The Star-Touched Queen (The Star-Touched Queen #1)(46)

A lump rose in my throat. I will never know those memories. The tree behind the chained door … it had so many memories. All of which, I was convinced, belonged to me. Nritti’s image flashed in my head, bright as a flame. I didn’t know her from this life, but I must have known her from before.

My father must have seen a look cross over my face because he stepped away from me. “You do not belong here, daughter. Go. Be who you will be. Do not waste your life mourning the dead.”

I nodded tightly, my throat thick with so many things left unsaid. “I will not forget you, Father.”

He smiled. “That pleases me. A memory is a fine legacy to leave behind.”

*

I stood before the tree filled with memories. My feet still bore the signs of the south wing. Gritty bits of ash clung to my ankles. Each time I blinked, I saw the sea of cells stretched out in front of me like waves.

My father’s words echoed in my thoughts. In death, he found what he could not in life—peace. Even then, my hands curled into fists. A single door, not a thousand miles, had separated me from my father. And Amar had known the whole time. He had gathered the souls of my countrymen, shepherded them to their next lives without once telling me what was happening outside my very door.

On the far side of the wall, the obsidian mirror glittered. It was still a blank expanse of black, but there was something else there … a warmth. Like it was awake.

Turning from it, I circled the tree trunk before climbing into the hulking branches, ignoring the snags of boughs that pulled at my hair as I reached higher and higher. When I reached the middle, I caught my breath and grabbed one of the candles. It trembled in my cupped palms and light spilled over my fingers, stealing my vision …

I saw Amar bent over the reincarnation pool, his knuckles gripping the water’s pebbled edges. There was something in his hand, an amethyst crown. I couldn’t tell what he saw in the pool, but whatever it was, it twisted his face in anguish. In fury. In another candle-flame, Amar was cradling a tree limb that held a single flame green as new jealousy. I couldn’t understand it. What was he doing? I reached for a final candle and something in my chest splintered—

When I opened my eyes, I was inside Bharata.

To the right were the familiar honeysuckle vines and the copse of trees. On the left was a statue covered in jasmine, where I had once hid Mother Dhina’s slippers. My smile faltered.

A sound in the vision caught my attention, and I turned to see three girls standing in front of a decorated tent. I frowned. I knew that tent. It was the snake singers’ tent from my tenth Age Day. The two girls had to be Jaya and Malika; therefore, the girl beside them had to be … me.

The vision changed.

Now I was inside the snake singers’ tent, standing before a basket of cobras. Amar stroked the inky creatures, patting their heads. His hands twitched at the defiant, tremulous sound of a voice in the distance. My stomach flipped at the memory—this was the moment I lost the argument against my half-sisters. Any minute now my younger self would be thrust inside the tent.

The vision spun and from the shadows of the tent, I saw myself lying facedown in the dirt. My half-sisters had upturned the baskets of snakes. I watched myself anticipate the cobra’s bite, my hands clenched and my eyes squeezed shut as the same snake that Amar had stroked slithered toward me … only to flick its tongue playfully around my ears. In the vision, I heard Amar sigh with relief.

And then the image faded, the halo surrounding the flame receding into a miniscule glow. I slumped against the tree. Amar had been there on the eve of my tenth Age Day. He had watched me from the sidelines the entire time.

He had protected me.

I reached for another candle, and this time when the vision took, I froze. I saw the profile of an unfamiliar woman. The vision broadened, revealing the glass garden. The woman bent over a shrub of crystal roses, her hair neatly obscuring her face as she slipped a ruby blossom into Amar’s palm.

There was a quiet love in the way the woman gave Amar the crystal rose; it was a promise and a declaration contained in scarlet fractals. My limbs felt leaden. Over and over, I watched the woman slip the ruby blossom into his waiting palm.

An ache gripped me. He had fooled me into thinking I was anything more than a slighted princess of Bharata. For a second, I wished I had swallowed the poison. At least then I could have felt a semblance of control over my own life. Instead, I was left with the sinking knowledge that nothing had fooled me more than myself. I had been so lonely before that I had mistaken our connection for something other than what it was: betrayal. But then … why had he protected me if he loved another?

I yanked my face away from the flame, gasping for air. Resting my forehead against the tree trunk, I breathed in the heady scent of fresh dirt and cloves. I was about to reach for another candle, when I heard a voice below me—

I spun around. There, in the length of obsidian mirror, the image of a girl flickered in and out. I knew her instantly. Nritti. Even in the reflection of the mirror, she was lovely. Her hair fell in black sheets around her, nothing like my own black hair, so erratic the waves looked more like snarls than curls. Her skin was incandescent, a soft shade of honey, the very opposite of my dusky complexion.

“It’s really you,” she breathed, wavering in the reflection.

She was only a flimsy version of herself, but she seemed trapped behind that portal, flung back behind an obsidian veil. Even now, her voice was intensely familiar and warm.