The Star-Touched Queen (The Star-Touched Queen #1)(25)

Gupta grinned. “Amar is terrible at flattery.”

I smiled, but I couldn’t help but wonder who had been the last person he had attempted to flatter. The thought bothered me.

“I was never wooed by courtly speech anyway.”

As Gupta closed the door behind him I heard a soft laugh by my side.

“Is that so?”

Amar.

I turned to face him, my gaze tracing the emerald robes that matched my sari perfectly. Like yesterday, he wore a hood that left only the lower half of his face in view. I looked at him, and even if it was only a moment, he eclipsed the staggering pull of the tapestry.

“I’m not swayed by flattery,” I said. “I think a woman could feel insulted by a compliment. But I suppose that depends on the delivery.”

“I think it depends on the sincerity. If you tell a woman she sings beautifully when she knows the sound of her voice might as well drop a slab of stone on the person next to her, then a compliment would be insulting.”

I crossed my arms. “She could think you’re blinded by love.”

“Or deafened.”

“You seem quite learned in the art of giving compliments,” I countered. “Do you give them often?”

“No. Gupta was telling the truth. I’ve forgotten how to pay courtly compliments,” said Amar. “For instance, etiquette demands I tell you that you look lovely and compliment your demure. But that wouldn’t be the truth.”

Heat rose to my cheeks and I narrowed my eyes. “What, then, would be the truth?”

“The truth,” said Amar, taking a step closer to me, “is that you look neither lovely nor demure. You look like edges and thunderstorms. And I would not have you any other way.”

My breath gathered in a tight knot and I looked away, only to catch sight of the tapestry. The threads throbbed behind my eyes, sharp as any headache. My vision blurred, swallowing the room around me. I blinked rapidly, squinting at the threads.

All I could see were that all the threads were out of place. Some had either skipped a stitch or poked out altogether. I walked toward the tapestry in a daze, my hands outstretched.

I could feel the tapestry’s pull, sharp as hunger, dry as thirst. Nothing would sate or slake me. All I wanted was to adjust the threads, tuck them back into place. There was an order, a pattern, like a stitching trick. I could feel it like a word balancing on the tip of my tongue and all I had to do was—

Amar’s hand closed around my wrist. He moved before me, blocking the tapestry.

“Stop!”

I blinked, my head woolly. His hands were around my shoulders, drawing me to a wobbly stand.

“Did I fall?”

“That sounds ungraceful,” he said, a smile playing at his lips. He was trying to joke with me, to ward off whatever happened as though it were nothing. But his hands were tight at my shoulders and there was the slightest tremble in his fingers.

“A graceful tumble, then?” I suggested, stepping out of the circle of his arms.

I didn’t need any help keeping myself upright.

“I should’ve explained the tapestry before showing it to you. It can be overwhelming.”

Amar led me to the throne and I sank into it wearily. There was a new ache tethered inside my bones. In the haze, the pressure of Amar’s hand against my arm was warm, comforting even. I closed my eyes, concentrating on the warm pulse in his fingers.

When I finally felt strong enough to speak, I opened my eyes to find Amar’s face mere inches from mine. I could count the immaculate stitching of his emerald hood, the stubble along his chin and the veins raised along his hand. His eyes, as always, lay hidden. But he was so close that if I wanted, and I did, I might be able to peek—

Amar jerked backward, his jaw tightening. “The tapestry is how we keep the borders between the Otherworld and human realms safe.”

He walked to the tapestry and ran his hands over the flickering threads. “Each of these threads is a person.”

“The threads represent people?” I repeated, sure I had misheard him. “And the entire tapestry…?”

“It’s what keeps everything in order.”

“Everything?” My brows drew together. “As in—”

“As in the movements of fate.”

“Fate is in the purview of the stars,” I quipped, not without some bitterness. I had been fed that line my whole life. It was hard to forget my blind jailers in the sky, shackling me to a fate I didn’t even believe. Not that it changed anyone else’s mind.

“Fate and order are entirely different. And one cannot rely on stars for order. Some of the threads represent the people who have fallen accidentally into the Otherworld,” said Amar, pointing at a darkened section near the corner. “Our task is deciding which people should be allowed in, and which ones shouldn’t.”

“Why not just keep everyone out?”

“Some people are bound to fall into the Otherworld. Their fate is fixed. All we can do is move between its fixed rules and change what we can to maintain a balance. Let me show you,” he said. I rose to my feet, masking a sigh of relief that my legs wouldn’t give out from under me.

“Touch the thread.”





10

THE BOY WITH TWO THREADS

The thick silver thread resonated warmly against my fingers. I felt a tug inside my body. The next time I opened my eyes, a forest filled with tall pines vaulted above us, their shadows crisscrossing the earth in black nets. Sweet, smoky resin filled my lungs. In the distance, the fading sun silhouetted the leaves a bloody red. My heart sank. The sight of trees usually filled me with happiness. But these trees were different. Their tragedy was tangible.