“I would never stop you.” And I meant it. Nritti may not have believed in me the way the Dharma Raja did, but she loved me and she supported me the best way that she knew how.
“I will always send word. I will visit often. I will sing your praises to the stars and back.”
I laughed, but my throat felt tight with tears. “Oh, please don’t sing. Has Vanaj heard your voice? He’s already blind, Nritti.”
She held my hand a little tighter. “Besides, you will have someone to pass your days with.” She looked at me slyly. “And your nights.”
My cheeks heated beneath her gaze. I had told her a little about the Dharma Raja and his visits. But she had never met him, and I had never divulged his identity. WithTeejapproaching, I couldn’t help but think of Nritti’s original advice. What did he want from me?
I had been courted before, but no one had gone to such lengths to know me. No one had dared me to dream of more for myself. No one filled me with dreams of my own. I’d come close to telling him on many nights, but couldn’t. I hadn’t forgotten that he had asked for a bond without love. Every time I imagined his rejection, my heart stuttered.
“He has never said he loves me,” I said quietly.
“But you think he does?”
I nodded.
“Do you love him?”
“I don’t know.”
“When you are with him, what do you see?”
I closed my eyes, thinking of his presence. He was the burning thing in my heart, a caught flame that challenged and inspired me. He was the winged thing in my soul, something carrying my dreams aloft and freeing me from the ground. He was the nightmare of night, the tragic ending to a love story, the shadow over the cremation ground. My memories summoned him—night and smoke, embers and wings. I would not have him any other way.
Nritti’s voice fell to a hush. “You see, sister? That is your answer.”
Some insipid voice at the back of my head whispered to me anyway. And in its echoes, all I heard were my doubts. My fears. Vanaj had already given Nritti amangalsutra.He had declared his love and married her in the manner of thegandharvas.Whereas the Dharma Raja had never once offered me that commitment. He had never once said that he loved me.But he gave you the moon for your throne and a garden unlike any in all the realms. He gave you stars for your hair and offered his heart in his palm.
I felt Nritti’s hand smooth the hair away from my face.
“Sister. You are courageous and clever, creative and compassionate. But your doubts will ruin you if you let them. Choose happiness. Choose love.”
Soon after, she left. And it was just me and the yawning sky and the pale stars shuffling sleepily into place. There was only one week left untilTeej.All this time, he had yet to name what this was. The Dharma Raja had stated his intentions ages ago, but intentions change. Change was the only thing that could be counted upon. I knew that better than most.
For hours, I stood in the glass garden. Touching the tips of thecrystal flowers and palming the diamond-paned jasmine vines. Every cool brush of the glass reminded me that what I felt was real. When I touched the glass, something crystallized within me. I loved him. I knew that now. And I wasn’t going to wait around for him to tell me that’s how he felt too.
Tonight I would tell him. I prepared the grove, arranged my hair. I waited, my heart full to bursting, my mouth brimming with all things I wanted to say.Neededto say.
But he never came.
8
DEATH
I had lost myself. Sometimes I didn’t think I’d drawn breath until her lips touched mine. Sometimes I saw the world as she did, and it was no longer an old and creaking thing, but a song I had not been able to hear until now. I told myself it was nothing more than the perfect companionship. Devoid of love but full of understanding. And every time I told this to myself, I thought the whole palace of Naraka shook with laughter. I ignored it.
For the past few days, I had imagined the world as it might be and not as it was. I had collected souls and spun them into new forms. There had been no need to visit the Tapestry. Until now.
The moment I stepped into the room, it sensed that I had changed. And like any beast that sensed weakness, the threads pushed and pushed until they broke into my thoughts. They rummaged with cloth fingers, ignoring my protest and fury. They spoke over me withtaunts, dragging a noose of my past around my neck until I was yanked into a memory I never wished to revisit:
The Shadow Wife wore my mother’s face. She crouched by my side, grabbing me by the shoulders.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” she asked.
“I’ve done nothing but tell the truth. Something you should have done years ago.”
I had been younger and more foolish then, eager for justice. My mother had been missing for centuries. Some said that the Sun Palace was so bright that the light could cut you if you weren’t careful. Some said that the light had cut my mother, splitting her heart right down the middle and blinding her heart to the love she should have carried for the child she left behind. I never asked why she left or where she went. When I was younger, I thought I had not loved her enough and that was why she left. When I grew older, I saw how love was sometimes not the tether but the whip. The thing that made you run far and fast and never return.
