“As my queen,” he said. “What can I offer? What can I give to persuade you?”
For one glittering moment, I wanted to press my lips to his. To taste all that he offered. But then I stepped away, and the moment between us broke.
“I will freely give away my opinions and perspective,” I said. “But I will not marry without love. Not for all the power in the world. Life, for us, is too long to live without it.”
“Love,” he repeated. He thought it over. A strange expression drifted over his face, as if he was remembering something.
“What do you have against it?”
“Nothing.”
“Have you been in love before?” I asked. The question had burned inside me ever since I met him. Had his heart already been bruised and that’s why he wouldn’t consider giving it away once more? Which forced another question in my head: did I want his heart?
“Never,” he said.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that I can’t. I … just can’t.”
He dropped my wrist.
“If it’s my perspective and opinions that you want, I would give that to you freely,” I said. “As a friend.”
“I have no need for friends. I have enough of those.”
“You do? How many do you have?”
“One.”
I laughed, choosing to drop the subject. “Come, I want to walk farther along the shore.”
And just like that, his offer seemed swept away by the waves. Once more, we lapsed into conversation. He told me of the places he had seen in the mortal realm. Places where lush jungles pulsed and swallowed ancient temples and kingdoms with forgotten names. And I told him of the people I had met in the Otherworld. People who sold fantastical ornaments in the Night Bazaar and sung prophecies in reverse or got drunk on bottled lightning.
“There are people with curses too,” I said. “One apsara was cursed to lose her beauty for half her life for the next five hundred years. Her husband had to choose whether he wanted her beautiful by day or beautiful by night. It was said the right answer from him could break the curse.”
“What did he choose?”
“I’ll tell you, but I want to hear what you would pick if you were the husband.”
We walked in silence for a bit. In the distance I saw Airavata rise out of the ocean. The great white elephant trampled over the waves, his trunk working quickly with a needle and a gauzy mist. He was spinning fresh clouds for dawn. A tightness in my chest gathered and fell. It was nearly time for me to return.
“Whichever she wanted,” said the Dharma Raja.
“Why do you think that would break the curse?”
“You said that the right answer from the husband would break the curse. But we all know that true curses are broken from within, thus the answer from the husband must have been one that gave his wife the power. Not him.”
I smiled. “Most husbands would not have thought that.”
“I would not be like most husbands.”
“Pity you had not married the apsara.”
We continued along the shore. My thoughts turned to the apsara with her ruined face for day, and the resentment she carried for night. The curse would break, eventually, but five hundred years was enough time to lose whatever love she once had. Even if her husband had chosen right … would she still love him?
Around us, the ocean changed. At once, my limbs yearned to sleep, to fold myself up in the remnants of night until tomorrow. The Dharma Raja must have sensed my exhaustion because he placed his hand gently at my back and steered us once more toward the ivory mirror.
“I wish you would come away with me,” he said softly.
My smile turned drowsy. “Not without love. Although I will not say no to a whole host of presents until then.”
He laughed. “You’re exquisitely greedy.”
And then I was back in my grove. What was left of night looked like a flimsy sheath of ice upon a pool. And dawn chipped away at it with pink hunger. Slowly, slowly, sleep claimed me. I felt the cold of the Dharma Raja slipping from me. He was leaving. I reached for him then, taking his hand and holding it close as an oath. Exhaustion unraveled my thoughts. And I was glad, then, that I was too tired to speak. Because all I could think was how the last thing I wanted before sleep was his hand in mine.
5
DEATH
She faded with the dawn. One moment, her hand in mine. The next moment, I held nothing. When I finally left the grove, the sun had devoured the last vestiges of night and drenched the whole sky a sticky rose gold. I walked away half full of glee and half full of hurt. The best was feeling the ghost of her touch. The worst was knowing she’d simply touched me from exhaustion.
And then, a mind-numbing idea entered my thoughts. I hadn’t had the chance to ask whether I could visit her tonight. Or what gift she might want. Unease filled me.
This was …
This was awful.
In Naraka, Gupta greeted me with a steaming cup of soma. I downed the goblet in one swallow. My hounds circled my feet, ears raised and muzzles hopeful for some evil soul to chew on for a year.
“Once more, I am empty-handed,” I said to them, holding up my palms. The hounds slinked away, annoyed.
“You sound pitiful,” said Gupta. He crossed his arms. “You look pitiful too.”
“She didn’t say if I could come back.”
I told him what had happened. Gupta stroked his chin. For reasons I can only assume were meant to heighten his cognitive madness, he hovered upside down with his feet crossed and jacket flapping about his ears.
“She never said anything like … until next time? Or later I will see you?”
“No.”
I was pacing. Why was I pacing? It hit me, then, that I was anxious. Like I was hungry but wouldn’t taste the food. Thirsty, but nothing would slake me.
Gupta righted himself and lightly tapped my forehead. I batted away his hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Experimenting.”
“Can you experiment on someone else’s forehead?”
“I could. But I won’t.”
Tap tap tap.
“Gupta. I realize you cannot die. But there are many ways to make—”
“You’re smitten,” he said. Matter of fact. As if he was remarking on the phase of the moon.
“You’re a fool.”
“So are you. Love has made a fool of you,” he said. And then he frowned. “There’s a poem somewhere in there, but I am miserable at structure and rhythm, so I will spare you my attempt.”
“How merciful,” I said, crossing my arms. “And I am not smitten. I simply like order in my universe. And there’s no order because I don’t know where I’m supposed to be this evening.”
“Just go back to whatever it is that you used to do during the evening.”