The yakshini smiled slightly. “By now, you are seasoned players.”
She left with a curt bow. The moment they were alone, Vikram felt as if the room was expanding to fit all that was left unsaid—the truths they had given to the Gate of Tongues, the kiss that he still tasted on his lips. He felt Gauri’s gaze like a threshold opening up inside him. Once it was crossed, they could never go back to what they had once been.
“You blame yourself,” she said softly.
A statement. Not a question.
“I used to,” he said.
He had been seven years old. He hadn’t even gone far enough to see that he had placed his shoe two steps away from a ravine. That “what if” would never cease to haunt him. But he knew that if he let it eat him from the inside out, he would be nothing but hollows and shadows. His mother wouldn’t have wanted that for him.
“I understand,” she said, slumping against the wall.
There was more she wanted to say. He could feel the words scrabbling at the clasps of her thoughts, eager to be known. Freed. But she stood there, stony-faced and impassive. And he remembered the girl he had glimpsed from the Grotto—the one who let her shoulders drop when no one looked, the one who fought every day when no one noticed. The one who had once hoped that the Night Bazaar traded on dreams. She deserved more than loneliness.
“You can’t blame yourself,” he said quietly. “I saw what he did.” Her eyes narrowed, searching his face. “I saw it right before we ran through the Grotto of the Undead.…”
She looked away from him.
“Even if I had two lifetimes on the throne, it wouldn’t be enough to make amends for the things I allowed to happen.”
Vikram tightened his lips. He couldn’t say that she had no choice, because she did. But they were impossible choices, death flanking either side. They were cruel and horrifying. That didn’t mean they were damning.
“A queen with a conscience will always have a far more enduring legacy. Besides, anyone would have done the same. You knew that fighting him openly was an even greater risk, and so you tried to protect your people. There’s no shame—”
“I don’t want your pity,” she bit out.
“Why not?” he asked. “Don’t I have your pity? What’s more pitiful than an orphan with delusions of a grand destiny?”
It felt freeing to say the words. And the truth was that he was not afraid of being seen for what he was. He was afraid of being seen as someone who could never be more.
“I wanted to change things,” she said.
“Me too,” said Vikram. “But I can’t change Ujijain with an illusion of a title. And if that’s all that’s left for me, then I won’t go back.”
Her gaze widened. “Is it because of…” She trailed off, and Vikram knew that she had glimpsed his mother in his memories.
“Her name was Keertana,” he said quietly. It had been years since he had spoken her name aloud. “She was a singer in the court. Ujijain forced her to leave when she got pregnant. We were going to try and return to the palace and beg for her position back in court when she slipped on the mountainside. She needed protection and had none. Land and title aren’t the only things that make a person worthy. Ujijain has forgotten that. To the realm, its own people are little more than ways for others to become wealthy. I would do things differently.”
This time when he looked at her, she flashed him the smallest of smiles. Vikram felt that he was treading strange new territory. Gauri was at once everything and nothing he expected.
“Is this camaraderie going to be a regular ordeal for us?” she joked. But he heard a yearning that echoed his own. Somehow as they’d stumbled together from one near-death incident to the next, he had found a connection. And he wasn’t ready to let it go.
“Why not? We’re friends of a kind, aren’t we?”
“I suppose so.”
A grin lifted his lips.
“So,” Vikram continued, “I have your pity. And you have mine. Let’s call it even. Friends?”
“Friends,” she said uncertainly. “Does this mean you’re going to stop irritating me on purpose?”
“Absolutely not,” he said.
As he walked toward the baths, he heard Gauri call out:
“Just so you know, that kiss meant nothing.”
He laughed. “You’re acting as though you’re my first kiss.”
He neglected to tell her that his first kiss was—technically—to the guard who had passionately spun him around after mistaking him for a courtesan when he was fifteen and trying to sneak into the harem.
Like most first kisses, it left him with the sour taste of regret.
“You’re not, Gauri,” he said, grinning. “But you were certainly memorable.”
18
THREE IS A VERY NICE NUMBER
GAURI
When Vikram left for the baths, I threw myself onto the bed. My muscles ached. I stared up at the ceiling, blinking once … twice … before sleep claimed me. I woke to Vikram inspecting himself in the mirror. His hair was still damp from the baths and slightly curled around his ears. He tugged on the sleeves of a dark blue jacket embroidered with delicate silver feathers. The cut on his jaw had left a pale scar, but it only drew attention to the lips that I had thoroughly kissed not too long ago. He glanced at me, his eyes glinting a little too knowingly. I was painfully aware of how disheveled I looked.
“I was thinking about what you said earlier,” said Vikram. “What was it that you told the yakshini attendant? We prefer not to have an audience?”
He turned slowly around the room, as if marveling at its emptiness.
“I can’t remember,” I said, standing.
That was a lie. Of course I remembered. The memory pounced on me the moment I fell asleep. Fire painted my bones when I kissed him. In the back of my head, I’d felt the kind of drowsy hunger that lit up my thoughts when I first ate demon fruit. For more and less. For something impossible.
“Do you kick?”
I followed his gaze to the bed.
“Oh yes,” I said. “And I sleep with silver talons attached to my heels.”
“Sounds painful.”
“I also bray like a donkey in my nightmares, drool oceans and have a tendency to sleep-punch.”
“I sleep like the dead,” said Vikram, nonchalantly. “I won’t be bothered at all. Besides, I prefer sharing my bed with slightly feral women.”
“I prefer not to share at all. The chaise is perfectly comfortable.”
“Then you sleep there. I’ll take the bed. I wouldn’t want to offend your maidenly senses.”