The Star-Touched Queen (The Star-Touched Queen #1)(49)

Soon, their voices faded into the distance.

I stepped out, my breath clammy in my lungs. Outside, a hundred mirrors loomed, each displaying a picture of night. Some of these nighttime scenes looked out over lush valleys sprinkled with snow. Others stretched out over huge tracts of sea, reflecting the skies in the water so that the stars seemed endless. At the end of the hall, the door to a new room was cracked open. A strange smell unraveled from the door, heavy with the stench of blood. I felt the hairs at the back of my neck rise. Slowly, I pushed open the door and glanced inside. What I saw nearly froze my heart.

It was filled with all the objects from my father’s palace.

Torn chain mail, scraps of silk, an ink-blotted scroll bearing my father’s sigil. Something sparkling caught my eye and I blinked rapidly, convinced my eyes were playing tricks on me. Even before I reached the object, I knew what it was—my mother’s blue sapphire necklace. The one I gave Gauri.

The invisible prospect of everything that could have—must have—gone wrong wrenched inside me as sharp as any dagger. I sank to the ground, refusing to touch the thing. Scuff marks framed the delicate strands of pearl, the dull pendant of sapphire. Someone had tried, and failed, to kick it out of sight.

Someone had not wanted me to see.

I pulled the sapphire necklace from its hiding place. Red and gray spots flecked the seed pearls. I traced the sapphire orb just as something crumbling and brown fell onto my fingertips. Dried blood. The whole necklace was soaked in blood.

A cold veil fell about me. Time leeched, memories heavy with Gauri’s bright smile spilling behind my eyes. My shoulders caved as I clutched the necklace. My lips formed around Gauri’s name, but I wouldn’t speak it aloud. I refused to say a name that pulsed with life while I held this bloody necklace in my hand.

I inhaled a shuddering breath. I understood now. Amar’s silence about Bharata, the fact that none of the mirror portals looked over my father’s kingdom. Everything was fitting together. Horror—bright and heavy—gripped me. My mind flashed with images dredged up from the depths of my nightmares—

Gauri holding the necklace.

Gauri screaming.

Gauri bleeding to death on the harem floor.

And I knew what I had to do. No matter what it cost me. Tonight, I would steal his noose and deliver it to Nritti. Tonight, I would bring him to his knees and make him pay for all that he had done.

Tonight, I would destroy him.

*

The whole evening, I paced across the floor. I tried not to look at the bed we shared, but it was impossible. The light kept catching on the gossamer veils, a reminder that some terrors were silk-cloaked and lovely as a dream. I knew Amar would come. I knew what I had to do. The problem was my own weak heart, lulled by his words, his touch, his presence.

For tonight, I had slipped into a black sari. I wore no bangles or anklets. My hair was brushed away from my face and a single pearl hung from a silver circlet around my forehead. I slid my hands along the silk and small stars flickered into life against the fabric.

The door creaked open and there he was.

“My star-touched queen,” he said. “I missed you.”

He walked toward me. In the candle-lit glow of our bedroom, every feature was more pronounced. The sweep of his shoulders, the short hair that curled at his neck. The glow of his skin, honey-drenched and russet. My beautiful nightmare.

I caught his hand in mine, my fingers trailing over the band of leather around his wrist. The noose. Against my skin, the noose was a cold pulse. There was a small knot at its base, lazily tied. He probably hadn’t expected it was in any danger.

“We lost an entire day together,” he said.

I loosened the silk around my waist and Amar raised an eyebrow. Around him, the shadows rippled silkily. I met his gaze and he stared at me, his breath shallow and waiting. The silk fell noiselessly to the floor.

“We still have the night.”

*

The moment he touched me, my universe constricted to the space between our lips. We were a snarl of limbs and bright-burning kisses. Amar held me to him, strong hands burning against my neck and waist. And even though vengeance thrummed in my skin, a part of me drowned in the feel of him. He murmured my name with each kiss until it no longer seemed to belong to me. It was a song, a prayer, a plea.

But when I pulled him to the bed, he paused. His breathing was ragged and when he looked at me his eyes were damp with desire.

“Wait, my queen,” he breathed. “I want you to know me first. I want you to know this place where you are empress.”

He rubbed his thumb along my jaw and the braceleted noose around his wrist glared. Disbelief coiled sharply in my throat. I already knew about this realm. I already knew who he was. But I almost forgot when he reached out to trace my lips.

“Any farther,” he started, his voice hoarse with want, “and I would not know how to stop.”

*

We spent the evening in each other’s arms. Amar plucked glass blossoms from the air and slid them one by one into a crown around my forehead. He conjured the lightest of snowfalls, each flake teasing out into gleaming feathers before melting into the silk. All through the night, he smiled daggers into my heart.

“I love you,” he murmured into my hair. “You are my night and stars, the fate I would fix myself to in any life.”

I had chosen vengeance and freedom. I would not back down for sweet words, no matter how much I wanted them to be true. No matter how I felt.