The raja cleared his throat as he looked back at the view of Ullal. “With my parents gone, sometimes it’s hard not to feel alone. It doesn’t matter how many people request an audience with me or how many dignitaries come to visit?—at the end of the day, I am the raja, and I must stand apart. I know you still have your uncle and sister, but I think you may understand my position better than anyone I’ve ever met.”
He turned back and searched my expression. Lakshmappa had probably intended to invoke the memory of my parents, but instead he’d laid bare the loneliness of a life without my sister by my side. My chest ached at the thought, and the corners of my eyes itched as tears fought to fill them, but I pushed the feeling down and gave the raja a small nod.
His face lit up with hope, and he leaned in conspiratorially. “Vishwajeet would have me stay silent. He thinks love is for fools and my marriage must be for the benefit of Banghervari.”
My tongue finally loosened itself from the floor of my mouth. “He and my uncle will get along splendidly.”
“But I disagree.” Lakshmappa leaned even closer. “Obviously I’ll honor my obligations to Banghervari when I marry, but if I can find someone to stand by my side?—who will make every day better just because we’re together?—then I would be a fool if I let her slip by.”
How could those sea-colored eyes have so much fire in them? Even the cool breeze didn’t stop a bead of sweat from forming at my hairline. I pretended to tuck a curl behind my ear as I brushed it off before it began to track down my face, but I accidentally knocked loose one of the crossandra flowers that decorated my hair.
Lakshmappa swooped down, picked it up, and offered me the orange blossom on the flat of his palm. “What do you think about what Vishwajeet said?”
I bit the inside of my lip, staring at the delicate flower balanced so close to my folded hands. Would it be so awful to marry him? To secure the future of Ullal by uniting with someone who adored me so much? Even if he wasn’t terribly sensible, surely I could help protect the future of our nations. Once I became rani?—first by marriage and then by birthright?—I could ensure that Ullal and Banghervari not only overcame the Porcugi but perhaps prospered even more than ever. All by marrying a raja who admired me.
I placed one of my hands below Lakshmappa’s and used the other to gently curl his fingers around the blossom. “I do not think Vishwajeet and I are likely to agree about much.”
He placed his other hand above mine, covering it with his warm assurance as his smile embraced me in a way his arms could not. Not yet at least. “In that case, I ask that you call me Aru.”
“Aru,” I repeated softly. It felt like speaking a secret. As if he had shared a piece of himself that he usually kept hidden away. Many people were acquainted with Raja Lakshmappa, but only a few knew Aru.
“It has never sounded so lovely.” His words were a knife of silk, cutting straight into my pounding heart.
Slapping footsteps broke me out of my trance. I yanked my hands out from his, but Aru didn’t lose his grasp on the flower. He kept it in his cupped hand as we awaited the arrival of the saffron-robed healer and the four Ullal guards dashing across the terrace.
The healer skidded to a halt in front of me. He stared as he opened his mouth and then closed it. Twice.
“What is it?” I asked, knowing my uncle would only allow an interruption for something grave.
“Forgive me, Rajkumari.” A wave of realization washed over his face, and he fell to his knees, bowing his head with his hands folded. “I mean, Rani. Rani Abbakka.”
The guards that accompanied him followed his example, their weapons clattering against the stone as they knelt. For a moment, nobody moved?—not even to breathe, it seemed?—but then everyone else on the terrace followed their example. Except for Aru. He stared at me as the people in front of us fell to the ground like crops being cleaved for harvest.
He’d said “rani.” Not “rajkumari.”
Rani.
I shook my head to clear it, sending flowers flying from my hair in every direction. No, this wasn’t possible. There was no way that my uncle could be gone. Next to me, Aru was murmuring something unintelligible, but I didn’t even pretend to listen.
“Please, Rani,” one of the soldiers said as he stepped in front of me. “We need you to come with us to the infirmary. It would seem...”
His words faded as I looked beyond his face, up to the windows of the infirmary. The truth was there. Whatever madness this was, I could clear it up by going there.
I ducked around the guard and sprinted to the infirmary as fast as my legs would take me, leaving a trail of petals in my wake.
Chapter 17
I became a tidal wave. People fell to their knees the moment they saw me as I ran through the fort’s halls. The whispers barely preceded my presence, only giving people enough time to turn and stare with eyes as round as chapatis before they knelt on the ground as I passed by. There was no time to pay them any attention?—they became part of the blur of my surroundings. Tapestries, sculptures, and garlands strung from pillar to pillar all blended together as I sprinted up the stairs and through the halls.
The guards at the doors of the infirmary hardly had time to register my presence before I commanded, “Open!”
When they realized I would not break my stride, they flung the doors open just in time for me to run through.
Incense saturated the infirmary, making my eyes water as frankincense and sandalwood burned my nostrils. Monks were already droning prayers over my uncle’s body, which I couldn’t even see through all the smoke. They chanted their devotions as they rang their absurdly tinkly bells and leaned over Uncle Trimulya’s bed. Something about the supplications sounded familiar; they tickled a memory in the back of my brain.
My feet turned into bricks as I recognized the chants. They had spoken these same words the night my mother died. Back then, I had been easily lost in the chaos following the death of Ullal’s rani, and nobody had noticed the little girl hiding under her mother’s bed and clinging to the cold fingers dangling over the edge. White sheets had covered us as I curled into a ball and imagined I was sitting in the temple next to Amma and holding her hand as the monks offered their prayers.
It was Uncle Trimulya who had found me there. It was he who had walked me back to my room and delivered me to Chaaya with strict instructions to make sure I stayed there. I had begged him to hold me, and he had already begun to sit down again when he caught himself. Instead, he got on one knee and held my hand as he told me that everything had to be different now. That even though he loved his nieces more than anyone in the world, now his first love had to be Ullal. Now and forevermore. He gave my hand a squeeze and left me in Chaaya’s cradling arms, hurrying out the door without a backward glance. Ullal’s new raja was long gone before I saw that he’d pressed a pair of bells from my mother’s payal into my palm.
