Hira’s grandfather had been dead for years and she had never even met him. But she didn’t feel so terrible about this because it was not as if Meghana had met him either. Not that Meghana cared.
In the past few months, Meghana barely thought of anything with all the bridal preparations swirling around her. She was too distracted. Nowadays, her sister was always leaning out of windows, sighing. She didn’t want to play anymore. Not even when Hira pretended to be avanaraand wore a fake monkey tail and ran around the palace apartments shrieking about theft and blood deeds that must not go unpaid. Not even when Hira pretended to eat an apple (to which the cook had painstakingly applied gold flakes so that it looked like something out of her grandmother’s stories) and turn ever so slowly into a great, big beast. One of the nursemaids had even made her a headpiece with bent pieces of iron from the blacksmith’s quarters so that it looked like she had antlers! Meghana did not care.
And if her sister did not care, then neither did she. But sometimes… sometimes her heart ignored her wishes.
Last night, Meghana was directing her servants as to what they should pack in the chests that she would take to her new home. Hira felt her heartbeats snag together. Her sister was leaving. Just as their sister before them, Chandra, had left. It had not been so hard then. Chandra was sweet-natured and sang so beautifully that Hira imagined the stars leaned out of the night sky if only to hear her better. But Chandra had never played with Hira.
When Hira had seen her sister packing up those heavy, ornate bridal chests, she had only wanted to help. So she had collected her most precious toys: the fake apple with the burnished rind that turned little girls into little beasts, the glass bird with the bent wing that her grandmother said held a beautiful story, a bronze fox mask that turned one of them into the legendary Clever Fox Prince, and a jewel-bright silk cobra that the girls pretended would alwaysknow the difference between a truth and a lie. Hira had gathered them all together and then placed them into her sister’s treasure chest.
When Meghana came into their rooms that night, Hira could hardly sit still. She wanted her sister to praise her. To be touched at the thoughtful gifts that Hira was parting with. Perhaps even for Meghana to invite her to come stay at the new palace…
But when Meghana had opened the chest and looked at Hira’s gifts, she stood there. Her eyes widened, then turned glossy. And then, right as Hira stood up eagerly to point out all the different toys, her sister had kicked over the chest. It thudded painfully on the ground. The toys, once neatly wrapped in gauzy fabric, tumbled out. The apple scraped against the toy sword, the silk cobra unraveled, and the glass bird’s bent wing caught against it. It was a silent riot until the glass bird shattered on the marble. Hira cried out. The candlelight stuck to the jagged edges. And even though Hira had not been injured, she felt inexplicablycut.
“What iswrong with you?” hissed Meghana. Her shoulders shook. “Why would I takethatwith me? Do you have any idea how… how…”
But Meghana couldn’t even finish her thought. She sank into a chair, glowering.
“Getout,Hira! Just, justgo.”
Hira hadn’t waited another moment. Shame chased her shadow out of the room. She didn’t even care that tiny splinters had somehow dug into her heel. She felt nothing at all until she finally stopped running.
That night, Hira slept in the blacksmith’s study. Unfinished swords and blunted arrowheads lay all around her. Weaponsdangled from the ceiling. The forge had long gone silent, and yet she could smell the echo of fire. For some reason, the smell of iron and fire and glass always comforted her. It was how her grandmother smelled. Like a strike of lightning.
Now, Hira swayed a little bit on the threshold. Her father reached out and caught her, frowning.
“Are you well, my child?”
Her mother took her face between her hands. Hira tried to avert her eyes, but her mother was too fast. Within seconds, she had sussed out her secrets in that eerie way of mothers.
“Why don’t you take a break, hmm?” asked her mother. “Go give your Dadi-Ma some company. She might not miss these functions, but I am sure she must be lonely.”
Hira tried not to bolt. She didn’t have to be told twice to spend time with her grandmother instead of all these stuffy guests. Her father laughed, before sneaking her a candy with a conspiratorial wink. Her grandmother said that he was a lot like his father. Always managing to steal a handful of sweets when no one was looking and never getting scolded because his grin made you feel like you were in on the secret too.
“But come back before the feast!” shouted her mother. “Don’t you want to say good-bye to your sister?”
“No!”
Hira shot a look over her shoulder. It was rather poisonous, and she might have gotten in trouble… but no one ran as fast as Hira.
She was out of the threshold, down the hall, and darting through the chambers within moments.
Her grandmother once said she got that from her grandfather.
“Running fast?” Hira had asked.
“No,” she said, raising her eyebrow. “Mischief.”
Hira knew that she was near her grandmother’s quarters when she was finally out of earshot from the rest of the raucous wedding guests. Here, it was quiet. There was a small, burbling fountain in the strangest courtyard that Hira had ever seen. The hilts of swords glinted in a tangle of flowers. Meghana said that the old gardeners were still loyal to the memory of the former emperor and so they would add new swords. But Hira believed they truly grew out of the ground. That perhaps if she pulled one out ever so slowly, she would see silvery roots breaking off from the tip. Beneath wrought-iron arches fashioned into the shapes of birds with impossible wings and maidens dancing from spire to spire,sweetshung like impossible fruit.
It was Hira’s favorite place in the world.
Hira paused to grab a tiny silver bowl of syrupygulab jamunand was halfway across the courtyard when she doubled back and grabbed an extra bowl. Just in case. Cut-quartz lanterns swayed across the ceiling of her grandmother’s chambers. She had lived here ever since she had ceded the throne to Hira’s father when Meghana was just a baby. One day she announced that she had done all she could do, and that it was time to make room for the new generation.
Her father said that some courtiers had wanted the old queen to leave Bharata-Ujijain and spend the rest of her days in religious exile. They said that she should be seeking penance in the great forests beyond. But the old queen had laughed off the notion.
“Penance?” she had famously declared. “After enduring the courtly politics of this kingdom for nearly a century, I am certain even the gods will agree that I have been through quite enough.”
And that was that.
