“Perhaps I’ll be inspired by the way you spend your hours,” he had said. “Maybe I’ll go to the dice tables. Your winnings, I’ve noticed, are controlled by just how little or how much you pay attention to the city representative’s interests.”
“How do you know that?” asked the adviser, paling.
“As it turns out, not everyone knows that I am merely to ‘sit’ upon the throne of Ujijain.”
He let this information linger just to watch the adviser sweat.
“You have far too much time on your hands, Prince Vikramaditya.”
“So change that,” said Vikram. “Include me in the committees. Spend my time, and I may turn a blind eye on yours.”
He was involved in seven committees that season.
But spending much of his time finding weaknesses meant that he could not ignore his own.
Jhulan Purnima threatened to unfasten him. Even the air turned intoxicating and sweet. It almost, thought Vikram, smelled like her. He had noticed that the other day, when he leaned down to murmur a broken song in her ear and plead with her to live. She had that sharp green fragrance that belonged to unopened flower blooms. Sun-warmed beauty on the cusp of bursting.
He hadn’t even realized his weakness until that night, when those heatless flames licked their way through her bloodstream. What if she didn’t live? At first, his mind refused to entertain the possibility of her death. But then he had carried her. He had held her limp, poisoned body against his chest, and felt her life unspooling. And he knew that the Tournament of Wishes had stopped being a game.
Since that night, he needed to tell her… something. But what? “Please don’t die” sounded foolish. “You smell nice” sounded worse. He wasn’t even sure what the right words were, but they sat on his tongue and made it impossible to speak around them. Before Alaka, he would have been content keeping whatever thorny not-feelings had reared up inside him. But Death commanded urgency. Death tore the skin off dreams and showed the bones underneath. And Vikram saw the bones now. When he closed his eyes, he saw Gauri’s long-lashed gaze closing. And staying closed. He saw his own body crumpled by the shores of a pool not unlike the Serpent King’s portal, turning to a skeleton for some ignorant prince to ponder or ignore.
Irritated, Vikram stalked through the revels and swiped a jeweled goblet from one of the floating crystal trays. He swirled the goblet, watching as the pale pink drink deepened from rose to garnet to winter black. The same shade as her eyes. He spilled the drink onto the ground.
Vikram stood far from the revels now, at the edge of the orchards. A low laugh resonated through the silent trees. It wasn’t a laugh of camaraderie or love. It was a laugh of control.
Chasing the sound, he stepped into an orchard full of needle-thin bone white trees. Here, the snow and ice faded into soft ash. The grove possessed the undisturbed quality of cremation grounds. Grief dented the air, turning it so heavy and thick that he thought he could cut through it. His breath feathered into cold plumes as he crept forward, mindful of the strange trees.
Through a net of branches, he saw Gauri crawling along the orchard floor. Some distance before her stood ayakshawith amber hair. He held himself strangely, his legs ankle-deep in the ground, his face harsh and twisted. Vikram froze, mesmerized by the black blooming across theyaksha’s face, oil and fungus, roots dripping and dangling from nose and chin.
Something snapped. A howl from theyaksha.Gauri rising victorious. It wasn’t until he saw that her hand gripped a wooden dagger that panic grabbed his heart in a fist. If she had her true dagger, she might turn them on him for daring to interrupt her victory. But this was not her usual flesh-and-blood opponent. Vikram glanced down and cursed. In Ujijain, he’d never had reason to carry weapons and so he never developed the habit. He was muscular, but that didn’t matter in the face of magic.
However, he could run.
He could runveryfast.
Time bore down on him. Theyakshastepped closer to Gauri. Running fast wouldn’t make a difference if he couldn’t distract theyaksha.He needed something. Something that would purchase a moment’s distraction. Vikram bent down, sifting through the ash for a rock or a stick, and his hands hit the bark of the bone white tree. The tree quaked. With a lush sigh, the bark unfolded, splitting down the middle to reveal a perfectly golden apple at the center. Vikram didn’t think twice. He reached in, grabbed the fruit, aimed it straight at theyakshaand threw. The fruit sailed through the air, burnished golden rind shining in the dim evening light. His aim, for once, was true. But theyakshamust have detected it. He stepped back, and the apple sailed through the bark as if the tree were made of water.
Not exactly what he expected, but he’d learned to accept stranger things. He didn’t waste a moment. Vikram charged forward. Wind tore at his jacket. The ground blurred. Pale light spangled the mirror trees, but the light was terse and distant, like lightning pulsing behind a veil of clouds. Whatever roots had sewed theyakshato the ground lifted in his desperation to move. But Vikram was faster. He slammed into him. Theyakshatipped sideways, arms flung back. Quartz-bright cobwebs spun out from his fingers, seeking purchase. Neck arched and eyes wide, theyakshaslipped sideways, crumpling to the ground. Vikram braced himself for a fall, but Gauri grabbed the collar of his jacket and righted him. He panted, his heart still thundering in his chest as theyakshapushed himself onto his elbows and glared.
“Take her and be damned,” he spat.
Gauri spun her wooden dagger between her fingers before taking aim at theyaksha.Vikram stepped out of her way.
“Takethisand be damned,” she said, releasing it. The dagger found its mark and promptlythwackedtheyakshaon the head. He disappeared on the spot.
Gauri faced him. Her hair had come undone around her face. Somehow her eyes looked even blacker than normal, as if they’d captured the night sky in their gaze. He felt out of breath. But not from his sprint. Fire burned just beneath his skin. He cursed. What happened to always having a way with words? Words turned to ash in his mouth.
“Did you find anything useful—” he had started to say when she spoke over him:
“I was thinking about Kubera’s warning. About desire. And how it’s dangerous.”
He stopped short.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “It is.” And then because he had to, because every splinter of him screamed that this moment could grow wings if his soul steered him true, he said, “To me, there is nothing more dangerous in this palace than you.”
Now she looked at him. She didn’t soften. Or smile. If anything, she had become a little of the ground on which they stood. Cold and lovely. But wonder poured out of her eyes. Wonder and something like… relief. And if he thought there was fire under his skin earlier, it was nothing compared to now. Now he had swallowed the sun. Now the world had stopped lurching forward and begun an impossible dance.
“I thought you were going to stay away from me,” she said.
