Always.
He kisses across my cheek, down my neck. “Marry me, Kalinda. Be my kindred. Fulfill my heart’s wish.” He nibbles at my throat. I push him away and leave my hands against his chest to prevent him from coming closer. His complexion is flushed and his lips damp. His hooded eyes still project the dream that played inside my head.
“What did you say?”
“Be my wife.”
“No, the part about your heart’s wish.”
“You fulfill the wish of my heart.” He leans in for a kiss.
I hold him back. My insides rattle apart. I twist from him, resting my forehead against the cool tile floor. “Oh, gods. I should have seen it before. Your heart’s wish. I’m your heart’s wish.”
“Kali—”
I shove at him. “Get off me. Don’t ever touch me again.”
“I—I don’t understand. What did I do?”
I adjust my tunic and rise on quaking knees. The wall patterns whirl around me. “You wished for me. When you unleashed Udug, you imagined me with you.”
“I imagined ruling in the palace. You know that.” Ashwin climbs to his knees, his hair disheveled from my hands stroking through the dark strands. My hunger for his warmth implores me to return to his arms, fasten my lips to his, and never ask another question.
“Did your heart’s wish include me ruling beside you?”
Ashwin’s eyes gleam his sincerity. “I’ve wished for you since we first met.”
His answer hits me like a staff to my stomach. I bowl over, and the icy sickness inside me spreads fast now that we are apart. Indah said she sensed Ashwin lied when he told the datu we are not intended to marry. In Ashwin’s heart, we are betrothed. When we touch, my pain eases because he wished for our union.
Ashwin wears a blank, slackened expression. “Kalinda, I told you how I felt about you before I unleashed Udug.”
“But you wished for me.” He returns my accusation with a series of rapid blinks. “This isn’t real! I’m drawn to you because you wished it.” The color in his cheeks drains away, and he presses his fist to his lips.
Another stone-cold thought strikes me.
Deven thinks I’m in love with Ashwin.
“If this is all an illusion, then why . . . ?” Ashwin waves at the floor and what just took place there.
“You wished that I’d rule the empire alongside you. Udug cannot defy your bidding.” I grip my teeth together to ward off another round of shivers. “Udug’s powers are still inside me. I’m safe from them when I’m near you.”
“Then stay close.” Ashwin steps forward to defend me from the cold, but I shuffle back and wrap my arms around myself. The violation of his imposed will crawls across my skin, stronger than my need for warmth. My teeth chatter involuntarily. I lock them down, but not before Ashwin sees. “You’re in pain.”
“Please keep away.” Ashwin did not manipulate me intentionally, but I do not trust myself near him.
He balls a fist and strikes at the veil. “Why won’t you let me help you?”
“Because I love Deven.” I clutch at my aching chest. “He’s my heart’s wish.”
Everything about Ashwin dims and sinks, his demeanor, his posture, his raised fist. Whatever light he shone for me extinguishes.
Why couldn’t he be Deven? I demand of the gods. Why did you tie me to a throne and a man my heart has not chosen? If I thought I could fall in love with Ashwin, I could set aside Deven right now. In his considerate, honorable way, he knows the choice is mine and loves me enough to walk away. But I never wanted Ashwin. Even if I had, any possible future with him has been permanently skewed.
I slip off his gold cuff and hold it out. “This is yours.”
Ashwin opens his mouth, but no words come. He reaches for his cuff, and his finger brushes my palm. My need for him hurts so badly tears spring into my vision. I pull back, and his chin falls to his chest.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
The door opens. Sarita sees my watery eyes and averts her gaze. “Kindred, the Lestarian woman asked me to find you and the prince. She said for you to meet her and the baldish man in the courtyard.”
Indah would only summon us for one purpose—the rebels must be close. Sarita watches us from the corner of her sight. Ashwin’s hair is still mussed and his tunic offset. Sarita is too innocent to conclude what we have been doing here alone, but I have a clear memory and suffer the ensuing guilt. I should have guessed my connection with Ashwin was contrived.
“That will be all, Sarita,” I say.
She hesitates in the doorway. “I’d like to go with you when you leave.”
The complication of another person on our journey is too much to consider now. “I’ll think on it. Thank you.” She exits the way she came. “We should go.”
The prince still will not look at me.
“Ashwin, please.”
He tips up his head, his eyes frigid. I risk my willpower and edge closer. Tempting soul-fire wafts off him, physical solace within my reach, but I hold myself taut.
“I’m still with you, Ashwin. You have my loyalty through whatever comes next. I know you’ll give the empire your all.”
“Don’t patronize me. I may be younger than you, but I’m not a child.” He tugs down his tunic jacket, a meticulous gesture Tarek was known for. “You may still be kindred, but this is my empire, and the gods will hold me responsible for what comes next.”
Ashwin storms out, his footsteps sounding like Tarek’s the day he walked into my life and flipped my future upside down. Rajah Tarek was a vengeful man, turned hard-hearted after the woman he loved, my mother, jilted him for my father. But I am not my mother any more than Ashwin is his father.
I pick up the henna pot I left on the floor, dip my finger into the sticky paste, and paint the backs of my hands. Soon enough, the henna will dry and flake off to reveal the mark of the kindred. Then Ashwin will be reminded that my fate is also tied to what becomes of the empire, and he will see that I will continue to fight to make certain that the most important aspect of his heart’s wish comes true.
Ashwin will be the next rajah. That is the only destiny I will accept.
16
DEVEN
Late into the afternoon, the plodding wagons spread out. The weariness of the day strings us apart and heavies our steps. Long trails of men wind from the woods and descend into the lowlands, where the air thickens with the dank scent of wet land. The sky opens to unstoppable stretches of blue over verdant grasslands. Men toil in the rice fields and the higher wheat fields, both crops recently planted for the coming winter.
Though I scrutinize every wagon and group of soldiers we pass, I have not seen or heard anything about Brac or Opal. The farther we walk, the more my premonition festers that they are in danger.