But why settle for a story, when I could start a legend?
I smiled, raising the trident into the air and smashing it into the ground. A thousand jetting streams of water rushed beneath my feet, bracketing my ankles and calves as they shot up and carried me with them. My stomach plummeted as the enchantment pushed me through the air. Up here, I couldn’t even see the tops of the trees, but I was eye-level with the mountains and maybe if I reached high enough, I could peel a star out of the sky. Down below, the shouts of the guards barely reached my ears. I let myself hover above them, relishing the cold and sweet air of midnight, this moment of magic that teetered on the edge of breaking. I raised one of my legs, and the column of water followed suit, pouring over the gate. I raised my other leg for the final step over the gate. If I wanted, I could drown Skanda. But I refused to rule with blood on my hands. Even his. I closed my eyes, and the columns of water roaring beneath me collapsed gracefully until I shot down to the eye level of a dozen Bharata guards and my brother.
“Recognize me now?”
The guards dropped their weapons. Half of them prostrated themselves on the ground, muttering prayers beneath their breaths. The other half stared, jaws slack and eyes wide. It took every bit of strength not to gloat and scream. Skanda was the first to catch his thoughts.
“My heart is light to see you safe, my sister. And so … gifted from your travels,” he said. “We have much to discuss. You there—” He snapped his fingers to a white-faced attendant. “—get her chambers ready and inform General Arjun that our princess has returned.”
The attendant didn’t move. I smiled. The attendant moved immediately. Skanda did not miss the exchange. His gaze narrowed.
“You returned despite great risk to life and limb,” he said, his tone artificially admirable. “And with a fascinating trick to add to the country’s arsenal of weapons. I am pleased.”
We both knew that he wasn’t talking about my life and limb. Nalini was the unspoken danger. But Skanda’s words, despite their meaning, carried hope: I was still risking her life. She was alive. My greatest fear went unrealized. I had to fight down the urge to smile. Instead, I bowed my head. His gaze fell to my glass hand. I flexed it. I could already see how he was trying to twist the magic he’d seen:
Demon-touched.
Possessed.
A vector for evil.
But he wasn’t the only one trained in storytelling anymore. I embraced my brother, even though I wanted to rip off my skin at his touch. As I walked along the corridors of Bharata, I kept looking out of the corner of my eye, waiting for someone to pounce out of the shadows. I wouldn’t be able to fight them with a glass hand that refused to pick up a weapon.
I paced in the chambers, Kauveri’s dagger strapped to my leg even as I bathed and changed out of the traveling clothes. After Alaka, every color looked dim.
Skanda refused to place me in the harem, claiming I would upset the women before he had a chance to explain my return. Coward. The last thing he wanted was every woman in the harem armed with the knowledge of magic and prepared to fight him.
Someone knocked at the door. I opened it, expecting to see an attendant. Arjun stared back at me. My throat tightened. Joy, hurt and fury shredded me all at once. This was the man who showed me what a brother was. He had carried me for half the day when I broke my leg. Split his desserts with me. Teased me out of bad moods and sobered me when I needed it. And yet, he’d stood by when Skanda had dragged Nalini to the throne room. He’d known my plans and betrayed me. He clenched his jaw, his gaze turning flinty.
“How could you come back after everything you did?” he demanded.
I felt as if the carpet had been pulled out from beneath me. I stood there, shocked.
“You put my life in danger. You put Nalini’s life in danger,” he hissed. Stepping forward. “How could you? And after all this, after we pleaded for Skanda not to kill you, you come back?”
Fury rose inside me.
“What are you talking about, Arjun?” I demanded. “How dare you even talk to me about Nalini’s safety when you betrayed me at the moment when I needed you the most, when Nalini needed you the most?”
A shadow moved behind him. Useless as it was, I placed my glass hand on the other iron dagger strapped to my left arm. The shadow slipped into the room, and its owner slid into view:
Nalini.
I couldn’t help myself. I tried to throw my arms around her, but she stepped away from me and into Arjun’s arms. She didn’t look as though she’d spent any time in a prison. I stared at them, my breath catching. What was happening?
“Nalini … it’s me.… I came back for you.”
“To do what? Make sure that she was dead even after we spared you?” returned Arjun.
“Spared me?”
They stepped into the room, closing the door.
“Talk to me, Nalini. Please. You have no idea what I fought through to get to you,” I said, my whole body trembling.
Nalini stared at me as if I really were a stranger. She stared at me as if I were the enemy and not the victim. When I reached for her, she moved back a step. My heart split.
“Before you left, Skanda told me that he knew all about your rebellion,” she said, not looking at me. “He said that it was to make sure that my father’s lands would never pass to me—”
“I would never do that!” I protested.
“I asked you, Gauri,” she said. “Don’t you remember? I came to you and I demanded to know what would happen to me in your scheme of power?”
I remembered.
“Why are you bringing that up?” I said. “You inheriting power only applies if you reach your eighteenth year. You’re hardly in your sixteenth. A thousand and one things could happen between now and then. Focus on what we can control in the present.”
Time froze. That was the same night I had confronted her in the garden. The same night I thought I heard Skanda’s spies moving in the darkness.
“He showed us documents you’d written.…” said Nalini, her voice breaking.
The false documents. I closed my eyes. I had written those to protect what I was doing. I intended for them to fall into the “wrong hands,” but my brother had done just that.
“You refused to speak to us, to tell us of your plans,” said Arjun. “You shunned us, Gauri. And Skanda showed us the truth. He showed us how you wanted Nalini out of the way and proved what you’ve been doing with all your time.”