The next evening, my father had a guest of honor for the meal, some warlord who he could not put off, even with my mother’s departure. Manthara was busy with preparations, so Neeti had been sent to help ready me. Aside from Manthara, Neeti was my favorite among our servants. She was only two years older than me and had been in the palace since we were small. We had played dolls together when we were younger, using scraps of cloth given to us by Manthara to dress them in colorful saris we were too young to wear and finding small stones and ribbons to build them gilded thrones. Even now, on the occasions she would come to ready me, we would rush through the preparations so that we could steal a few moments sitting on my floor and sharing sweets as she told me tales of her life outside the palace.
“You will never believe what my neighbor did,” Neeti said, straightening out the front of my stiff silken skirt. “He has a goat now. Can you imagine it!”
But today I did not want to hear her stories, for I did not intend to go to the feast. I could not bear to see my father, pretending as though nothing had happened. Pretending as though he hadn’t exiled my mother. Just thinking of him caused my fists to clench.
“Neeti.” I clasped her wrist, stopping her from pinning my blouse. “Will you tell my father I am ill and cannot attend?”
“Are you ill?” Neeti asked, her thick eyebrows furrowing in concern. She was shorter than me, and one hand worried her braid as she reached up for my forehead with the other. I ducked out of her grip.
“No,” I said. “But please, can you do this for me?”
She looked uncertain. “I could get in a lot of trouble,” she said. “Please, Yuvradnyi, can you not just go?”
I entered the Binding Plane, the mantra racing through my mind. It was becoming easier each time. It’s a small lie; you can do it, I told the dark orange bond between us. “You know everything that has happened,” I said to her, trying to make myself look as small as possible. “I only want a bit of time.”
At this, her wide mouth softened in sympathy. “It must be very hard,” she said. “I am so sorry. I suppose this is a small thing. Yes, I will do it, Yuvradnyi. Do not worry.”
My heart warmed at her affection, and I wondered if I had even needed to use the Binding Plane. Neeti was my friend, after all.
Neeti turned to go, and only when she reached the door did I realize I had not even thanked her. “Wait!” I called. I reached into my secret stash of sweets and offered a handful to her. “Thank you,” I said. “Perhaps you can tell me about the goat next time?”
She popped one in her mouth immediately, the dimple in her cheek flashing in delight. “Of course, Yuvradnyi.” She took a small step toward me. “You… you can come and find me if you would like,” she said. “If you are ever lonely.” She bowed and took her leave.
I stood where she had left me, my eyes feeling hot. Nobody else had thought about whether I might be lonely, a girl in a family of men.
I scrubbed at my eyes with my hands. I had a task to do.
The corridors were deserted and dim with shadows. I made my way to the library quickly and tore through scroll after scroll, searching the shelves for any mention of the Binding Plane or the strange, shimmering threads.
I found all sorts of stories, tales of the gods granting wondrous powers and even bringing mortals to the brink of immortality—but always in exchange for great penance. The more I read, the more my heart sank; it seemed unlikely the gods had chosen to grant me a boon when I had done no such thing. But I could find no example of my own experience either, of anyone discovering such magic in meditation, and unaided.
In the end, I took with me several more guides on the practice of meditation, hoping that the exercises in them might contain more hidden secrets.
I was to be disappointed as far as further secrets, but the meditation instructions helped me in another way: They taught me to focus my mind. It became easier and easier to use the Binding Plane to get what I wanted. Not only could I enter the Plane more smoothly as I practiced, but I could stay there for longer spans of time.
All of us children spent our mornings seated in a small chamber on flat cushions before low wooden desks, where tutors instructed us in reading, writing, and basic mathematics, which I enjoyed well enough. But only I was forced to endure weekly instruction in the arts, for princes were not expected to learn such gentle crafts—embroidery and weaving, painting and so on. My instruction was overseen by a number of minor noblewomen, women who had attended to my mother and would one day attend to the new radnyi. I never felt they much liked me, and now, with my mother gone, I was even more uncomfortable among them. I was useless to them, too young and unimportant to have attendants of their status, and they barely tolerated my clumsy efforts at the arts I cared little for.
Could the Binding Plane be put to use in my favor here as well? If my mother had been here, I never would have attempted it, knowing how important she deemed these skills. She was an excellent painter, her renderings joyful and unrestrained, marked with bright splashes of color that delighted even my untrained eye. While I thought her work beautiful, I had no desire to follow in her footsteps, though I doubted any magical manipulation would have altered her resolve.
But had she still been here, I would not have found the Plane at all. Now I had to move myself through a world that did not contain her.
“I do not wish to do this today,” I said, putting down my brush.
The woman—Medha, or Megha, I could never remember her name—did not even look up from her sewing. “Your father says you must, so you will.”
“My father does not know if I come here or not,” I said, finding a thin gray cord between us in the Binding Plane and sending the same sentiment to her.
She looked up at me, her needle still moving. “Regardless, I know, and I care. Now sit down. If you don’t wish to paint, pick up your stitching.”
As I was only a young princess, the nobility could speak to me like this. But it made me hate this particular woman more. “Why should it matter to you if I can paint a tree or stitch in a straight line? There are others who can do such work.” In the Binding Plane I tried again. You dislike this task. Would it not be easier to leave?
“That is true,” she said. “But do you not think this is an important skill? It will aid in bringing you a good husband.”
“Do you not think my father can bring me a good husband?” I retorted, a bit rudely. She gave a long exhale, then lifted her shoulders in a very ladylike shrug.
“If you do not think it is valuable, then I suppose you will not bother to learn whether I keep you here or not.”
“I can go?” I blurted out, surprised at her acquiescence.
“If you insist.” She did not look up from her work, and I backed out of the room, hardly believing it had worked.
I intended to spend my newly free afternoons wandering and playing in the Binding Plane. I managed to do this for about three days before Manthara came to my room one evening, looking rather cross with me. “You must think yourself very clever. But I know you snuck away from your lessons. So tomorrow afternoon, you can take lessons with me instead.”
I could tell Manthara would brook no argument, and likely no manipulations either. And I was curious to see what her lessons would be, confident she would not let me languish with a paintbrush or a needle.