“I need to think.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Consider the options yourself. But don’t think that just because you saved my life, I will follow you to the ends of the earth and through any door.”
“Thank the gods. That would be the last reward I’d demand for saving your life.”
Vikram stood up and stretched. “Do as you will.”
He crossed the small tent. I studied his gait. You could tell a lot about a person from the way they occupied space. Skanda walked as if he expected a knife around every corner. Vikram held himself as if the world had whittled this moment for him alone and he was not simply going to live it, but rule it. He was so sure of everything that it made me envious.
He reached for one of the water basins and started scrubbing his face. I sat half frozen on the ground. Was I supposed to get up and leave? But then I frowned. Why should I leave? If he doesn’t want me to look, he should go.
He didn’t go.
He shrugged out of his tunic, and then he was down to his trousers. His back was partially turned, but I could still see the outline of corded muscles gracing his shoulders and the sinewy length of his arms.
Once, I had tried to squeeze myself into an outfit that wouldn’t fit because I’d had one too many helpings of dessert that day. The room felt like that. Like a whole body puckered and determined, too tight and too conscious of every contour and shape within it. I had to leave.
“Stop admiring the view,” he said.
“Critiquing it,” I lied, standing and scooping up my plate of halwa.
“What do you find lacking?”
“Honor.”
Not exactly a lie.
“Alas. I must have misplaced it.”
“Is there a reason why you seek every opportunity to annoy me?”
“It’s fun. Your scar flashes when you frown. It almost looks like a dimple,” said Vikram. “I’m still waiting for your face to turn red with anger. It might make you look like you’re blushing. Or perhaps I am making you blush?”
I froze. No one except Mother Dhina and Nalini had recognized the small scar for what it was.
“I trained alongside male soldiers for years and have seen, and probably smelled, far more than I should have. Or wanted to,” I said. “You will never make me blush.”
“If we leave this place alive, I am determined to prove you wrong.”
The vetala cackled from the other side of the tent.
“I would choose a more achievable quest, boy. Perhaps you could apply yourself to make the girl snarl at you. That seems far more likely. Or rip out your throat. Also more likely,” huffed the vetala. “Mind the head, though, girl. And that jacket you took from him. I grew fond of it during our travels.”
14
A SCAFFOLD OF SILENCE
GAURI
People always think killing requires a force: a cup of poison tipped into a mouth, a knife parting flesh from bone, a fist brought down repeatedly.
Wrong.
Here’s how you kill: You stay silent, you make bargains that peel the layers off your soul one by one, you build a scaffolding of flimsy excuses and live your life on them. I may have killed to save, but I killed all the same.
Two years ago, Skanda had fallen in lust with the daughter of a prominent noble. The nobleman loved his daughter and didn’t want her wasting away in Skanda’s harem. So he had her betrothed immediately to someone else. Skanda got angry. The girl’s betrothed was brought to his personal chambers, where the girl’s wedding sari, stolen by a spy, had been placed. One look at it was enough to convince the man that his betrothed had been unfaithful. He broke off the engagement. Two days later, the girl took her life to spare her family shame.
I had seen the girl’s betrothed when he left Skanda’s chambers. I had seen confusion and fury warring in his face. But I needed more recruits for the army, medicines for the village children, and I wanted Skanda to start apportioning funds for Nalini’s dowry before her wedding to Arjun.
So I stayed silent.
Maybe if I had been braver, I would have spoken up. But at what cost? I hadn’t forgotten the serving girl I tried defending. My voice was one of the only things I could control—when to unleash it, when to tamp it down like a burning ember, when to grow it in secret.
All my life, control and power had worn the same face.
I believed in gods, but the only faith I truly practiced was control. Nothing in excess. Nothing that placed my life in the hands of another. And yet for the second time, I was considering giving myself wholly to a magic I could neither wield nor know.
“I was right,” said Vikram, pointing above us.
The rotating dais of directions had begun its descent in the night. Now it spun faster and faster, counting down to the moment where I would have to make a choice.
“I say we choose the north and follow Kubera,” said Vikram. “Are you with me or not?”
“But what if it’s a trap? What if we go with south instead and choose the Dharma Raja?”
“We might find ourselves in Naraka then, and I have no intention of dying so soon.”
Above us, the neighing of horses lit up what was left of night. A silver chariot creaked out of an unseen hall, ready to pull the moon out of the sky and usher in the new day.
“Vetala!” called Vikram.
“Seeing as I’ve already died, this part is not terribly exciting,” shouted the vetala. “Go on then. This was most entertaining.”
Vikram threw up his hands. “If you don’t come now, we’re not turning back to get you.”
“I know,” said the vetala softly. “I know.”
A screeching sound ripped through the cave. We stood a short distance from the ditch, ready to jump onto the dais the moment it fell into place. With a ripping sound, the dais fell out of the air, crashing into the ditch just as the sky seamed with light.
Eight doors glowed in the gloaming.
Eight doors that held no promise of where they would lead.
One chance to choose the right path.
First light was about to fall. Together, we raced and leapt onto the dais. I nearly lost my footing reaching for that stone. Wind blurred the world. The eight statues stared down at us with vacant eyes and knowing grins.
Choose.
“Vetala! This is no time to play!” called Vikram once more.
He crouched, as if ready to retrieve the creature, when I yanked on his arm.
“We only have until first light. It’s survival or sympathy,” I said. My voice was stone. “He told us to go on. It’s your choice to find him. But I’m not waiting.”
He paused for only a moment before he stepped to my side. Maybe the vetala had abandoned us because it realized we were bound to die. The sky lightened. Dawn had roused the horses. They clambered through the air, soaking up what was left of the darkness so that they gradually turned from white to smoky, then gray to deepest plum. Vikram gripped the page of instructions tightly.