Skanda led us through the gardens, his gaze fixed on a pretty attendant who was constantly—although reluctantly—handing him a goblet brimming with some liquid dark as blood.
The gardens were a ghost of their former glory. My father had spent years tending these orchards, walking through them with his hands clasped behind his back. Years ago, there had been mirror-lined fountains to catch the sun. The orchard had been so illuminated that each new blossom wore a golden nimbus. There had been fish in inky ponds, shimmering iridescent beneath the water’s surface, lively moons in miniature. There had been thousands of trees heavy with jewel-bright fruit. I knew. I had climbed those trees, plucking fragrant guavas and devouring their rose and saltwater flesh right there.
All of that had changed. Bharata had changed. The air was leeched of all warmth, but that didn’t make it any less dry and dusty in my throat. The trees had been reduced to mere spindles. Someone had strung pennants in them, but they hung limply in the windless air. My throat tightened as I stared at the place that had once been so familiar. If Bharata hadn’t believed in ghosts when I lived beneath its walls, then it certainly believed in them now. This place, this city looked carven and gaunt. When we stood in the garden, Skanda dismissed everyone. Even Gauri, despite how stubborn she was about never letting us out of her sight, caught his mood and left.
“This is where my father once instructed me,” said Skanda, pointing to a familiar row of now desiccated neem, sweet-almond and fig trees.
Scolded, more like. I resisted the urge to laugh. “It is rare that a ruler would spend time in the company of his offspring. No doubt you are quite blessed, Your Majesty. What lessons did he impart?”
“He once told me to remember that the illusion of power is just as great as actual power,” he said slowly.
I stiffened. He knew I was no sadhvi.
“You understand my predicament,” said Skanda in a wheedling voice.
Kamala cast me a sidelong gaze and whinnied, pawing at the ground. She didn’t need to say any words of warning. The moment Skanda spoke, my eyes sharpened.
“Tell me what I should understand,” I said.
Skanda let out a long breath. “Times are very different for the realm than what they might have been once upon a time. My father died valiantly in battle. After that, people lost faith. There has been a war raging on the outskirts of Bharata long before I became the ruler of this realm. At one point, we had the upper hand. My father invited the war leaders here for a wedding.”
My hands clenched. “What happened?”
Skanda shrugged. “We don’t know. One minute the girl was there, the next minute she wasn’t. It made the leaders furious.”
“What happened to her?”
Skanda snorted. “Who knows? Who cares? She escaped all this.”
“No one remembered her?”
“I believe she had some horrible horoscope, one way or the other. I cannot remember. But horoscopes have gone out of fashion. No one cares about those things anymore. The stars have lied so much to us.”
I didn’t know whether his words were more comforting or dismal. The Bharata I knew had fixated on the abstract language of comets and star patterns. Listening to Skanda felt like examining an old scar. I saw the wound Bharata had left in me, but it was a relic of something time and magic had sewn together. If Bharata could have changed over so many years into some entirely different beast, then maybe I had too.
“The people have not seen a sadhu come through our palace walls in years,” said Skanda. “And I know for a fact that you are no sadhvi.”
My head jerked toward him. “Sire, I—”
“No need,” said Skanda. “Didn’t you hear me? I don’t care if you’re a fraud or not. The illusion is enough. I haven’t seen my people this excited in years. I’ll pay you whatever you want, just make sure you put on a good show. In particular, silence my sister. You already met her.”
“What exactly has she done wrong?” I tried to keep the protective edge out of my voice, but Skanda’s gaze turned flinty.
“She wants to volunteer herself on a useless reconnaissance mission to find out what happened to a handful of our soldiers.”
“Were they important?”
“They were elite members of the service. But new ones can be trained. Anything, and anyone, can be replaced,” he said, falling silent. “Even me.”
I regarded Skanda. He wasn’t as dumb as he seemed. He was, even though I hated to admit it, a little perceptive. If only he wasn’t so lazy. Perhaps he really would have made our father’s legacy something noteworthy. But I could sense his weakness. He was scared. He was selfish. And that was a dangerous combination.
“Why don’t you want the Princess of Bharata to go?”
“Illusion,” he said, gesturing with sweaty hands toward the failing orchard around us. “I need to hold on to the illusion of power. If that slips the moment Gauri leaves, then I am finished. They’ll probably throw me out.”
“What exactly do you want me to do?”
“I do not know. You’re the charlatan. Fake something. Some ceremony where you can counsel her otherwise, and then announce it to the realm. It has to be something that all the people can understand and empathize with.”
Kamala snorted, pushing her muzzle into my hand and leaving dark tracts of mud—and something else, which I didn’t want to discover—on my palms. Her anger was a palpable thing.
“You have my word, sire,” I said.
Kamala whinnied, nibbling on my arm, and I swatted her.
“Excellent,” said Skanda. “You can settle up with the royal treasurer at the end. What do you have in mind?”
Behind him, a slight shadow dipped in and out behind a banyan tree. I held back another smile. Gauri. No doubt she’d heard everything. There was no way I would follow Skanda’s plan, admirable though it might have been. His heart wasn’t in the right place. At least when my father made sneaky decisions, they were always for the good of the country. Never just to save face.
“With your permission, sire, I’d like to hold vigil outside the palace temples and allow those members of the royal court to speak with me at will. If you can convince the Princess Gauri to join in one of the sessions, perhaps have another member of the court … a harem wife whom Gauri is close with … to join and stand as witness to our session, I can craft the correct words to announce to the court.”
“Excellent.”
He tugged his hand through his hair and my heart clenched, a brief memory of Amar flashing in my mind. There were so many times in Naraka that I had watched him do something similar. So many times that he had twirled one dark curl around his long fingers. I needed to get back to him. I couldn’t let go of too much time.
“By your leave, Your Majesty, I would like to hold that session today.”
“Today?” repeated Skanda, stunned.
“I believe it would look more natural to your citizens. An immediate announcement revealing the change in the princess’s mind would show some transparency. That perhaps you had not bullied or bribed me into saying such words by holding me within the palace walls for more than a day.”
Skanda nodded approvingly. “You’re quite bright for a charlatan sadhvi. How long have you been in this business of deception?”
Oh, if only he knew.
“Years,” I said through a thin smile.
“Consider it done.”
Skanda pointed me to the palace temple, cast a nervous glance at Kamala and stalked off in the direction of one of his yes-man advisers.
“What is it?” I hissed at Kamala. “I thought you were going to talk right then and there and then we would’ve been thrown out.”
Kamala wouldn’t look at me. “It’s the Dharma Raja.”
I froze. “What about him?”
“I can sense him.” The blue veins that once stood out so prominently on her skin had begun to sink beneath pearlescent hair. Even the garnet gaze of her eyes had receded into something bright and black. Thoroughly animal.
“And?”
“He was here, but only for a moment.”
“Where did he go?”
“I couldn’t tell you that, not for all the salt-skin in the world.” Kamala sighed.