The Star-Touched Queen (The Star-Touched Queen #1)(71)

Nritti flexed her arms, examining the length of her tawny skin and polished hair. She hummed a trill and the things that had once flitted like innocent living haloes around her head took their real form—shrieking cormorants and blood-slicked beetles. Things meant to harm, to scissor, to pinch.

“Much better,” she said. She turned to the hounds. “Drag the rest down to the Otherworld. I want to look my best for my wedding.”

Wedding? My hands went cold.

Nritti snapped her fingers. “Summon him.”

The hounds nodded. They bayed as one, heads thrown back and throats bared to the night, howls cleaving the sky with thunderclaps and a violent wind.

The forest shadows crept forward like spilled ink and my pulse quickened. And then, in the clearing … there he was. Amar. His crown of blackbuck horns was gleaming, his arms clasped behind his back. In his hands swung a noose.

I dropped wordlessly from Kamala’s mouth, scuffed knees thudding softly in the dirt. I sat there, my legs curled beneath me, heedless of the bugs tracking their way across my thighs or the incessant nudging of Kamala’s nose against my back, trying to shove me into standing. I couldn’t move. Half-remembered memories transfixed me to the spot. I saw him through fractals, veil after veil of memory that was once mine.

The woman I was then and the person I was now may have shared a soul, but everything else between us was a mystery. I knew she had spent her life in the Otherworld. I knew she had ruled Naraka. I didn’t know whether she was a good ruler or a foolish one, but I knew that everything she saw of Amar fitted neatly in my heart, warm as a fire kernel and fierce with belonging, with rightness.

The only thing I didn’t know was why she—I—had left. I remembered the betrayal, but not the reason. I remembered the fury, but not the fire.

The longer I stared at Amar, the more images flashed behind my eyes—him gathering me in his arms, our eyes drunk on the sight of each other. The silk of skin against skin, the hum of a connection tethered at our marrow, hinging on breath patterns, voice inflection, intangibles of love. I tasted his lips against mine—fervent, firm—smoke and cinnamon and the panic of not catching yourself right before you fall.

Nritti strolled toward him, flashing her glamour of stolen beauty. Lightning splintered across the sky, throwing his face in relief, highlighting the sharp line of his lips and his narrowed eyes. Nritti tilted her head up expectantly, lips pursed and tugged into a shadow of a smile. She stared at him like he was a toy possessed, something that did her bidding.

And it seemed, for an instant, that she was right. My heart stopped.

Amar leaned over mechanically, lips pressing against hers in a kiss that was cold, unfeeling, but … a kiss all the same. Nritti smiled smugly and patted his cheek. I hardly heard what words she uttered. I had drawn my knees to my chest. Kamala had stopped nudging me.

“Come, come,” said Nritti to Amar, as if she were speaking to a child. She threw one last lovely glance at the children standing immovable and paralyzed behind her. “I thought they would be good witnesses.”

Amar’s brow quirked into a frown. “But why?” He surveyed them indifferently, his gaze occasionally flitting to the hellhounds at his side who looked at him with unconditional love. “Their time has not come. They have no place in my halls—”

“Our halls,” said Nritti. Around her there was only a haze of glamour and lust. “Don’t you remember when I found you? You were broken. And wasn’t I the one to save you? I pledged myself to you, so we could change the Otherworld forever … isn’t that what you want? Aren’t I what you want?”

Watching them was like slamming my arm repeatedly through a door of thorns, trying to get to the other side. Amar’s hand flew to his temple, his face crumpling with a sudden headache. Nritti watched impassively, a small wisp of light forming in her palm that she raised to her lips and blew … like a kiss.

The light sank into Amar’s skin and he drew his hand away, a dazed and remote expression slipping over his face.

“The pain doesn’t stop, does it?” asked Nritti. “It’s because you can’t rule over the dead by yourself. You need me. And what better way than to pair us together? What better way to relieve you of this tension than to will your power to me?”

Nritti stroked the noose in her hand as if it were a pet. Amar nodded, but the movement was wrong. Limp. His face was ashen. I wanted to rush to him, but I saw now that everything he had said in those last moments in Naraka were true. He was lost, and in need of saving. But I couldn’t subdue Nritti the way I was. Whatever latent power had once curled at my fingertips was gone.

“Come, come, my pet,” said Nritti, patting her leg like she was calling a dog to her.

Amar didn’t even notice; his gaze was far off, his arms like phantom limbs at his sides. The children clambered to her, gathering hold of anything they could—the ends of her hair, her dress, her fingers. She smiled thinly at all of them, shaking off their hands like they burned her and calling the hounds to howl once more at the sky.

“Take us back,” she commanded.

Lightning flashed once more through the sky. The noose glimmered in Nritti’s clenched hand, shining like an eel. Beside her, Amar was a specter of himself. Neither of them was looking at the other. Amar’s gaze was downcast, fixed on the sky. Nritti’s gaze was on the children. She was looking at them with a rapt desire.