The Star-Touched Queen (The Star-Touched Queen #1)(60)

“Are you just saying yes?”

“… Yes.”

Kamala snorted and laughed.

“What’s the real answer? And tell me the truth this time, don’t forget our deal.” I placed my arm against her muzzle, sliding it across her nose like it was a piece of salted corn. Drool, at least I hope it was drool, fell with a thick splash on the ground. Kamala stared at my arm hungrily.

“Maybe. It all depends. That is how things are. Perhaps my first answer was the truth. Anytime between an eon and a blink.”

I rolled my eyes. “Then I suppose that will have to do. But the moment he’s here, you need to tell me and we’ll go.”

Kamala nodded begrudgingly. I kept my head low as we pushed through the crowd.

“Act like you’re chanting a prayer,” hissed Kamala in my ear.

“Like what?”

“Mutter something,” said Kamala. “Do you know how many sadhus I’ve listened to? Let alone eaten? If you don’t start muttering something, they will turn on you. And I don’t want to eat them. They look like they’d taste horrible.”

“I—”

“A list or something.”

“Uh,” I stammered, trying to draw out the sound into the beginning of a chant. The people of Bharata were beginning to frown at me. Some had even stopped hurling shouts at the gates to watch me fail.

“Skies … fingers … teeth…”

Kamala nodded approvingly.

“Can they hear you?” I hissed.

“No, not at all. Continue talking to me. That will definitely make you seem crazy. Very convincing for a holy person.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite,” said Kamala. “You are like me. Half a thing. Mildly insane. A little of the Otherworld.”

“How comforting,” I muttered, continuing with my ridiculous list as we shouldered through people. I held my hand open, smiling and grinning when fat coins were dropped into my palms. But it didn’t feel right to take them. Especially when the people who were giving the most seemed to have the least to give.

So I gave the coins back.

And that’s when things started getting strange.

“The sadhvi has returned our offerings!”

“She is a saint!”

“It is a sign that the world has forsaken us!”

Kamala was laughing again.

“The horse is also holy! Make way! Make way!”

“The first holy sadhu among us is here!”

“We are not forsaken. Make way!”

“Hear what she prophesies!”

The crowd around us parted. People’s hands were outstretched, running their fingers through my hair, across my collarbones, along my arms. They tried to touch Kamala, but she took it less kindly and snapped her teeth.

“You’re a holy horse now,” I chastised. “None of that.”

Kamala growled at me. “Don’t forget that I get to take a bite of your arm when all of this is through.”

We stopped short of the iron gates of Bharata. My father had never closed them. From what I remembered, they were just symbolic and never meant to keep anyone out. In the distance, I could see Skanda sitting on a pavilion wreathed in lotus blossoms and flanked with serving girls. He was, as I had guessed, fat. And in his golden jacket, he indeed looked like a toad.

“Ah, I remember him,” muttered Kamala.

“He’s my half-brother.”

“Nasty, nasty.”

“I know.”

“Would you like me to eat him?”

“Definitely not,” I said, a little too quickly. I patted Kamala’s neck. “But I appreciate your offer. It was almost nice.”

“It is nice to be nice,” said Kamala with a sage nod. “And it is also nice to eat people,” she added as an afterthought.

The crowd of people pushed forward. The iron gates were beginning to open.

“A king would never deny a holy person that has come to his doorstep,” said Kamala.

My skin was damp with terror as I allowed the crowd to buffet me to the front. A man pulled me from the swarm, his eyes so bright they looked like gems.

“You must beg the Raja’s audience. He has sent so many of our sons into that war. He has claimed so many of our daughters and not returned them. And now he has forsaken our war hero.”

Another woman ran forward, pressing my hands to her cheeks. “Sadhvi, please. Please help. The Ujijain emperor will not let any of them go. He is calling them all prisoners of war and the Raja Skanda will not ask for their release.”

The Ujijain emperor … could that mean Vikram? I remembered his mother walking through the Otherworld. She had died the same day, still carrying a bundle of wilted flowers. It meant that Amar had chosen to pull out the red thread. It meant that many of my people would die, but that the kingdom would be saved. Peace would come.

I couldn’t look the villagers in the eye. Another person tugged on my arm. I looked down to see a boy with a gap-toothed grin. “Tell him to send Gauri-Ma. She will win him back.”

I stopped walking. “What name did you say?”

“Gauri-Ma,” said the boy again, this time staring at me as though I were a fool.

The man who had first approached me nodded fervently. “Everyone knows her. The princess with the dimpled smile and the deadly aim.”