When we left, I turned his words over in my heart. Kubera might want to harvest a story out of our trials, but he’d let something slip: A story had no ownership. A story could break its bones, grow wings, soar out of reach and dive out of sight in the time it took just to draw breath. It meant we weren’t walking a cut path. We carved it into existence with every step.
22
NO TOUCHING
AASHA
Aasha hadn’t slept last night. Instead, she snuck off to sit at the end of a stone path that connected the courtesans’ tent to a running stream. Bright green grass flanked the path, taunting her. Her fingers ached to feel the ground. Would grass feel hard and cold, like glass? Or would it yield like a gossamer thread, soft and fragile, before snapping abruptly beneath her palm? Experience stilled her hand. Any living thing she touched blackened and shriveled. She didn’t even dare to dip her feet in the water out of fear for any hidden wildlife.
Aasha stood and walked back to the tent. Soon, she would have to meet Gauri and the human boy. Part of her thrilled to spend time in human company. Even last night, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Gauri. The way she was breathless and brittle and reckless. Aasha wanted to look like that. Like something alive.
Sometimes Aasha strained her memory to the days before thevishakanyascollected her, but all she could recall was a rain-washed field and warm hands rubbing coconut oil into her scalp. Those wisps of the past told her nothing. The other part of Aasha felt nervous about meeting them. Even her sisters seemed worried. Since last night, they had been treating her like a glass doll.
“It can’t be that bad,” Aasha said, when one of her sisters tried, once more, to stop her from meeting Gauri. “We were once human after all, so—”
“Never say that in this tent,” said one of her sisters. “We may bleed and birth the same way, but that is where the similarities end. We are different. Only we carry the Blessing in our veins. They do not.”
After promising to keep their counsel, Aasha hurried to the banyan tree. She caught sight of them as she walked up the hill. Gauri stood tall and fierce. She held herself as if she were made of nothing but knife points, so sharp that Aasha cast a glance at her shadow, wondering if she had torn it to strips just by standing above it. Beside her stood the boy who had disguised himself as one of them. He was handsome, with a face and figure that some of her sisters would have wanted to touch regardless of his desires. He leaned against the banyan tree, easy and graceful, but with a keen brightness to his gaze, as if he could see more than most.
Gauri walked forward. “I was afraid you wouldn’t show up.”
“A being of the Otherworld always keeps their word.”
Gauri only lifted an eyebrow. As if to say,We’ll see.“This is Vikram.”
The boy flashed a smile.
Aasha sniffed the air cautiously, tasting their desires and searching for any threat to herself. But their desires had not been greedy or lust-filled. At least, not lust directed at her.
“You said there was something the Lady Kauveri wants from the Serpent King. What is it?”
“Venom.”
Surprise flickered on Gauri’s face. “Why would anyone want anaga’s venom?”
Aasha had never been one for gossip. She’d always been the one at the edges of the room, listening to her louder and more excited sisters as they traded news from the Night Bazaar. It never seemed wise to talk about other people. But she had given her word to help the humans. And she felt rather proud of herself in that moment. No one wanted her killing or enchanting touch. They wanted information, and it cost her nothing to give. Even better,shehad control over what information to divulge.
“It is said that whoever possesses the venom of the Serpent King can control him.”
“Why would she want to control him?” asked Vikram.
Aasha was about to answer when Gauri cut in, her voice low and harsh—
“For vengeance. To retaliate for some wrong,” she said. She looked at Aasha. “Am I correct?”
Aasha nodded. “They say he kidnapped the Lady Kauveri’s sister and forced her into marriage. It wouldn’t be the first time that a demonnagawould do such a thing.”
“Is he a demon?” asked Vikram.
“He’s a descendant of the cruelest of all the demonnagas. Kaliya.”
Gauri’s expression darkened. “How do we get his venom?”
“I’m not sure,” Aasha admitted. “But first you have to get access to his kingdom. There is a pool on the far side of the orchard that bears his crest and invitation.”
If her sisters were here, they would have told her that she had done all she needed to and dragged her home. But Aasha lingered. The moment she returned, her world would fall back into its ordered chaos. She would keep her elbows tucked at her side when she walked so that nothing living brushed against her skin. Night after night, she would unspool a person’s desire, slaking her hunger and trying to forget that the moment the beings left her arms, they would touch someone they loved, place food upon their tongue that would keep flavor and never turn to ash, maybe even sink their hands into the dirt simply because they could.Not yet. Not yet.
“I can take you?” she offered.
