hundred times in the time it took to walk to the private garden path. Anger, fury, excitement and hurt raced through me. Every part of me felt gathered and strung taut. I kept imagining the words that would come out of his mouth, his gentle way of saying that Alaka had been an experience out of time that he never wished to repeat. Another thought, worse than anything, clawed at me… that I’d waited too long.
Here, the sounds of the coronation party never reached the trees. Everything was still. Silent.
“His Majesty is at the end of the garden walkway.”
The courtier delivered a final bow before leaving me alone.
I’d never seen a garden like this. Most royal grounds favored sculpted lawns and elegant arrangements. This place felt like… whimsy. Above me, small moonstone thuribles were strung through the trees, an echo of the great banyan tree in Alaka where lights lit up the leaves and frost sleeved the branches. Small silk pennants dangled wind chimes through the thousands of branches. When the wind combed its fingers through the trees, music fell through the air.
I had always loved walking in gardens, but since returning to Bharata, I couldn’t stand how the loneliness bared its teeth and announced itself at every turn. But here… here I felt a comfort rooted not in my senses, but in my soul. It was like recognizing one’s bedroom in the dark. You didn’t need sight to know it was yours.
Roses grew in colors I’d never seen—lush green and deepest blue. The fragrance moved like a song through the air, unhurried and haunting. Small tree saplings carved from mirrors were placed around the garden walkway, drinking in the light and casting its own illusion of reflections. Golden fruit sparkled beneath the branches of a tree. I peered closer, and saw that the golden fruits were ornaments. Not magic. Or maybe it was magic. What was magic anyway, but the world beheld by someone who chose to see it differently?
I walked faster. Sprouting from the dirt, the tops of swords sliced through flowering bushes. My breath caught.
If you could grow anything in your garden, what would it be?
Swords.
And there they were.
I took another step and looked up to see silver bowls hanging from the trees where the scent of syrupygulab jamunclung to the air.
I just want to pluck it off the trees and eat it on the spot.
I remembered Vikram laughing when he heard that all I wanted to grow were sweets and swords. What had he called me—
“Beastly girl,” he said. I looked up, realizing that the words had been supplied not by my mind but by the person standing a short distance away.
My heart leapt. I knew that if I looked at him immediately, my emotions would be plain on my face. So I looked at him in parts. First, his hands. Still steepled. Not quite as scholarly as they once appeared. A scar ornamented his left hand. Then, his shoulders. Ruling suited him. He held himself differently—his shoulders broad and thrown back, an emerald jacket clinging to his lean body. Biju, the snake, hung around his neck like a necklace. Finally, his face. His Otherworldly features remained the same. Handsome, maybe even unbearably so. There was the same tilt to his mouth, as if he were on the verge of grinning. He stood, half in shade and half in sun, mischief and temptation given form.
It was hard to look at him, as if I couldn’t hold the sight all at once.
“What do you think?” he asked. “Does it look like the garden of your dreams, swords and all?”
“You did this for me?”
He nodded.
“But then why did the delegates tell me that you were—” I faltered, the words catching in my throat.
“Mostly to make you visit. I had to work on the timing too. I didn’t want you to miss the event, but I also didn’t want us stuck in an eternity of ceremonies for Bharata’s first visit to Ujijain,” he said casually. “And I thought about going to Bharata, but I couldn’t bring the garden to you and even if I did, I doubt your guards would have taken kindly to me stabbing swords all over the lawn—”
“You never said anything about the gift I sent you,” I blurted out.
“The wooden crown?” he asked, picking it up from a table beside him. “It’s my favorite toy. I have made good on my word and thrown it at people. Except the leopard seems to think it’s a chew toy and that’s—”
“Why didn’t you say anything about it?”
He stared at me, his brows pressing together. “How was I supposed to know you wanted me to say something?”
“I give a gift. You give a gift back. That’s how gift giving should work.”
“That isnothow gift giving works. You give a gift. I accept it.”
