Cloth rustles in front of me, followed by steps. Something glances my chin. My spine snaps into line, and my muscles grit down. A featherlight touch—a fingertip—traces my jaw and dips down my neck. Gooseflesh breaks out in its wake.
Hot, sour breath permeates my blindfold. The rajah’s stroke follows the curvature of my collarbone. My chest heaves, and I prepare to be groped. His touch carves a direct line to my pelvis. I lift my chin, refusing to flinch. I will not give him the satisfaction of knowing my fear. Rajah Tarek is at fault for Jaya’s injury. Her cheek would still be untouched if he had not demanded that our duels end in blood.
His finger pulls away. Softness brushes against my elbow, perhaps a sleeve, and then my hair lifts off the nape of my neck. The rajah stands behind me, and his careful fingers feather through my tresses from my scalp to the ends. He grabs a loose handful of my hair.
“This one.” His deep voice bores rivulets of horror into my back.
“Your Majesty, I commend you on your selection, but are you certain?” asks Healer Baka. “It is my duty to inform you that this ward has a sickly past.”
A tense silence weighs down the air. I capture my breath, questioning what the rajah sees in me. I am too skinny, too tall, too homely. He has countless women already. He cannot want me.
“Is she well now?”
“That is difficult to determine, Your Majesty,” Priestess Mita replies.
“I trust your healer’s estimation.”
“She is well,” Healer Baka answers with a tenor of defeat. I wait for her to mention the tonic or my fevers, but she says nothing more.
The rajah releases my hair and rubs my hip. I ball my hands into fists to resist smacking him away. His voice coarsens with finality. “I stand by my decision.”
Cloth rustles. A door shuts, and the women exhale in chorus. Frigid hands scramble up my face. Healer Baka removes the blindfold. Rajah Tarek is gone. The healer’s strained gaze consumes my sight.
I seize her wrists. “What does this mean?”
Priestess Mita drapes the ivory robe over my shoulders and rubs my arms too briskly to be comforting. “It means you have been claimed.”
5
Healer Baka and Priestess Mita steer me toward the chapel, each with a hand on my shoulder. My legs are stiff with shock. All of the younger daughters wait cross-legged on floor cushions. The older ones, who just came from the Claiming, are barefoot and clad in identical ivory robes, creamy against their skin, eyes, and hair. When we first congregated in the inspection chamber, I admired our elegant uniformity. Now I barely register my surroundings.
Jaya motions me over to the cushion that she has reserved near her own. I split off from Healer Baka and Priestess Mita, and they lapse into urgent whispers. I do not linger to hear them, though I can fathom their disbelief. Bamboo Kali caught the rajah’s eye.
“Did you hear?” Jaya clutches her chest, her nose red from crying. “We were inspected by the rajah.”
I nod and kneel beside her, bile winding up my throat.
“Natesa said she felt his breath across her chest.” Jaya’s horrified gaze drifts inward. She sucks her lower lip. “I heard her tell Sarita she’s going to live in the palace. Do you think that’s true?”
“Maybe.” Two rows in front of us, Natesa sits high on her knees, beaming smugly. “Did he touch her?”
Jaya pulls out of her anxious daze. “I don’t know. Why?”
“Did he claim anyone else?”
“Not that I heard.” Jaya’s breaths shorten to quiet gasps. “I—I could not stop shaking.”
I wrap my arms around her, guilt digging a gulch in my stomach. I have to leave her. I have to leave here. I should warn her, but the confession grips my tongue, reluctant to let go.
A gong chimes, and all conversation dwindles to a close. Many faces shine with eagerness. Rumor of the rajah’s visit has spread like ripples across the meditation pond. I release Jaya but stay pressed against her side.
Priestess Mita commands our attention from the front of the chapel. “I am certain by now you have all determined the identity of our benefactor. Rajah Tarek was pleased with the variety of your beauty and battle skills.” She raises her fingers in a V. “He chose two daughters.”
Gasps fly around the room. They know of Natesa but not of me. The others speculate in hushed voices, and Jaya rests her hand on my knee. I meet her searching gaze and nod. Tears sprout at the corners of her eyes.
“Quiet in the chapel.” Priestess Mita waits for silence to resume. “Both daughters will leave for Vanhi to live in the Turquoise Palace. However, only one will wed the rajah. The second will be his courtesan.”
Jaya clutches my leg harder in question. I shake my head. I do not know which I will be.
My insides coil like a viper trapped in a basket. To be a queen—a rani—is a charmed life. The highest station any girl, orphan or not, could dream of. Certainly, the rajah would not choose me to wed him over Natesa, with her heart-shaped face and abundant curves.
“Natesa and Kalinda, please step forward,” says Priestess Mita.
Upon hearing my name added to Natesa’s, the daughters erupt in various forms of astonishment, but all reactions rapidly wane to envious mutters and spiteful glares. Even Prita and Falan, who have always been distant yet polite, eye me with jealousy.
I rise fluidly, head high. Whether I am to be a wife or a courtesan, there is no sense in showing my devastation. What is done is done. I will accept my fate with dignity and cry my eyes dry later.
Natesa slings me a look of surprise. I join her at the front of the chapel and stare out at the kneeling group, searching for Jaya’s comfort among the daggered glares. She stares bravely forward, tears dripping off her chin.
Priestess Mita faces Natesa and me. “Whatever your position may be, I ask that you represent the Samiya Temple and Sisterhood well. Serve the rajah with perfect obedience.”
Natesa’s lips twitch in triumph. I am her only competitor left, and she has arrived at the same conclusion. I am no man’s bride.
I clasp my hands in front of me, concealing my unsteady fingers in my robe. Candlelight flickers across the mural of Anu on one wall, and on the wall opposite, a mural of his wife, Ki. The painter positioned them to gaze across the chapel at each other. I would have liked to see the rajah before he claimed me, but I now stand on the edge of a cliff, about to plunge into a faceless unknown.
“The rajah’s word is final,” the priestess says. “We do not defy. We obey.”
“We obey,” the daughters echo.
I mouth the promise, my tongue still too deadened to allow me to speak.
Everyone waits in silence. Quiet does not usually unsettle me. I can sketch in peace for hours, but the anticipation here is unnerving.
“To join his household as a courtesan, Rajah Tarek chose Natesa.” Priestess Mita swivels to me. “And to become his wife, he chose Kalinda.”
I gape at her rare approving smile, my heart falling . . .
Falling . . .
Falling . . .
I hit no bottom, no end, no release.