Or you can waste your life recounting fails
But say it, little prince, say you’ll play this game If you and a partner play, never will you be the same.”
The ashram huts loomed closer and the fires crackled like topaz. The idea took root in Vikram’s mind. He’d built his life on wanting the impossible—true power, recognition, a future—and now magic had found him the moment he stopped looking. It breathed life into all those old dreams, filling him with that most terrible of questions: What if …
But even as his heart leapt to believe it, the sage’s words made him pause.
“Why did you say partner?”
“It is required of your invitation.”
Vikram frowned. The princes in the ashram had never inspired his faith in teams.
“Find the one who glows, with blood on the lips and fangs in the heart.”
“Sounds as though they would be hard to miss.”
“For you, doubly so,” said the sage. His voice expanded. Not quite human. The sound rose from everywhere, dripping from the sky, growing out of the dirt. “Say you will play. Play the game and you may yet win your empire, not just the husk of its name. You only get one chance to accept.”
The sage sliced his hand across the flames. Images spilled out like jewels: A palace of ivory and gold, riven with black streams where caught stars wriggled and gave up their light. There were prophecies etched on doorframes, and the sky above was nothing but undulating ocean where discarded legends knifed through the water. A thousand yakshas and yakshinis trailed frost, forest brambles, pond swill and cloudy coronets. They were preparing for something. Vikram felt as if he’d tasted his dreams and starved for more.
Magic plucked at his bones, begging him to leave this version of himself behind. He leaned forward, his heart racing to keep up with the present.
“Yes,” he breathed.
As if he could say anything else.
The moment split. Silently, the world fell back on itself.
“Excellent!” said the sage. “We will see you in Alaka at the new moon.”
“Alaka? But that’s, I mean, I thought it was myth.”
“Oh dear boy, getting there is half the game.” The sage winked. “Good for two living entries!”
“What about two living exits?”
“I like you,” laughed the sage.
In a blink, he disappeared.
PART ONE
THE GIRL
1
TO BE A MONSTER GAURI
Death stood on the other side of the chamber doors. Today I would meet it not in my usual armor of leather and chain mail, but in the armor of silk and cosmetics. One might think one armor was stronger than the other, but a red lip was its own scimitar and a kohl-darkened eye could aim true as a steel-tipped arrow.
Death might be waiting, but I was going to be a queen. I would have my throne if I had to carve a path of blood and bone to get it back.
Death could wait.
The bath was scalding, but after six months in a dungeon, it felt luxurious. Gauzy columns of fragrance spun slowly through the bath chambers, filling my lungs with an attar of roses. For a moment, thoughts of home choked me. Home, with the pockets of wildflowers and sandstone temples cut into the hills, with the people whose names I had come to murmur in my prayers before sleep. Home, where Nalini would have been waiting with a wry and inappropriate joke, her heart full of trust that I hadn’t deserved. But that home was gone. Skanda, my brother, would have made sure by now that no hearth in Bharata would welcome me.
The Ujijain attendant who was supposed to prepare me for my first—and probably last—meeting with the Prince of Ujijain didn’t speak. Then again, what do you say to those who are about to be sentenced to death? I knew what was coming. I’d gathered that much from the guards outside my dungeon. I wanted intelligence, so I faked whimpering nightmares. I’d practiced a limp. I’d let them think that my reputation was nothing more than rumor. I’d even let one of them touch my hair and tell me that perhaps he could be convinced to get me better food. I’m still proud that I sobbed instead of ripping out his throat with my teeth. It was worth it. People have a tendency to want to comfort small, broken-looking things. They told me they’d keep my death quick if I’d only smile for them one more time. I hated being told to smile. But now I knew the rotation of the guards’ schedule. I knew which ones nursed battle wounds and how they entered the palace. I knew that no sentinels guarded the eastern gate. I knew which soldiers grinned despite their bad knee. I knew how to escape.
My hair hung in wet ropes against my back as I slid into the silken robes. No coarse linens for the Princess of Bharata. Royalty has the strangest advantages. Silently, the attendant led me to an adjoining chamber where the silver walls formed gigantic polished mirrors.
Slender glass alembics filled with fragrant oils, tiny cruets of kohl and silk purses of pearl and carmine powder crowded a low table. Brushes of reeds and hewn ivory shaped like writing implements caught the light. Homesickness slashed through me. I had to clasp my hands together to stop from reaching out over the familiar cosmetics. The harem mothers had taught me how to use these. Under my mothers’ tutelage, I learned that beauty could be conjured. And under my and Nalini’s instruction, my mothers learned that death could hide in beauty.
In Bharata, Nalini had commissioned slim daggers that could be folded into jeweled hairpins. Together, we’d taught the mothers how to defend themselves. Before Nalini, I used to steal shears and sneak into the forge so the blacksmith could teach me about the balance of a sword. My father allowed me to learn alongside the soldiers, telling me that if I was bent on maiming something, then it might as well be the enemies of Bharata. When he died, Bharata’s training grounds became a refuge from Skanda. There, I was safe from him. And not just safe, but not hurting anyone. Being a soldier was the only way that I could keep safe the people I loved.
It was my way of making amends for what Skanda made me do.
The attendant yanked my chin. She took a tool—the wrong one, I noticed—and scraped the red pigment onto my lips.
“Allow me—” I started, but she shut me up.
“If you speak, I will make sure that my hand slips when I use that sharp tool around your eyes.”
Princess or not, I was still the enemy. I respected her fury. Her loyalty. But if she messed up my cosmetics, that was a different story. I closed my eyes, trying not to flinch under the attendant’s ministrations. I tried to picture myself anywhere but here, and memory mercifully plucked me from my own thoughts and took me back to when I was ten years old, sobbing because my sister, Maya, had left Bharata.
Mother Dhina had dried my tears, scooped me onto her lap and let me watch as she applied her cosmetics for the day.
This is how we protect ourselves, beti. Whatever insults or hurts are thrown at our face, these are our barriers. No matter how broken we feel, it is only the paint that aches.