As I walked, blood soaked my ankles, thick and warm. Rust and salt studded the air. Clenching my jaw, I walked forward. The blood didn’t give like water. It clung. Every emotion that I had shoved deep inside me bubbled furiously to the surface. I closed my eyes, imagining the victory that I had to believe was waiting for me at the end of the hall.
One step.
When I closed my eyes, I didn’t just see the throne of Bharata waiting for me or Nalini standing tall and free. I saw fingers tangled in my hair and a mouth made for grinning lowered to my skin.
Another step.
I felt a light within me that dimmed the world in comparison. That feeling pushed me forward—the hope for more, the promise of something better. Not just the quest for power, but the quest for hope.
I pressed my nose to the glass doors, trying to decipher the shapes behind them. In the middle of each door was a hollow where the ruby key would fit inside perfectly.
In the first: a table surrounded by a haze of figures. I pushed myself closer to the glass, but it was impossible to tell whether the figures at the table were even people.
In the second: a pool of murky water. I breathed in sharply. Floating across the surface, arms flung out and face down, was the figure of a man the same size and shape as Vikram.
In the third: my bedroom in Bharata. I could even smell the musk of my favorite perfume, sandalwood and sweet almond.
Instinct guided me to the second door and to the figure that had to be Vikram, but I hesitated. Instinct had been no friend of mine once magic entered my life. I thought of Vikram in the Crossroads, pleading with me to have a little more faith, to throw out the human reaction. The blood-scrawled words drifted to me tauntingly:I could make a meal of this desire. Couldn’t you?
Meal. I turned to the first door, with the table. One part of me screamed that it felt too easy. And the other part screamed:Who cares?I stood there, caught between my past self and my present. I wanted to be strong, but showing strength wasn’t always about physical valor or even cunning. True strength sometimes demanded unstitching everything you knew. I unstitched myself. I turned myself blind to what I expected, and what I would have done had I never met Vikram or been forced to reckon with magic. I turned my back on the image of him floating facedown in the pool, ignoring how cowardice chased me.
I placed the ruby key into the door showing the dining table, and held my breath as the door absorbed the key and swung open. I stepped inside. The door swung shut behind me, plunging me into a darkness so thick I could feel it pressing against me. Had I chosen right?
Silently, I removed my daggers. Nothing charged at me. Nothing moved. In front of me, twelve starved and naked bodies hunched over a dining table. Each being hid its head beneath a piece of red cloth. The cloths were identical in color: crimson. Crimson as bloodlust in someone’s soul, lustrous and visceral. This shade of red did not exist in the human world.
I took a step closer, but none of the diners moved. Their heads were bent over the table, hands flat against their thighs. They gave away nothing. Not even a tremor. No food appeared on the silver table, and yet I could hear and smell a feast.
A thirteenth diner appeared at the end of the table. He wore no silk to obscure his face. My heart dropped.
“Vikram?” I called softly.
But he didn’t answer. He was staring straight ahead. A lace of frost spidered over his shoulder, as if he were freezing before my eyes. His chest didn’t move. Was he even breathing?
I stepped forward, but a wall of air forced me back. My heart began to pound. Another blood-scrawled message seeped out of the ground like a wound:
We can eat first.
Or you can.
The message distorted and pooled across the floor. My mind started racing. Eat first? I stepped back out of the reach of the blood. Whatever invisible fence had blocked me from getting to Vikram shimmered into visibility: a thick wall of red. Nausea gripped my stomach. The wall repulsed me to the core. It looked… soft. The way rot corrupts a body and turns it into a stew of entrails. Or the way fruit left out too long puckers and collapses in upon itself. The blood on the floor reached my skin. Ifeltit. Not the texture, but the soul of it.
A vision flashed behind my eyes: bees buzzing near my ear. I swatted at it. I hated bees. I’d been stung once when I was seven and used to have nightmares of a whole hive chasing me deep into the forest where I’d never be able to find my way home. I jumped, moving away from the reach of blood. It seeped, finding my skin once more. This time I felt that I was standing over a tall cliff. A gray sea churned hungrily below me. Once more, I moved away from the blood.
I raised my dagger and plunged it into that soft wall. The wall burst, sending wet chunks of red all over me. I tried to reach through the gap and claw my way out, but the hole closed immediately. I felt a wet piece of the wall on my mouth. Disgusted, I dragged my hand across my face, but the nausea was so overwhelming, I gagged and some of that wall found its way past my teeth. The taste was bitter and metallic. I was clutching my stomach when I noticed something… a bit of the wall opened. And stayed open.
We can eat first.
Or you can.
Once more, the blood crept to my skin. I let it. This time I was prepared for the wave of fear that rushed over me… deeper this time. I saw myself riding triumphantly back to Bharata only to discover Nalini’s funeral ceremony just past the gates. I opened my eyes, finally understanding the trial.
To get to the other side, I had to eat my fears.
Fear was no stranger to me. All my life, fear had been the hand on my back, steering me. Fear had cushioned my mind in wartime, sharpening my senses and keeping me a breath away from death. I narrowed my eyes, grabbing a fistful of the wall. It gave way with a sickening, unclasping sound. I closed my eyes. Chewed. Swallowed.
I wandered through the forest and found Maya’s body.All those stories I had imagined for her, endings dancing out of sight where she wore a crown of stars and forgot how to grieve, shattered.
Another bite.
