The Star-Touched Queen (The Star-Touched Queen #1)(23)

Gray daylight puddled onto the floor, illuminating the room’s golden borders and carven doors. I tilted my head up, eyes still disbelieving. Yesterday morning, I thought I would be wandering the halls of the dead. But instead, I was here.

“Rani?” came a voice from outside.

I recognized the voice. Gupta.

“Please dress at your leisure. I’ll wait outside to escort you to the dining hall, where we can go through your engagements for the day.”

Escorted? Engagements? In Bharata, I’d never lived by a schedule.

“Good, thank you,” I said, my voice wavering.

In the adjoining room, steam curled around water basins. I stared at my hair, pulling at some of the dirty strands. I might as well have never left the jungle.

By the time I had washed and returned to the room, the bed had been fixed and a brilliant green silk sari was spread across the sheets. There were heavy rings piled in a quartz bowl, a handful of bangles in another and dainty anklets fashioned with dangling nightingales in a third.

I wrapped the silk around me slowly, savoring its length across my body. I was almost too scared to move around in it, convinced it would tear. But it didn’t. My hands drifted across the heavy jewelry, but in the end I couldn’t wear anything. The hollow of my throat felt cold and empty in the absence of my mother’s necklace. None of this finery compared.

When I walked outside, Gupta flashed the bare bones of a smile before nodding and starting off down one of the halls. Despite Akaran’s coldness, the pallid corridors and mirror-paneled foyers sang to me. The same dining room from before had been laid out with a placemat set with rich foods, fruits and water. I drew my chair to the table, stealing glances out the window toward Akaran’s barren landscape. Loneliness in Akaran was worse than being stared at by the Raja’s harem. At least I knew who was doing the watching. Here, even the walls were leering, weighing and examining me.

“I trust you slept well,” said Gupta.

“Yes, thank you.” I glanced around the wide dining room. “Will you be joining me?”

He hesitated. Like yesterday, he didn’t meet my gaze.

“I suppose that will be agreeable.”

I stopped myself from joking. I don’t bite … often.

The moment Gupta sat down, he began to rub at the table, inspecting an invisible speck of dust.

“I hear Amar apologized on my behalf.” This time his voice was softer, hesitant.

I froze. He had referred to Amar by his first name. I’d never once heard a councilor or adviser—no matter how close he was—call my father by his first name. They’d sooner behead themselves. Gupta’s gaze was shy, perhaps curious about what I’d make of his familiarity. When I said nothing, he noticeably relaxed.

“He did, but there was no need,” I said. “I think it’s … refreshing, that you grew up away from the protocols of court speech and etiquette.”

Gupta itched his hawkish nose, his eyes widening. “You do?”

I smiled. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

Gupta grinned back and his nose spread impishly across his face. “I’m glad to hear that, Rani.”

I chewed my cheek. I didn’t want to be locked in by invisible rules of caste or rank. My father’s words echoed in my head: Immortality lay in emotions. If this was going to be my kingdom as much as Amar’s, I needed to prove it. And that meant knowing Gupta the way Amar did. Not as a councilor or an adviser, but as a friend.

“Call me Maya.”

Gupta’s hands clenched and he quickly looked away. I thought I saw tears glittering in his eyes, but instead of facing me, he rubbed at a spot on the table.

“I detest dirt. Did you know there are at least five thousand different kinds of tiny beasts in a unit of dirt? It’s appalling. You can’t clean it properly,” he said, crinkling his nose.

“How do you know that?” I asked, torn between disbelief and laughing.

“I am the scribe of this kingdom,” he said, drawing himself up. “I make it a point to know as much as I can. For instance, I once interviewed a snail that had slept for three years. I have also detailed the song of sunbears and translated the treaties of autumn trees. Absolutely critical things to know.”

“I see. Well, I hope … I hope we can be friends.”

He stared at his lap. “Once a friend, always a friend.”

A sound spidered through the floor. A laugh, a trill. The ghost of another’s voice. I spun around, expecting someone standing behind me, but there was no one. Nothing but empty space and gleaming walls.

“What was that?”

“Or who,” said Gupta casually.

“Who?”

“I’m not sure … it could be anyone. Or anything. It could be a wind angry with its lover and dreaming of revenge. It could be the voice of a nagini remembering her first kiss. Akaran’s strange position makes it a home for a thousand voices.”

I remembered Amar’s words from yesterday.

“Is it because Akaran lies in between the human and Otherworld?”

“Precisely,” said Gupta. “There’s all kinds of hidey-holes dotted about. There are places where you can jump and find yourself buried beneath the earth. There are pools of glass that you can swim through and find lost monsters with no names. In Akaran, things just are.”