All this time in Zahril’s company and not once had Aasha lost control. Before she had come to the Spy Mistress’s tower, she had been too torn between being either human orvishakanya.But now she saw that the key to controlling her abilities was simply to beherself.That the very act of freeing herself from trying to be anyonebutherself had released the grip of her worst fears. Zahril was, in part, to thank. Now, if Zahril found out about hervishakanyaheritage, she might take her life over her thanks.
“I have told you the truth,” said Zahril. She placed the hand with thevishakanyastar flat upon her leg. “Now it is my turn. What do you not want me to know about you?”
It was a clever question.
Then again, Zahril was no fool. Aasha felt a burst of relief that the poison did not work on her. Otherwise she would have found herself on the floor. Her throat cut.
A truth that Zahril did not know about her…
She did not want to lie even though she could. It would have felt jagged inside her, like a bone set poorly. So she spoke a truth. As bluntly as she would have done if they were just two girls that had met somewhere else… like a flower market beneath a tent where raindrops dangled like jewels. Or in the fierce glow of a festival’s fires, their foreheads slick from sweat, mouths sugary from sweets. Or in a world where they did not have to drag their past selves alongside them.
“I want to kiss you.”
8
Aasha was not sure what she expected to happen.
She watched her face, looking for some hint as to what she felt. A small quirk of her mouth would have been enough for Aasha. Even the flash of a frown would have at least thrown her out of the limbo of notknowing.But Zahril did nothing. Said nothing.
Aasha almost wished she’d just laugh at her.
Instead, the words had grown so heavy between them that Aasha half-wished she could pluck them out of the air and hide them out of sight.
“It is fine to want things,” said Zahril finally. “It is far worse to need them. That is the risk of acting upon want.”
Her tone was hesitant. Altogether wrong. Zahril never said anything hesitantly. Everything she did was injected with purpose. But that wasn’t what twisted inside Aasha. It was the softened feel of herwords. Zahril was so embarrassed for Aasha that she was comforting her.
And that was how the dismissal became a rejection so fierce that Aasha almost wanted thevishakanyastar to flare onto her throat. At least then Zahril would throw her out of this place, and she’d never have to look upon her mismatched eyes or wide lips.
But of course it didn’t.
“I have done everything I can to teach you,” said Zahril. “The final examination will be tomorrow. Your appointment depends on your performance. After that, Bharata has requested our appearance at the final engagement ceremony of Queen Gauri and Emperor Vikramaditya. I will alert the village to prepare enough food that you don’t kill us with your cooking.”
A feeble joke. Aasha just nodded. She knew she should have been glad.
Zahril could have decided that she could no longer instruct her when those were her true feelings. Or she could have demanded more than one truth, and Aasha’s cover would have been blown. Zahril was not so embarrassed by her declaration that she would give her false hope though. And the fact that she was already planning on food from the village could only mean one thing:
She believed Aasha would pass.
Aasha, even, believed that she would pass.
The only thing that had changed was that she wanted more than an appointment from Zahril. Zahril knew it. And as Aasha gathered the tray, mumbled her excuses, and left the room, all she could think of was whether that sliver of confidence was Zahril’s own offering. That this—her belief and her faith, and perhaps even a little of her trust—was all that she was willing to give.
Aasha set down the tray. In the emptiness of the kitchen, she summoned hervishakanyastar. A leaf had snapped off thetulsiplant that lived at the edge of the counter. Aasha swiped it off the marble, watching as the edges of the leaf blackened and smoldered.
For as long as she remembered, her touch was an extension of her that she hardly gave any thought to. It was like a shadow, forgotten until it loomed stark and vivid upon the ground. And yet her whole life, Aasha could always blame being avishakanyaas the source of her pain. It had kept her in the Otherworld. Then it had threatened the lives of those she loved in Bharata. She wanted to blame it. Wanted to curse it. Wanted to hold out this part of her and sayyou are the reason.But she couldn’t. Zahril hadn’t even bothered to reject her. She simply ignored it. And Aasha was left staring at her reflection on the polished copper of the kitchen pots. Wondering what fault her reflection hid from her.
***
The morning of the final examination was black and dark.
But Aasha had grown used to this. She fell asleep and woke up in darkness. For the past couple of weeks, she hadn’t let the darkness get to her. And yet sometime in the space of last night and this morning, she felt cracked. The velvet fingers of the shadows had found them. Heaviness dogged her steps. Hope, that familiar brightness that she could always reach, felt distant.
If she didn’t pass, she’d not only leave in disgrace. She’d leave with her heart swollen and bruised. Maybe it would leave her chest altogether. Then what?
She stepped outside and immediately winced.
Warm liquid hit her toes. Something sharp grazed her ankle.
