The Star-Touched Queen (The Star-Touched Queen #1)(8)

“The moment you could climb, you were always in the sanctum’s rafters,” he said in one breath. My head snapped up. There was no accusation in his voice, only something wistful … and warm. I glanced into his face, but nothing but pain and age marked his features.

“How—”

“It is difficult not to notice tutors fleeing the archival room every week,” he said with the ghost of a smile. “But I never stopped you because I wanted you to know. I wanted you to see how fraught ruling is.” He stopped and his chest heaved, shoulders dropping a fraction. “Perhaps I hoped that by letting you see, you might forgive what I must take from you.”

I stared at him. This was the longest time we had spent in each other’s company. Until now, I only officially saw my father once a year on my annual Age Day. There were times when he had even left me gifts. Not that I was alone in this regard. My half-sisters also received small presents—clusters of gems or fashionable silks. But my presents had always been different. Fragrant sheaves of poetry or treaties of Vedic law. Valuable. I had entertained the hope that he wished to spare me from the stifling fate of my wedded half-sisters, but in the end I was no different.

He rose to his feet and placed a hand on my shoulder. It felt leaden against my skin.

“Even a favored daughter is still just a daughter.”

I suppressed a flinch. The warmth of his voice had disappeared, replaced with the cool monotone I knew far better.

“You have always possessed the intellect of a boy, Mayavati,” he said. “Should you have the good fortune of a different sex in your next life, you might prove to be a fine ruler.”

A semicircle of the scarlet palace guards fanned out around the Raja and, without another word, he left. Despite the evening’s warmth, I shivered. His words clung to me. Each sentence was its own barb from which there was no escape.

For the second time today, I found myself in a place without realizing how I got there. I stepped into the harem and a flurry of sounds swelled around me.

“What did the Raja want with you?”

I masked a groan. All my guilt for the young guardsman vanished. Loose tongue. Maybe I should have scared him more.

My half-sister Parvati stepped forward, and her jade green eyes flashed with all the latent menace of someone too beautiful and too bored.

“Are you going to be a royal devadasi?” she asked. “No one thought you’d marry, anyway.”

I choked back a laugh. I would have far preferred to become a devadasi and live my life dedicated to the temple rather than fade into obscurity.

“Is it true that the Raja has denounced you?” asked one of the wives.

I turned to face the wife who had spoken. She was new, or at least I had not seen her before. A pair of buckteeth peeked out beneath thin lips. I doubted my father had wed her for her beauty or out of romantic interest. I wondered if the wife was like me, a bride of political convenience. She stared back at me, first curious and then embarrassed.

“I am to marry,” I said to the room.

Shrieks erupted throughout the harem.

“Who?” asked Jaya. “A monster to match your horoscope?”

“Are you sure the Raja was not lying to spare your feelings?” pressed another.

I raised my chin, determined to shove past them all until a small voice caught my attention. Gauri ran to me, brown curls flying as she threw her arms around my legs. I curved around her, burying my face in her sweet-smelling hair and gripping her shoulders tightly, as though they were the only things anchoring me to the spot.

“Are you leaving me?” she asked.

I knelt beside her, searching her face, memorizing the rosiness of her cheeks and her dimpled smile. There was no way I could lie to her. I wanted to tell her that I had no choice and that she would have to find another person to tell her stories and spin her nightmares back into dreams. But before I could wrangle out an explanation, one of the wives rushed past me, pushing me backward.

I looked up to see Mother Dhina and instinctively clutched Gauri closer.

“Don’t poison this girl with your bad fortune,” she hissed, pulling Gauri away.

Gauri protested but Mother Dhina’s grip was relentless. I rose from the floor slowly. I wanted stillness, poise. I wouldn’t show Gauri hysteria or rage. Mother Dhina’s gaze met mine.

Around me, the line of women converged like a warped mirror. Here was my future—a cage fit for breeding bitterness and spite. I stumbled backward, edging along the walls as if I could avoid that fate through sheer force of will. The voices of the wives and my half-sisters billowed around me, but I couldn’t separate their words. They seemed to speak as one.

“Wherever you go, you’ll only bring death with you. Take your pestilence elsewhere,” spat Mother Dhina.

The marble beneath me was cold and dry, but my feet slipped as if I stood in water. A ringing sound filled my ears and I sprinted out of the halls. Rage vibrated from my heels to my head as I swung open my bedroom door and sank to the floor.

Where my room once glowed rosy in the sunset, now the glint of the walls shone scarlet and flame-like, poised to swallow me. Bharata wanted to be rid of me, just as much as I wanted to be rid of it. But not like this. Not like some parcel of land bartered between countries. That wasn’t freedom.

I thought of Gauri’s face when I had knelt beside her. I thought about the words that I would have said—I had no choice but to leave. Maybe only half of that was true. I did have to leave, but the manner in which I left could be a choice that was entirely my own. I stared out the window, watching the infinite sky stretch before me. If they didn’t give me a choice, then I would make my own.