“What do you think swords are used for?” he asked drily.
I glanced between the bird and the sword. His words were as good as an execution. I cringed. Even though it was stone, a sense of wrongness crept through me. It looked so alive.
“How is this a test?”
“That remains to be seen. Now do as you will.” Amar unfolded his arms and his voice was a dark purr in my ear. “What’s this, my queen? All your vicious speech and you are moved to mercy by a stone bird?”
My grip tightened on the stone. The stone bird hopped a pace. Heat coursed through my veins. I didn’t even feel the weight of the sword in my arm. I raised it over my head and brought it down. Metal crunched into stone and bile rose into my throat. I dropped the sword, shaking. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the remains of the stone bird, but I glimpsed it from the corner of my eye—shards of marble like bone slivers.
“There,” I bit out. “I performed your test.”
Amar considered me for a moment, arms crossed, lips pursed into a thin line.
“No. You failed my test. You sacrificed an innocent thing.”
Nausea roiled in my stomach. “But you said it was an illusion.”
“It is.” He picked up a piece of what once was the stone bird. “Nothing more than stone.” He snapped his fingers and the bird reappeared—whole and animated. Its wings shivered behind its body and it fixed an irritated gaze on me.
“The bird was not the innocent thing. It’s the feeling,” said Amar, dusting his palms. “Preservation is an innocent desire. And you let arrogance compromise that.”
“Arrogance?” I returned, my cheeks burning. “I was showing strength. Strength that I could be—”
“—merciless and thoughtless?” returned Amar. He flashed a vulpine grin. “Kill, if you must. String a garland of severed heads around your waist if you want. I would take you in my arms if you were drenched in blood or dressed in rubies … but think. Impulsiveness is a dangerous thing.”
“You gave me no choice—”
“I merely gave a command. ‘Use your sword.’ You were the one who thought there was only one choice.”
“When I asked what you wanted me to do with it, you … you asked me what swords are for…” I finished quietly. He hadn’t actually said what to do.
Amar picked up the sword from the ground and twirled it against the marble.
“Swords could also be used for freeing. You could’ve cut through the chain around the bird’s foot and set it free. Swords could be used for killing. But it needn’t be the bird. Wouldn’t the more merciful choice have been to use the sword against the oppressor?”
“So run the sword through you?”
“Why not? Everything is a matter of interpretation. And that is how you will rule,” he said, before handing the sword’s hilt to me. “Think on what you’ve seen today. But do not let me influence you. Your will is yours alone.”
I stared at the sword in my hand, still gleaming despite the dark. “I can promise you I won’t forget.”
Amar paused, his voice soft. “Memory is a riddled thing. I would caution you from making promises you cannot keep.”
I moved toward the door, but Amar stopped me with a shake of his head. “Gupta will arrive in a moment to escort you.” He straightened the cuffs of his sherwani jacket. “I myself have a number of duties to attend to, so I must leave.”
Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “Why?”
He paused and took a step to me. Darkness, soft-edged and heavy, clung to the room. In the shadows, his smile held all the lazy grace of a cat.
“Would you miss me?”
“Curiosity inspired my question. Nothing more,” I said, but even my voice was unconvinced.
“Even so, there’s no greater temptation than to stay by your side.”
The door swung open and a chorus of voices trickled into the room—silvery and indistinct, like whispers released through clenched teeth. Amar lingered for a moment, his lips tight as though he wanted to say something.
Then, he cupped his palms together and blew into them. When he opened his hands, a bloom of light shaped like an unopened flower bud lifted off his palm and floated into the room. Brightness drenched away the shadows.
“I will never leave you in the dark.”
And with that, he left.
*
I waited for the door to shut before I sank against the throne. I buried my face in my hands, squeezing my eyes shut. When Amar promised me the power of a hundred kings, this wasn’t what I had in mind. It felt wrong. My duty was to tweak people’s fortunes like they were designs gone awry instead of lives filled with dreams, quirks and ambitions. A knock at the door pulled me out of my thoughts.
“Are you ready to change for dinner?” asked Gupta.
I frowned, turning to the windows of the throne room. When I had stepped inside, I was sure it had been broad daylight. Now, wispy clouds like ghost skins streaked a crimson sky.
“Yes,” I called back, still trying to work out the time I had lost.
Gupta said nothing as he led me from the throne room back to the bedroom, but there was nothing stiff or awkward in his silence. He was grinning to himself and every now and then when he caught my eye, he beamed.
“I will wait for you out here.”
“There’s no need, I remember my way back to the dining room.”
Gupta shook his head. “I insist.”
“If you insist,” I said stiffly, annoyance prickling inside.
I entered the room and immediately noticed a new sari folded delicately on the bed—yards of dove-gray silk strewn with pearls. I dressed quickly before meeting Gupta outside and we walked through the halls. The mirror portals paneling the walls glittered strange reflections. Lush hills carpeted in small blue flowers, a forest tangled with lights and a bone white temple balanced between the tips of a craggy mountainside flashed past me. But something else caught my eye, tucked away in a corner of the hall that I hadn’t seen before: a door, charred at the edges, lengths of iron wrapping it round and round.
Something about the door twisted my heart. A voice, a mere scratch in the silence, began to sing:
I’ve never tasted dreams so sweet
Such pearly flesh and tender meat
Oh queen, if you only knew
You’d gladly rip your heart in two
I stopped. “Gupta, what door is that?”
He frowned. “Door? What door?” He turned around and then asked sharply, “What did it look like?”
I hesitated. Mother Dhina’s words echoed … keep some secrets for yourself. The words caught in my throat. This secret, just this one, I would keep to myself until I understood it. I had barely been in Akaran for a day. I couldn’t let my guard down entirely. And that voice … it felt like it had been sung to me alone.
“I can’t remember,” I lied.
Gupta shrugged. As we walked, I kept turning around, half expecting a door strung with chains to glitter just out of sight. But it never appeared.
The dining room had changed since yesterday. Today its rug showed a herd of elephants moving through the jungle. And instead of golden platters piled high with food and saffron cushions placed around the table, there were silver platters and mother-of-pearl cushions. Akaran’s riches lay unfurled at my feet. But even with all that wonder, I sensed a chill in the room. I pulled my sari closer. There was something else here. I could feel it like breath against my neck.
Amar was nowhere in sight. Instead, Gupta pulled out a chair for me.
“Please, have a seat,” he said. “Amar won’t be able to dine with you this evening.”
“Oh.” A twinge of disappointment ran through me. “Why not?”
“He had to attend to an urgent matter of retrieval.”
“Retrieval of what?”
Gupta stiffened and his voice came out in a wheeze. When he caught his breath, he merely pointed to the night sky, where the moon was a ghostly crescent.
“Right,” I said, deflating a little. I kept forgetting the rules of the Otherworld. Not a word could be spoken about Akaran’s secrets until the new moon.
I glared at the moon.