But Aasha stood still as a statue. She kept looking out the window, until Gauri finally snapped:
“Are you wondering why Death is taking so long to get here?”
Aasha fixed her with a calm stare. “That is not who I am waiting for.”
But she would say nothing more than that.
***
Officially, all wedding ceremonial preparations had been placed on hold in light of the emperor’s illness. The palace officially said that everything would resume at the first flush of health. There was no mention of the physicians’ dire gazes. Or the stillness of Vikram, the gradual cooling of his skin so that all that separated him from life and death were the stingy pulses of his heart.
The food was still prepared. The banners still painted. But the palace had started to make quiet shifts… marigolds to throw in a procession, sandalwood paste used only to prepare the dead, wood hewn for a funeral pyre. Whispers chased each other up and down the palace staircases, clambering up the walls until they threatened to spill over into the cities.
When night fell, Gauri heard the door open. Aasha stood there.She walked forward and wordlessly placed a bite of food to Gauri’s lips. Gauri opened her mouth mechanically.
How strange that only last night, she had not fed herself either.
Her attendants and friends had taken turns feeding her bites of creamyrasmalaiand spicysaagbecause the henna for her wedding was still drying, and she was not allowed to touch anything lest she ruin the pattern.
“Why?” asked Gauri, finally. “How could he live through Alaka and all of its terrors only to…here.What did I do? Was I…”
She blinked. She thought of the warmth of his hand cupping her cheek. The way he steepled his fingers and pressed his brows flat when he thought. How he would pull her behind a pillar, covering her laugh with his lips until she did not want to think but only do this. Forever.
“What?” asked Aasha gently. Too gently.
“Was I too happy?”
And finally, Gauri wept.
She wept as Aasha rocked her back and forth. She wept as Vikram still did not move. And she only stopped weeping when Aasha whispered:
“There might be a way to save him.”
Gauri stilled. She sniffed, dragging her arm across her face.
“What would you have me do? Plead my case to Death?”
Perhaps she was delirious. But when Gauri thought of Death, she remembered a man with cruel eyes and a sensuous mouth, a man who would not flinch from anyone’s tears. Hers would make no difference.
“You know how the Otherworld likes its games,” said Aasha.
“They thinkthis—” said Gauri, flailing a hand at Vikram lying prone in his bed, “is a game?”
Aasha only shrugged. “Everything is a game when there is nothing to lose.”
The offhanded way she spoke struck Gauri, but she knew that her friend meant no offense. Aasha was centuries older. She might look like a mortal, experience things like a mortal, but she was not of this world.
Hidden in her words was truth.
To an immortal being, Death was not even a fairy tale. It was a city they had no cause to visit. Death lent no urgency to their love affairs. It did not sweeten the taste of food with the fear that these might be the last flavors to sit upon one’s tongue. It did not heighten colors with the dread that when they closed their eyes, this would be the last image to blaze through one’s dreams.
“Do not leave his side,” said Aasha. “When theyamadutacomes, follow him.”
When she heard the nameyamaduta,Gauri flinched. Ayamadutawas a messenger of Death himself. Sometimes the messenger took the form of a dog with brindled fur and four eyes. Sometimes the messenger was a beautiful woman. For some, Death came in the shape of a loved one whose back was eternally turned. For some, Death came with blunted teeth and a baleful gaze. Gauri did not want Death to come at all.
“Make a bargain,” said Aasha. “You have already seen the realm of Death, haven’t you?”
Gauri nodded, sure of this even though the details of her visit had long ago softened into dreams.
