***
Her laughter was still ringing in my ears when I arrived back to the palace. Gupta was meditating upside down and cracked open an eye when he heard me.
“Oh no,” he said, paling. “Not a single insult? Mysherwanijacket is practically around my head.”
“I can see that.”
My hounds ran up to me, snuffling my palms with bemused expressions. I scratched their ears absentmindedly.
“What did she do to you?”
She had laughed at me. And made me laugh at myself. And she had been freely honest. People always threw their honesty and last secrets at me, as if by expelling them in a dying breath, they could shorten their time in the less savory parts of my kingdom. But she had given her honesty without expectation. And her honesty was a gift.
“How did the introductions go? Was she adequately wooed and smitten courtesy of yours truly?” asked Gupta.
“She hated every word your ‘expert tutelage’ forced me to say.”
Gupta gasped, and his eyes narrowed. “Impossible!”
“She is.”
“Don’t take it personally. Women are hard to please,” he grumbled. “Especially beautiful ones.”
Beauty. I hadn’t thought much of it before. Beauty seemed too random, too flimsy to pin any true value to. Her features were lovely, but that wasn’t what made her memorable. Stars and constellations had knitted their way from her forehead to her toes. She wore the stories of the world as if every story had only ever been about her. And wasn’t that what beauty should be about? A rhythm of features and colors trying to be remarkable enough to earn a tale? If so, she had that in infinite quantities.
“What did you tell her?” asked Gupta, hopping from his upside-down perch.
“That I wanted to make her my queen.”
Gupta squeaked and tugged at his hair. “Where is themysteryin that, you fool? What did she say?”
I laughed, thinking of her response. Sharp tongue. Clever.
“She said no.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“But I thought…” started Gupta, before he frowned and tented his fingers. “Don’t despair, there’s always—”
“No,” I said. “If not her, then no one.”
“But she rejected you.”
“And she said I may see her tomorrow. And even court her.”
Gupta raised a skeptical brow. “Seems like you’ve met your match in cruelty.”
“I’m not cruel,” I said, waving a hand. I was pacing back and forth. How many hours until nightfall?
“There’s only two months untilTeej.Even by your normal standards, you seem a little overconfident.”
“I think she’s far too ambitious to refuse my offer.”
Gupta muttered something that sounded a lot like “arrogant cow.” Then, with a flick of his wrist, a flurry of heavily inked parchment papers soared into his arms. “If that is what you wish, then how can I help?”
“First of all, never instruct me on the art of courtly coquettishness again.”
