The Star-Touched Queen (The Star-Touched Queen #1)(50)

“I know,” I said.

*

While he slept, I betrayed him.

I wove my own magic. A dream of sleep full of silvery spangles that I slipped over his eyes in the same moment that I stole away the noose. The noose fought against me, perhaps aware that I was not its rightful owner. I gathered Gauri’s necklace from its hidden place in the corner of the bedroom and pushed open the door.

I didn’t look back.

*

Nritti was waiting for me.

“Do you have it, sister?”

I nodded numbly. When I bit my lip, I could still taste him. Smoke and cinnamon.

“Give it to me,” she said, extending a hand through the reflection.

I hesitated. “What will happen to him?”

Nritti arched an eyebrow. “What he deserves. He will be rendered powerless. Don’t tell me you have grown to care for him? After all he’s done? To you and to so many other women?”

Nritti stepped aside and behind her, another image wavered in the obsidian mirror. A hundred trees filled with lights. The trees of other girls. Other victims. My hands clenched around Gauri’s necklace. Wordlessly, I handed over Amar’s noose.

The moment I did, something sizzled and snapped through the air. My heart plummeted. Behind us, the great tree full of memories seemed to gasp and twist. The tree—once massive and stretching toward the ceiling—had begun to decay. Thick branches lay around it like bones. Its trunk was rent, entrails of wood and root rising, shattering the marble floor and uncurling toward us. My gaze trailed toward the branches—everything was on fire.

Flickering memories began to drop, falling out of the branches. I stepped back, horrified. The memories fell like a score of dying phoenixes. All around us, the air was suffused with smoke; violet-bruise flames snaked around the edges of the marble, gorging themselves on branch and root.

The blue arch of the door glowed, swinging open. I threw up my arms against the sudden wave of heat. In the doorway, cut like a silhouette of night, stood Amar. He looked between me and Nritti, his gaze fixed on the noose in her hands before he turned to stare at the great tree. Horror was etched into his face. He looked at me and I felt like collapsing. His shoulders sagged and in his expression there was more than heartbreak. It was sorrow given shape.

“No,” he whispered, his face gaunt. “What have you done?”

I flinched, as though slapped.

“You lied to me. About everything.”

I thought of Bharata littered with the refuse of war. I thought of Gauri. “My home … my people were destroyed. You knew, but refused to tell me. Do you deny it?”

My anger was an element. Heat slashed through the air between us, dragging claws of invisible flames. That nameless power growled at my heels, like a beast ready to rend flesh at my word.

I wanted to hurt Amar. I wanted my anger to bruise him, burn him, as if all that heat and fury could weld back my mangled heart. But at the sight of him … I hesitated. In the pale light, Amar’s hands trembled.

“The deaths were fixed. There’s nothing you could’ve done.”

Behind me, Nritti let out a deranged laugh. “Lies. Oh, so many lies you spin, oh Dharma Raja. Without you, there would be no fixed death. There would be no death at all.”

I shivered at the sound of her words.

He turned from me, hands raking through his hair, pacing across the marble. I shrank back. “Those memories were not to be disturbed until you were deathless! They were to protect you, Maya.”

“I’m protecting her now,” said Nritti.

I turned around. Nritti was no longer in the portal. She had stepped out, and behind her, there was nothing but a broken mirror. Memories exploded around her, and each time they did, I winced. Whatever secrets they held extinguished on the marble.

There was a knife in Nritti’s hand, a manic glint in her eyes. Gone was the soft honey color of her skin. Even her hair seemed to pale and dull, no longer the beautiful, glossy sheets of black that had once hung around her shoulders.

Nritti looked at me, a smile of camaraderie lighting her face. She placed the knife on the floor and kicked it across the tile, where it clattered against my foot.

“Take it, sister,” she crooned. Her voice sounded different. Still familiar, but there was no warmth to it, and I couldn’t remember why. “Plunge it into the tree. Reclaim yourself.”

“Leave us, Nritti,” said Amar. His voice thundered through the room. “I will not let your chaos hurt her or come between us ever again.”

“Or what?” taunted Nritti. She tilted her head to one side, like this was a game. “Will you chase me down like you’ve done my sister? Will you trap my memories in some dingy chamber and lord them over me?”

“That is a lie, and you know it,” he growled.

“You know I tell the truth, sister,” said Nritti, turning to me. “You cannot deny the memory of us in that tree. You cannot deny how familiar I am to you. Familiar as flesh. I would never hurt you. I only want to protect you. I’ve spent years searching for you—”

“Don’t listen to her,” hissed Amar. “You have to trust me, my love. There has only been you. I know who you are. You are my queen. You always have been.”

I couldn’t look at him, but I could feel his gaze on me. So pained and tender that I fought the need to run to him, to comfort him. But I couldn’t push out the image of the woman in the glass garden. I couldn’t forget Gauri’s necklace encrusted with blood. I couldn’t forget how he had hinted at some latent power within me, and yet I couldn’t move a single thread on the tapestry.