“I’ll tell you another,” he said.
He told me ridiculous things. Like how when he was scrawny and fifteen, he’d dressed as a courtesan to sneak into the Ujijain harem only to get caught for looking too convincing. Or how he had trained one of his father’s pet parrots to shriek obscenities at the palace priests. He didn’t ask for any secrets in return. All he wanted, it seemed, was for me to laugh. And little by little, I realized I was smiling. The cold stopped gnawing at my heart. Little by little, I let myself feel. The feast of fears hadn’t disappeared, but it had faded. We sat there for what felt like hours.
“Not quite what I expected of victory,” he said, carding his fingers through my damp hair.
“How so?”
“Sadder, I guess.”
“War feels like that,” I said quietly.
“How do you get through it?”
I was silent for a moment. I’d seen horrifying battles. Sometimes I didn’t know how I survived. Or even if I deserved to survive. The only way to face the next day was to change the story and live that new perspective. Sometimes the other horrors faded into dull silence. Sometimes they didn’t. I told Vikram, and he nodded. Before, I would have thought he was agreeing out of politeness. But he understood this time, and I believed him.
“The tales we tell ourselves to sleep,” he murmured.
I shivered and he held me tighter. “We’re in a nightmare, not a story.”
“That’s not true,” he said softly. “Here, I’ll tell it to you. Once there was a beast princess and a fox prince—”
“Beast princess? That sounds awful, I—”
He shushed me. “—and they had to do all kinds of awful things. Like talk to each other.” I laughed. “And fight through memories that tried to lure them away, poisonous beauties and … fear.” My chest tightened. “And they did all of this for freedom. One day, even if they couldn’t see it now, it was going to be worth the pain.”
We were both quiet. I toyed with my necklace. This was the first story anyone had told me since Maya left the harem. I’d almost forgotten the true power of a story … how it lulled you outside your thoughts, let you process the world in a way that was palatable. Not poisonous. Calm rushed through me.
“You forgot to mention the sacrifice,” I said.
He shrugged. “It will be nothing. Kubera isn’t going to take anything that wouldn’t already be taken. If you think about it, it’s not much of a sacrifice.”
“How can you really believe that?”
“It helps when there are no other options.”
I laughed. “Spoken like a true fox prince.”
He frowned. “I wonder if they’ll change my name to Fox King when I return.”
“That doesn’t sound nearly as intriguing.”
“Perhaps I’ll dedicate a royal committee to my new title. They can spend the day coming up with sycophantic titles and I’ll become the dense king that believes them.”
We laughed. Loudly. It wasn’t even that funny, but we needed it and the sound of laughter seemed to sew back the dulled-down pieces of me. The feast of fears started feeling like a distant nightmare. Which meant that tomorrow pressed ever closer. What was I going to do when I finally returned to Bharata? What did this—laughing in the arms of the enemy prince—mean?
“What do you want after this, Vikram?”
His eyes widened. But when he opened his mouth to speak, the floor burst into flames. We got ready hurriedly. Right before we left, I went to the drawer that hid the Serpent King’s venom and gently hid it inside a sewn-in pocket of my salwar kameez. We were so close to the end, I could almost taste the wish on my tongue. One step closer to Bharata. To Nalini.
“Gauri?” asked Vikram. He held out his arm. I took it.
The moment we walked outside, cold licked up my spine. I wasn’t sure whether what I felt was some aftereffect from the feast of fear, but the atmosphere of Alaka was anything but festive.
It felt like a storm crouching over the sea, waiting for just the right moment to strike.
36
A DIFFERENT SONG
AASHA
She couldn’t stop staring at the invitation that had arrived in her chambers.
All champions are required to attend the Parade of Fables,
which will mark the conclusion of the Tournament of Wishes.
Upon conclusion, all wishes may be collected.
Arrive no later than sunset.
She was a winner in the Tournament of Wishes. She had won a wish.
… But how?
Her sisters danced around the tent.
“What are you going to wish for, Aasha?” exclaimed one. “Wish us a grander palace! With an elephant made of gemstones to carry us everywhere!”
“Lazy,” scoffed one of her other sisters. “Wish for the ability to sing the weather into being. Then we could always have mild days or even snow when we wished it.”
“Or wish for—”
“That’s enough,” said the eldest. The sisters fell silent. “Start preparing the tent. Once the Lord of Treasures has entertained the champions, every participant throughout Alaka will be storming the courtyard and begging for our time.”
Another of her sisters shrugged. “Well done, Aasha!”
The moment they left, Aasha sank into her chair, folding her hands in her lap. A wish? She had never considered the possibility that there might be something she could finally decide for herself. All her life, she and her sisters had shared everything. It made sense that they would assume that even a wish won by one of them would be something to share. Guilt twisted through Aasha. She didn’t want to share this.
Things had felt different, lately. She didn’t even dress as she once had. Today, she wore a flower behind her ear. Most of her sisters thought it was little more than passing fancy, a curiosity that would fade the moment the Tournament ended because then she could no longer do such a thing. But her eldest sister hadn’t stopped staring at her. As if she was finally seeing her.
“Don’t listen to them,” said the eldest. Aasha jolted upright in her seat. She hadn’t realized anyone had been watching her. “That wish is yours. You earned it.”
“I don’t know what I did to win though.”
Her sister smiled, but it was a sad and wistful smile, the kind that belongs to goodbyes.