“Honor.”
Not exactly a lie.
“Alas. I must have misplaced it.”
“Is there a reason why you seek every opportunity to annoy me?”
“It’s fun. Your scar flashes when you frown. It almost looks like a dimple,” said Vikram. “I’m still waiting for your face to turn red with anger. It might make you look like you’re blushing. Or perhaps I am making you blush?”
I froze. No one except Mother Dhina and Nalini had recognized the small scar for what it was.
“I trained alongside male soldiers for years and have seen, and probably smelled, far more than I should have. Or wanted to,” I said. “You will never make me blush.”
“If we leave this place alive, I am determined to prove you wrong.”
Thevetalacackled from the other side of the tent.
“I would choose a more achievable quest, boy. Perhaps you could apply yourself to make the girl snarl at you. That seems far more likely. Or rip out your throat. Also more likely,” huffed thevetala.“Mind the head, though, girl. And that jacket you took from him. I grew fond of it during our travels.”
14
A SCAFFOLD OF SILENCE
GAURI
People always think killing requires a force: a cup of poison tipped into a mouth, a knife parting flesh from bone, a fist brought down repeatedly.
Wrong.
Here’s how you kill: You stay silent, you make bargains that peel the layers off your soul one by one, you build a scaffolding of flimsy excuses and live your life on them. I may have killed to save, but I killed all the same.
Two years ago, Skanda had fallen in lust with the daughter of a prominent noble. The nobleman loved his daughter and didn’t want her wasting away in Skanda’s harem. So he had her betrothed immediately to someone else. Skanda got angry. The girl’s betrothed was brought to his personal chambers, where the girl’s wedding sari, stolen by a spy, had been placed. One look at it was enough to convince the man that his betrothed had been unfaithful. He broke off the engagement. Two days later, the girl took her life to spare her family shame.
I had seen the girl’s betrothed when he left Skanda’s chambers. I had seen confusion and fury warring in his face. But I needed more recruits for the army, medicines for the village children, and I wanted Skanda to start apportioning funds for Nalini’s dowry before her wedding to Arjun.
So I stayed silent.
Maybe if I had been braver, I would have spoken up. But at what cost? I hadn’t forgotten the serving girl I tried defending. My voice was one of the only things I could control—when to unleash it, when to tamp it down like a burning ember, when to grow it in secret.
All my life, control and power had worn the same face.
I believed in gods, but the only faith I truly practiced was control. Nothing in excess. Nothing that placed my life in the hands of another. And yet for the second time, I was considering giving myself wholly to a magic I could neither wield nor know.
“I was right,” said Vikram, pointing above us.
The rotating dais of directions had begun its descent in the night. Now it spun faster and faster, counting down to the moment where I would have to make a choice.
“I say we choose the north and follow Kubera,” said Vikram. “Are you with me or not?”
“But what if it’s a trap? What if we go with south instead and choose the Dharma Raja?”
“We might find ourselves in Naraka then, and I have no intention of dying so soon.”
Above us, the neighing of horses lit up what was left of night. A silver chariot creaked out of an unseen hall, ready to pull the moon out of the sky and usher in the new day.
“Vetala!” called Vikram.
“Seeing as I’ve already died, this part is not terribly exciting,” shouted thevetala.“Go on then. This was most entertaining.”
