And had gone to pay for the damages first thing the next day.
No, no. It was better to marry a man who would never get on a horse he couldn’t control. I took a deep breath and met the raja’s eyes, refusing to get swept away, but before I could speak, a rumbling voice rang through the open door and over the stepwell.
“Raja Lakshmappa!”
The raja winced. “That’s Vishwajeet. I should go. Otherwise, he’ll send everyone down after me. This place is too precious to be sullied by so many footsteps.”
As he turned to leave, all the adaiman launched themselves off the platform and swirled around me and the raja, surrounding us in a column of flashing green feathers. They circled and then swung up and out of the stepwell, leaving us below as we stared.
“That is the second most beautiful sight I have seen today.” Raja Lakshmappa gave me a meaningful look before turning to the stairs as he said, “I will make sure I see you again soon.”
My mouth went dry, and my legs turned to jelly, but I forced myself to stand straight. He ascended the stairs to the doorway, two steps at a time, then turned and gave me a small bow before leaving.
The door clunked shut behind him, restoring the sanctity of my space. But my knees had had enough. They buckled, and my skirt billowed out in a circle around me as I collapsed to the ground in a heap. The strings of my tambura cried out and argued with each other as I fell.
This would all be much easier if he weren’t so charming.
Chapter 10
Ektha found me in a crumpled heap at the base of the stepwell. I didn’t spare her a second glance as she descended the stairs without making a sound. She didn’t ask any questions as she moved my skirts and sat beside me. Without thinking, I put my head in her lap, and she gently stroked my hair.
Her fingertips brushed against my scalp, reminding me of the times she would massage oil into my hair. After our mother died, it was Ektha who made sure I kept dreaming, especially in the dark when the nightmares came hunting. She’d sneak to my room and warm oil over the fire as we whispered to each other, creating fantasies in the smoke.
As we’d stared into the flames and made sure not to spill, we’d giggle together and create our fantasy of the future. Ektha would bring prosperity to Ullal as its rajkumari, and I’d be at her side, fighting for its glory. We felled imaginary foes and whispered dreams of change. We encouraged even the wildest hopes, vowing to support each other and bring them to fruition. Inevitably, I would get carried away and start acting out my adventures on the seas, and Ektha would have to shush me and scurry back to her rooms. By then, I could sleep in peace and have the courage to face the next day.
But that time had long gone.
Somehow, we’d gone from sisters who shared, protected, and defended each other’s dreams to... this. Instead of sharing her secrets, Ektha had kept them from me. She had planned my future with Uncle Trimulya and Nikith and hadn’t bothered to invite me to the conversation. She had agreed to send me to another nation, married to a fool of a man who didn’t even have the decency to have a hair out of place so I could hate him more.
But it wasn’t his fault, really. What hurt was that the people I loved the most wanted me to leave. They were convinced their lives would be better if I was gone.
I tried to stop the tears?—to stuff them where they belonged?—but there was no holding them back. They came out in torrents, leaving me heaving for breaths in between my sobs. I stuffed my face into Ektha’s sari, sullying the pale blue cloth with my tears and leaving behind a mask of my face. Each sob pushed me farther down into the fabric until my nose brushed against the cold stone below.
Ektha lifted me by my shoulders and tried to bring us face to face, but I couldn’t see her through my curtain of tears. I hated this. I needed to stop. But I couldn’t. When I tried to inhale deeply, each breath was cut short by a sob that I couldn’t keep down. Ektha wrapped me in a hug, and my tears soaked her shoulder as well.
“I am here,” she murmured as she stroked the back of my head. “I am here, and we will fix this.”
How could she say that? How could she even think that? Nothing she could do would change our uncle’s mind; the marriage was all but agreed upon already.
“Fix it for whom?” I asked through my sobs. “For me or for you?”
“I cannot be happy unless you are.” She kept stroking my head. “For us. We will fix this for us.”
Impossible. She wanted me to get married, and I didn’t want to leave. There was no way to fix it forus.
But she was offering to help, which was more than I thought she would do. Would it be enough? No way to know for now, but at least I wasn’t so alone. At least she cared.
The tears finally slowed, and my breath became calmer even though my heart still pounded. I gave Ektha a squeeze before sitting up from our embrace and wiping my eyes.
“I’m so sorry.” Ektha’s voice was thick and heavy. “I tried to talk sense into Uncle Trimulya when Nikith told me the plan, but you know how he gets. Nikith tried to help too, but in the end, our uncle commanded him to go to Banghervari, and my husband had no choice. We wanted to tell you?—I tried to speak to you alone, but you were always so busy...”
Her voice trailed off, and she looked down at her hands in her lap. Her lips trembled.
Memories of all the times Ektha had tried to talk to me floated in my head: the significant glances she gave me at mealtimes before I bolted out to do some errand or another, the worry etched into her face when I was shooting with Parushi, the clues she’d dropped in the hallway when we were summoned by our uncle. I’d brushed so much off because I’d thought she wanted to talk about Samanth, but in reality, she’d been trying to warn me about this.
She had tried to reach out, and I hadn’t listened.
I took her hands and covered them with mine. “You tried. I should have made sure I spoke to you. I thought... well, never mind. But I was wrong.”
