The Star-Touched Queen (The Star-Touched Queen #1)(75)

Kamala reared to a halt, her forelegs clinging for purchase.

I leaned across her back, my hand outstretched—“Stop!”

There was a moment where I didn’t know if anyone had heard. My word felt like little more than a croak. Silence fell around us. Nritti’s blade clattered to the ground and the boy stumbled back, unscathed.

Amar’s head snapped up and for the first time since leaving Naraka, we stared at one another. His expression hadn’t changed since the glen. It was flat, but not unkind, just … out of reach.

He looked as though someone had summoned him from stone. The more I looked at him, the more images prickled behind my eyes—him walking toward me, in one hand carrying a glass rose while his fingers reached for me, eager to close the space between us; his hand slung over my waist while we slept, two bodies curled into the shadow of each other.

But those images were mine alone. Amar blinked, his brows furrowing before he looked away. My heart slammed against my ribs. If I had any doubt about his last words—that he wouldn’t remember me, that I would be lost to him—this moment cured them.

I was a stranger.





26

A DUEL OF RIDDLES

Nritti was staring at us and her face was blank and controlled.

I leapt from Kamala’s back. The gaze of a thousand eyes slapped against my skin. Think, Maya. Anger flared inside me. Anger that she had ousted those who belonged here and ushered in those who did not. Anger that Amar was by her side. Anger that she had lied. But I tamped it down, swallowing my fury like a bitter draught. And then I did what anyone would do before a false sovereign—

I bowed.

Kamala glanced at me sidelong, a ghoulish grin across her face, “I know what she is hungry for and she is starved as the earth. Her teeth are grinding, grinding, churning stars. Do you hear it, false sadhvi?”

“What are you talking about?” I muttered back, my head still bent to the ground. “What is she hungry for?”

Kamala leaned closer. “You.”

A whip cracked through the air and I jerked my head up, only to see Nritti standing right in front of me. She tilted her head to one side and the movement was so slight, so emotionless that I thought she would slide a blade through me just to see what would happen.

“I do not believe I asked your opinion, sadhvi,” she said.

I dropped my gaze, my neck burning. She didn’t seem to know me. Then again, I was unrecognizable as the girl who had eaten up her lies in Naraka. But just to be sure I pulled one end of my robes over my head.

The point of a knife pricked my throat, tilting my head up.

“Perhaps I should just use you instead…”

I froze, twisting down the fear that had stolen my breath. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of letting my heartbeat pulse against the metal. My hands curled into fists, ready to grab her blade, when someone’s voice echoed in the ruined Night Bazaar.

Amar.

He was standing, his hands outstretched. Fury shadowed his face, but in a blink, it was gone. His expression warred between lost and enraged.

“I want her to speak,” said Amar. “Speak your mind, sadhvi. You are under my protection.”

Nritti dropped the blade by a fraction, but her gaze wasn’t on me. It was on Amar. Hope fluttered in my ribs. Nritti looked at Amar like he was a tame tiger who had unexpectedly torn out the throat of an animal. She looked at Amar with a flash of fear in her eyes, and hope poured through my veins.

No amount of captivity could strip the wild from the tiger. Amar was no different. He was feral. He was mine.

Nritti, recovering from her lapse of silence, delivered a low bow.

“As you wish, my lord. But if we are to follow through with our plans, we need a soul. What better than one that offers itself so freely?” She pointed to the little boy at the edge of the dais, knees drawn up to his chin, staring at Nritti like she was his salvation. “Look at him, he longs to be cut. I should do as he asks.”

“Your enchantment has robbed his will,” I shot back, the words tumbling out before I had a chance to stop them.

Wrong move. Kamala moved closer, her nose nudging into my shoulder, nostrils flaring protectively. I wanted to hug her. Beside me, a churel sucked in her breath and a rakshasi stumbled backward, as if my words would put all of their lives at risk.

The crowd around us laughed but it was thin and forced. Nritti leaned closer to me.

“When we have hollowed the world above, wouldn’t death be a kinder fate to the boy? Do you want him to return to find his home destroyed? Because that is what they will do.”

In the ruins of the Night Bazaar, I was all too aware of my own mortality. My heartbeat enthralled them. I was food. If they could not have the boy’s blood, they would take mine.

“You are bound to be a great ruler, my lady. But on the eve of your victory, perhaps you can spare a favor to a lowly sadhvi?”

Nritti glared, her jaw tight, but she nodded.

“How about a game?” I asked. “Give me a riddle. If I answer correctly, you will grant me the boy.”

Nritti grinned. “I will play your game, sadhvi. But if you answer wrong, you will take his place.”

Kamala hissed into my ear, “Are you so eager to die, young queen?”

“But on one condition,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed. “What?”