It started advancing, as if it smelled her.
Aasha shivered.
Was she supposed to get past it?
A part of her mind chastised her.She didn’t teach you stealth.But panic gnawed at her logic. She tried to skirt past the ratlike creaturethat loomed tall as an elephant and wide as a building. Its tail, bald but for a few coarse hairs, whipped to her.
It saw her.
With something like a roar, it came toward her. Aasha tried to run. It loomed over her. One paw poised to slice her open. She felt something damp and disgusting matting her hair. She tried to rub the gunk onto her arms, wondering if that would make her invisible to it, but the rat hissed. It didn’t make a difference. It would eat its waste with as little distaste to eating her.
Aasha ran to the other end of the cave. The only things were the bushels of thorned berries. She dove into the thicket of their leaves.
The rat trotted after her. Snuffling. Easy. It knew that it didn’t have to rush because there was no way she could get past it. Around her, the purple and yellow berries scratched at her face. Aasha breathed fast. She watched as the rat moved closer, forcing her to keep her eyes open. Something caught her eye. A shudder in the creature’s skin. She frowned. Watching again.
It didn’t like the purple berries.
Every time it brushed against them, its own skin crawled.
Aasha grabbed a handful, pulverizing them in her fist and rubbing it onto her hands and arms just as the creature found the bush where she hid. She waited, back pressed against the rocky ledges of the cave. The creature’s nose was hardly a foot away from her. She could count the pores on its nose.
It snuffled her, a pale tongue trying to lick over her face. With a disgusted snuffle, it shuffled backward. Aasha could hardly breathe. She just grabbed a handful of more purple berries, then crept behind the creature. Its ears perked. Head swiveled. But it couldn’t find her scent anymore.
With a shaky grin, she ran into the cave…
And fell.
Now she was wandering through a new maze. One of sounds. She heard the wingbeats of giant birds carrying thunderstorms in their feathers. Aasha thought of Zahril’s lesson, when she had placed her hands over Aasha’s eyes and told her tolisten.Listen to the space between things, until she could hear steam pluming from a mug of tea. It had been the hardest lesson. Not because she couldn’t learn to listen, but because she couldn’t concentrate with Zahril’s cold palms over her eyelids. They were so much softer than the rest of her.
Aasha pushed the thought from her mind.
She did what she remembered from Zahril’s lessons. She closed her eyes to the riotous room before her. Sight would only trick her. Focusing on the sounds to guide her out. In front of her, rain fell sharply, sounding like pearls ripped loose from a sari and clattering loudly to the ground.Not that way.In the other direction was thewhumpfof wings. A cold wind pushed her back, stinging her throat and making it hard to breathe.Not that way.
What did an exit sound like?
Aasha remembered Zahril forcing her to knock against a thousand gourds, to memorize the sound of crisp bread broken versus the sound of soaked bread ripped into pieces.Don’t roll your eyes at me, Aasha, this sound is the difference between life and death.
The sound between life and death…
Silence.
She needed to follow the quiet.
She listened to another direction, trying to pinpoint her attention on one direction at a time. Then she heard it:nothing.But therewas fullness to it, like walking down a completely empty street during a summer night where the air—so soaked through with damp—used you to bolster itself upright.
Without opening her eyes lest another sense betray her, Aasha followed the promise of quiet…
The other sounds faded.
Now when she opened her eyes, she was standing at the end of a gigantic feast table.
Aasha’s stomach gave a desperate grumble.Hungerrrr…
She wished Zahril hadn’t just left a cup of tea outside her door where anyone could have stepped on it. Then again, Zahril had told her that she never went to state banquets on a full stomach. It was the emptiness that heightened the senses. She told Aasha how some holy men and women would undergo rigorous fasting just to capture that euphoric transcendence that came from depriving the body. When one thing was denied, it felt and reached with all senses, frantic to keep itself alive.
The feast table groaned. Moths with wings of light darted overhead, transforming the ceiling into a glittering array of living stars. There was no one here. Not like the famous eaters that supposedly lived within Kubera’s monstrous palace.
The food was tantalizing. But poisonous. Aasha could feel her star pushing against her skin, ready to burst free. For the first time during the examination, she exhaled. Relaxed. Nothing could kill her here. And yet… she looked around at the stone enclosure. The glittering ceiling. Even the wooden floor of interlocking stars that was polished to a shine as bright as a mirror.
