Zahril was watching. Weighing.
If she chose wrong, she would know what Aasha was.
Aasha fought against touching her throat. She scanned the feast and its multiple dishes, all of which rested on rectangles of thinly hammered gold. Fat plums with rinds like dusk, shining with dew. Mounds of pearl-white rice, flecked with gold. Candied pistachios. Rose sweets wrapped in silver foil. Egg curries with translucent spheres of oil separating at the top. Aasha breathed in… she tasted without tasting. The trace of too much almond in thepalak paneer.The rancid note that all that sugar in the carrothalwacould not hide. One by one, she touched the foods, careful to smell indirectly, lest she inhale poisonous fumes and be forced to fake a faint.
She circled the feast table until she realized…
All of it was poisonous.
The only thing that wasn’t were the thin pieces of gold holding up the dishes of food. Even the plates and cutlery were dusted with finely milled apple seed. A poison that would leach into the skin.
She tore off a corner of gold. Ate it.
It tasted as she expected:
Like nothing at all.
And the moment she ate the piece of gold, the table cleaved in half. Beautiful dishes of food slid off and crashed onto the floor. A pair of stairs appeared. Aasha took them slowly. Only dimly did she realize what had happened. She had conquered sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell.
She had succeeded.
At the bottom of the stairwell, Zahril was waiting. Her arms folded. Aasha recognized the lines of worry that she’d never announce. The taut pull of her wide mouth. Even the extra flutter of her eyelashes, as if she had to look twice to acknowledge what she saw.
Aasha walked to her, and as she did, she felt as though she were holding her heart out. Zahril tensed. But she didn’t move. She thought of Zahril’s words to her when she told her that she sometimes wanted to kiss her.It is fine to want things. It is far worse to need them. That is the risk of acting upon want.
Going through that hell of an arena had only strengthened Aasha’s resolve to look at things differently. And when she beheld Zahril’s words through the lens of a victory, she saw another emotion unfold before her:
Fear.
The fear of loving and losing. The fear of letting a temptation become more than a luxury, but a lifeline. The fear of like ripening to love.
Aasha knew she was not in love. But she felt the stirrings of love’s desire to live here, in her heart. As if it were a hand knocking on the door of her soul, waiting to be welcomed. She could love her. Shewantedto. And not because Zahril had won her over with her kindness or her sweetness. But because she had awakened a fierce sense of belonging within herself. Because Zahril was a moon amongst stars, distant and inspiring. Enigmatic. Because she reminded Aasha of all the reasons why she had left thevishakanyaharem, and all the reasons why she no longer cared to fit within Bharata’s rules. Zahril belonged to herself. And Aasha carried a hope that one day they might belong to each other.
She kissed her.
It was not a first kiss for either of them. It was a kiss like a palimpsest, layered with near-invisible things. Aasha could taste Zahril’s hesitancy laced with the mint-sweetness of her mouth. Shecould taste her wonder… and it was lightness upon her tongue, a sparkle on her teeth.
The kiss lasted two blinks. Maybe three.
When Aasha pulled away, she saw that some of the gold foil from the feast clung to Zahril’s lower lip. The barest crescent of a smile curved Zahril’s wide and lovely mouth. The smile wasn’t a declaration. Or a promise.
But it was something.
And then she wrinkled her nose.
“Did you try rolling around in that rat dung before you went for the purple berries?”
Aasha nodded wearily.
Zahril sighed. “Let’s get you a bath. You reek.”
9
Aasha had been so worn out from the competition that she slept for a day and a half. Zahril brought her tea (Aasha poured it into a vase when she wasn’t looking… Zahril had mistaken the salt for sugar). Aasha also caught her sitting stiffly at the foot of her bed, not sure whether this closeness was too strange. Or too soon. Once or twice as she dozed off, Aasha tried to tell her that this made her happy. But all she managed was a vague and unintelligible grumble.
When she woke up, Zahril stood on the opposite side of the room. Aasha’s smile shrank. Had something happened when she slept? There was a suddencoldwhere there had been none…
“We must leave for Bharata immediately,” said Zahril.
