The vetala groaned. “You are bound to die.”
All it took was one step for the Grotto to transform. The wind picked up my hair. One moment, I could see the slit of light at the end of the Grotto. A cave opening. At the back of my head, I heard Maya’s voice: The Lord of Wealth once ruled Lanka, a city of gold. Gold everywhere. Gold in the trees, in the rivers, in the air. Perhaps it was gold. Gold just on the other side. All I had to do was reach it.
But in the next moment, the world transformed. Thick clouds of mist rolled in front of us, hiding the light. I felt Vikram at my side, but I couldn’t see him. I held my breath. Who will the Grotto taunt me with first?
I didn’t have to wait long. Out of one eye, I saw a dark hand stretch toward me. Faded blue tattoos flecked her arms like dull stars. Nalini’s beautiful face twisted in hurt:
“You left me there to die.”
11
A POISONED SPOON
GAURI
I kept moving.
You’re not real.
“Vikram!” I called out.
Nothing.
“You were supposed to keep me safe. I trusted you,” she said. “I did everything you asked. All I asked was for hope. Don’t you remember? I came to you. I begged you. And what did you do?”
Shuddering, I moved forward. One step. Two. The mist grew heavier, blanketing my feet. My heart sped. The ends of the sherwani jacket got caught around my legs. I tried to look through the enchanted eye, but it could see only through the spirits of the Undead Grotto. Not the mist. Beneath me, the ground turned craggy. I was used to fighting on uneven surfaces, but usually I had boots and both eyes open. Here, I was walking on threadbare sandals, one hand clasped over my eye and my sense of space and depth faltering. My toe caught. I fell, flinging out my arms for support.
A voice too close to my ear whispered:
“Answer me, Gauri. We were closer than sisters.” My head rang. I scrambled to stand, my eyes drifting up without asking permission from my mind. Nalini stared down at me, hazel eyes bright with accusations. “How could you?”
My voice broke. “I was trying to keep you safe. I thought there was a spy, Nalini. It wasn’t what it sounded like.”
It was the day before the rebellion. I had stopped eating; anxiety chewed at my core. We had one chance to do this right. Months of planning had built up to this day. But I could feel Skanda’s eyes tracking me. Maybe someone had spied on our meetings. Or someone had sold me out. I started keeping information to myself. Refusing to meet people. Even Arjun and Nalini. That night, Nalini visited me in the gardens, and I could have sworn that the nocturnal eyes blinking open in the jungle belonged to Skanda’s spies.
“Gauri,” she said. “What’s happened to you?”
I said nothing, my eyes fixed on the jungle.
“What are you hiding?” she demanded. “You haven’t even visited Arjun since he came back—”
“You mean since I rescued him?” I returned angrily.
A week ago, I had brought Arjun home. It was all thanks to Maya. The day she staged a fire in the harem, I’d been able to escape Bharata and rescue Arjun. Ever since, he had been trying to talk to me, but I couldn’t jeopardize our operation by allowing us to be seen together. Skanda was still furious with me for going against his direct orders and saving Arjun.
“Do you know what horrors he faced? Do you even care? What happened to the promises you made me?”
The darkness rustled. Skanda had spies everywhere. Were they watching us?
“There is nothing to hide, Nalini,” I said, my voice cold and distant. “Arjun is a soldier. When I found him, he was wounded. I saved his life. I don’t owe him more than that, and I certainly owe you nothing.”
If I had told her the truth, would she have escaped imprisonment? When I walked into the jungle after, the rustling had been nothing more than a hare trapped beneath a tree root. Not a spy. I could have apologized to Nalini. But paranoia is a house full of locked doors. So I withdrew.
Nalini reached out, brushing her fingers against my arm. I shuddered. She felt so cold.
“You were never meant to get hurt,” I said fiercely. “You were the reason I fought for the throne.”
Nalini had saved my life. The day she knocked a poisoned spoon from my hand was the day I stopped hiding and started hunting. It was the first time Skanda had tried to kill me. Until he was removed from power, Nalini’s life was at risk. Before then, I hadn’t been willing to risk everything. If I failed, I wouldn’t be able to protect the few that I could. But if Skanda was trying to kill me, it meant that he never intended to keep his promise of naming me his heir.
“I deserved better,” said Nalini.
My heart snapped. “I know.”
“I’ll forgive you, sister. Embrace me as you once did. Let us start anew.”
I moved to her, the grass blades cutting into my feet. Blood beaded on my skin. I looked down, frowning. Grass shouldn’t cut.
“Come to me, Gauri,” said Nalini. Her voice bordered on desperation. “Don’t I deserve an apology and embrace after what you did to me?”
“What did I do to you?”
Nalini said nothing. But the skin on her arms flickered from her usual lacquered brown to an unusual oily black. I stepped back.
“What did I do to you?” I asked loudly.
The question yielded the answer:
I had put her in prison. She was supposed to be lying somewhere in a cell in Bharata.
“Why aren’t you in prison?”
She tilted her head. Cold spread in my chest. The gesture was wrong. Inhuman. I was forgetting something. I stared at my hands: They were dirty. Bloodstained. I shouldn’t be dressed in a man’s sherwani. Slowly, I lifted my hand to my eye, the movement guided by some knowledge that glinted at the edge of my thoughts. Nalini hissed, her jaw snapped open in a gruesome grin.
And then I saw her for what she was:
A monster of smoke and teeth. It clicked its teeth. Wet talons reached for me. I stumbled back, breaking the wall of mist. This thing had used my best friend’s voice.
“Gauri?” it called sweetly, its belly scraping along the ground as it started crawling.
I picked up my knife, flinging it straight at one of its arms and pinning it to the ground. It let out a shrill and icy scream. A small boulder nudged my foot. I lifted it, not looking at the thing as I heaved it over my head and smashed it into the creature’s body. The screaming stopped. I covered my eye, plucked my dagger from the inky arm and started running.
The cave at the end of the Grotto shone with light. I ran. I ran past a vision of Maya sprawled out with her throat cut. I dodged a vision of Mother Dhina rocking back and forth, blood running down her wrists. Vikram passed me. I chased his lean shadow, and the ground disappeared beneath me. My memories loomed dark and lurid until a crease of light caught my eye. The cave. I was nearly there. As the mist sulked and spun, a dark blot scuttled toward me on ragged wrists and knees. The vetala. His hand wrapped around my foot.
“The boy thing is dead,” he huffed. “Pick me up.”
12
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