Gauri ignored him.
“Do you have a knife?”
“She has something better,” said Vikram wryly. He wriggled his fingers.
Aasha tried not to pale.
“What about desserts? Did you say good-bye to the kitchens? Half of them are so used to seeing you they probably think you’re part of the staff.”
Aasha had said good-bye to the kitchen workers. One of them had given her a favorite earthen pot, and if she inhaled it deeply, she could smell the ghost of spices that had settled into itscracks. Learning how to cook had become her favorite human pastime.
Only a few people had gathered to see her off. Outside the gates of Bharata, dawn had scarcely touched the skyline. A rosy blush gleamed through the trees. In the early morning chill, Aasha could see her breath plume before her. The cold hardly bothered her, but she pulled her shawl tight anyway, as if it might insulate her from the chill of her own fears.
The horses had been teamed to the chariot. In a few minutes, this carriage would take her far away from the confines of the palace. Aasha felt like an exposed wound, her heart raw and bared. But deep within her, some remnant of the old Aasha remained. Curiosity flickered to life. What was beyond these walls? And how interesting would it be to learn somethingnewfor a change instead of spending her days listening to others?
“We will see you in three months’ time,” said Gauri. “At our final ceremony before the wedding.”
“Thank every pantheon of deities,” said Vikram. “So many ceremonies. I can feel myself aging. Look,” he said, pulling his cheek taut. “Do you see any lines?”
“The only lines I see are the fine cracks in your sanity, my love.”
Vikram scowled.
Aasha stifled her laugh. Was it allowed? She had taken so much care to unlearn parts of herself that now everything she did felt stilted, made slow by every second-guess.
With a final good-bye, Aasha stepped inside the chariot. It lurched forward. A cloud of red dust gathered. The silhouettes of Gauri, Vikram, and their small entourage gradually faded until Aasha was all alone.
***
Aasha had seen cities of legend. She had visited the realm of serpents, and wandered through the mother-of-pearl and moonstone palaces. She had walked in the Night Bazaar and felt the moonlight silver her skin and the sunshine warm her face at the same time. But nothing compared to human cities. They reeked. Even from her chariot, Aasha could smell the animal sweat wicking from oxen dragging ploughs. She could smell the paste for brick-making, and the char of cooked food. Human cities were imperfect. To her, it made them all the more beautiful. All the more real. There was no magic here where someone might simply lift a palace from the ground. Everything demanded time. Patience. And yet the very nature of human existence—little more than a gasp of breath and a blink—seemed at odds with human marvels. A man might spend his whole life building a work of art, and never see it finished. But it was that dream—of what it might become, of knowing he had contributed to something immortal—that fed his soul. That was the magic of humans. Aasha felt humbled even to glimpse such endeavor.
For four days they traveled through Bharata.
Eventually, cities gave way to towns, then villages, then… forests. Aasha dearly wished to stand at the front where the charioteer drove the horses. She wanted to stretch out her hand, and feel the firm silk of vines dangling from the branches. She wanted to step outside and feel the damp earth squelch between her toes. But when she had asked the charioteer, he had been appalled.
“No lady of the court would do such a thing,” he said.
Perhaps a braver person would have pushed back. It was not asthough the court of Bharata were there to see her stare wide-eyed at the jungle. But the man’s condescension cut her. Ashamed, she did not ask again. Instead, she stayed curled up in her seat, leaning out the window with her chin tipped toward the ceiling of tangled trees and her mind lost in daydreams.
On the fifth day, they reached the Spy Mistress’s tower. The chariot in front, full of Bharata’s soldiers, stopped first. Aasha wanted to get out with them, but she was told to wait. Not wanting to offend the Spy Mistress before she had even met her, Aasha did as she was told.
Once she was allowed to descend, Aasha surveyed her new home for the next three months.
A thin frost hung in the air. It was nearing dusk, and the gathering darkness made the roads look unattended and lonely. She had imagined that the Spy Mistress would live in a palatial mansion hidden in the trees, disguised by mirrors so that the eye didn’t register its grandeur. Or perhaps a home cut into a waterfall. Something fanciful that said “Here Be Secrets.”
But this was not it.
It was a slab of sandstone along the side of the road. Obvious, and yet unattended. There had to have been a village nearby, and yet there were few signs of life aside from some stray cattle wandering by the road.
A crow circled overhead. Aasha looked around, but there wasn’t anythingdeadfor it to consume. Unless it was somehow feeding off the sad, empty energy of this whole place.
There was no one out here.
No sentinels.
No guards.
Not even a large fence with chinks cut into the stone, so that someone might be able to peer through it and find another person.
