“I’ll take you to her.”
Together, they left the vishakanyas’ tent behind. Only then did Vikram notice that Aasha was limping.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Oh. I … I fell.”
He sensed she was lying, but he refused to press her.
“Why did you stay there for so long?” asked Aasha.
Vikram frowned. “We only left this morning.”
“It is almost full moon,” she said, shocked. “The Jhulan Purnima is the day after tomorrow.”
Vikram’s heart raced. Time ran differently in Alaka, but the Serpent King’s kingdom did not belong to Alaka. Whatever time they had spent there had cost them days. After tomorrow, the second trial would begin. If Gauri wasn’t ready to compete—or, worse, if she was unable to compete—all of this would have been for nothing. Helplessness gave way to a choked rage.
As gingerly as he could, he rushed Aasha up the steps to the room. Gauri hadn’t moved from her position. But the flames had. They had spiraled from her ankle and now roped their way around the tops of her thighs. No heat burned from the flames, but the air crackled and snapped around Gauri’s body. As if it had claimed her and refused to let her go.
Aasha leaned over her.
“Strange,” she murmured.
Vikram paced over the floor, tugging at his hair. “What’s strange? Can you fix it?”
“The poison in her skin,” said Aasha. She looked up. “It’s the same as mine.”
“How is that possible?”
Aasha stared at the flames, her expression inscrutable. “I … I don’t know. My sisters always said that we got our poison as a blessing from a goddess, but … but that doesn’t seem to make any sense now.”
He stopped walking. “What does that mean for Gauri?”
“It means that I can draw it out.”
Vikram breathed a sigh of relief.
“But it also means that I can’t counteract it. I can’t control whether she will live or die. She’ll have to fight it on her own. And if she lives, I don’t know if the poison will have changed her.”
Vikram slumped into a chair. “Just do whatever you can.”
Aasha nodded, and bent her head over Gauri. He didn’t look. Hours passed, and dawn lightened the sky. Aasha took a seat across from him, and her expression told him that she had done all she could. Now all they could do was wait.
Sometime in the night, Vikram sat beside her and watched the heatless blue flames gutter. They were dying. But so was she.
Magic might be vast, but right now, he felt it as a quiet hum in his chest. The enchantments that seemed greater than life had done them no favors. He turned, instead, to small, ordinary magic. The same magic that his mother had conjured each time his nightmares shot him out of sleep and left him breathless with fear. She used to fold him to her, rocking him back and forth and crooning a song. Vikram let go of reason. He lowered his lips to her ear … and sang. Soft, broken words. He was no singer. But, he thought, thinking back to the sage’s invitation so many nights ago, maybe it was about the sincerity. So he sang, forcing his heart into every lopsided tune. An unspoken summons and plea cropped up between the notes of his rusty voice:
Don’t leave.
28
EATING POETRY
GAURI
I woke up to a burning sensation coursing through my leg. Pushing myself up one elbow, I looked around the room. The sky above me was flecked with stars and wispy violet clouds. How long had I been out? I groaned and tried to lift my leg. Nothing broken or sprained. Throwing back the covers, I saw only the usual expanse of bronze and unbroken skin. It was as if that poisoned water had never touched me.
“Gauri?”
Vikram rose out of a chair. Dark sleepless circles marked his eyes. “You’re awake.” He sat down on the bed beside me and reached for my hand. “We weren’t sure you’d make it.”
“We?”
A figure stood up from the other side of the room. The light washed over her. Aasha. She walked to me tentatively, her chin ducked as she looked at us through her lashes. Nalini moved the same way when she first came to Bharata. Hesitant. As if she thought the air would push back at her for not belonging. But then I remembered why I was lying down in a bed, pain shooting up my leg. I had chosen wrong after relying on Aasha’s word. Kapila’s crumpled face swam in my vision. From across the room, the vial of the Serpent King’s venom caught the light.
“How do you feel?” asked Aasha. “You slept the whole day.”
My hair had fallen in front of my face. Vikram leaned forward, raising his hand to brush away my hair. I turned my head, shoving the strands from my face, and he withdrew his hand as if stung.
“I’m in pain,” I gritted out.
“Do you feel any different?”
I had drawn it away to show them the unbroken skin when something caught my eye. I thought I had no scar, but the poison had left something behind. A small blue star, no bigger than a thumbnail, was imprinted on the back of my calf.
Aasha saw it and sucked in her breath. “That is our mark.”
A vishakanya mark was on me? My heart raced and I turned to Vikram. “You touched me. Do you feel any different?”
His eyes widened. “No. I don’t feel a thing.”
“Maybe it is just a scar from the poison?” offered Aasha. “I am sure it is nothing.”
Bitterness stole into my throat. What was sureness and certainty? I used to hold on to certainty like a light inside me, hoping it would chase out the dark unknown. But certainty was a phantom strung together on hopes. It would lead you astray at the first chance.
“Are you?” I asked quietly. “Are you as sure as you were when you told us that the Serpent King had stolen Kauveri’s sister? Or that she even wanted his venom in the first place?”
“Gauri…” said Vikram under his breath.
I knew that tone. It was a stop while you’re ahead tone. I refused. There had been a chance to choose a path without bloodshed. Without hurt. And now that opportunity was gone. Once you choose, it cannot be undone. No matter how much all of our hearts may break beneath your choice. The problem with guilt was not how it attacks the present, but how it stained the past. Hindsight was a blemish on memory. Had I asked enough questions? Could I have figured out that I didn’t have all the pieces I needed to make that decision? Could any of this have been avoided?
“The Serpent King didn’t steal away his wife. Where did you get that information?”
Aasha stepped back, shocked. “I told you what I knew from my own sisters. All of the yakshas that serve the Lady Kauveri had said she wanted the Serpent King’s venom. They told us this when they frequented our tent. I overheard many of them saying that the Lady Kauveri only wanted the poison because he had stolen away her sister. It was gossip, I admit, but it was all the information I had.”