Star Daughter(62)

And always, always did the brilliant stars burn bold in the deepest night.

When at last the ring of hands released hers, she found herself resting by the window in her palace bedroom.

It was still nighttime, and the stars still turned slowly above, just as Nani had mentioned on their tour of the palace. But Sheetal felt wrong. This wasn’t her body, this frail, fleshly creature. She was a giant thing jammed into a tiny cage.

Already the impression of the—what? Event? Ritual? Whatever the word, already she’d lost it, the memory shrinking, flattening to fit into the borders of her mortal mind. Already her throat had gone raw with thirst, and her sweat-encrusted body cried out for a shower and a change of clothes. She needed to sleep.

She didn’t want to do any of that. She wanted to expand back out, to be that enormous celestial aspect made only of light and song that spun in eternity without judgment or human emotion—or split ends.

Sheetal raked through her shimmering tangles with clumsy hands. Whoever heard of a star with bad hair days? She’d just trimmed the ends herself, and here they were scissoring apart again.

What if you went full star? a voice in her head suggested, small and shrill compared to the song of the sky. You could look like Charumati.

She recoiled. It wasn’t about the hair. It was about the steadiness, the sense of concord on that cosmic level. Up there, they were all part of the slow and sensuous dance.

Up there, everything made sense.

Rati’s face appeared in her mind, and Sheetal knew she would never say yes to her offer, not if it meant leaving all this behind.

But she wasn’t giving up being human, either. She would find a way to have it all.

Her hands tingled, and she let them grow warm without fear.





20


The stained glass windows in Sheetal’s grandparents’ sitting room were a wash of constellations and moonlight lotuses in a palette of peacock blue, silver, and black. Their light splashed onto carved ebony furniture, a fine writing desk, and pewter shelves lined with scrolls and blue-and-silver blossoms. It should have been a welcoming place, especially after the dining hall last night.

Not this morning, though. Sheetal, her neck stiff and aching from sleeping awkwardly on the windowsill, did her best to appear even halfway alert. Somehow, after a quick bath that did nothing for her knotted muscles, followed by the usual dressing routine Padmini had refused to cut short, she’d lugged herself here. That had to count as a miracle, right?

For Dad, she thought. Nothing else could have gotten her out the door.

Her head throbbed horribly, her skin sparked with acutely offended nerve endings, and her whole body felt wrung dry, as if she hadn’t just gulped down two large glasses of blue mango juice. Her lungs, which she’d expanded until they hurt during yesterday’s rehearsal, complained with each breath. Listening to Charumati and Nani argue about instruments while Nani’s advisors tried to get a word in, too, drove freshly sharpened spikes through her skull. Kids at school talked about post-party hangovers; if her stomach weren’t growling for food, she would’ve called this one.

Servers finally brought in a spread of dishes, and Sheetal homed in on the buttery sweetness of the warm sheero placed before her. Fat and sugar and the rich flavor of cardamom—eating the ghee-drenched semolina felt like collapsing into a hug.

But the sheero turned bitter almost as soon as it melted on her tongue. She only had one full day of training and rehearsal left. One—and she felt like she’d been run over by a whole fleet of trucks. How was she supposed to do this?

And with the court laughing at her the entire time.

She was done being laid bare, a specimen sliced open and prodded with pins on an examination table. She definitely didn’t need Nani or anyone else reading her feelings and judging her. Or possibly catching her debating with herself whether to bail on the competition.

Nana smiled and folded her hand over a warm piece of puran poli. “You look tired, dikri. How are you feeling?”

Looking into his gentle face, she figured it was worth a shot. “Nana, there’s got to be some way for me to hide my thoughts so I’m not broadcasting them to the whole court. Will you teach me?”

“Veiling yourself from the astral melody is a vital skill,” he said. “Eat for your strength, and then we will commence.”

Sheetal wolfed down both that piece of sweet stuffed flatbread and the second one Nana offered her. Then, following his directions, she closed her eyes and felt the sidereal melody, a sea of silver notes that went on and on and on. Her emotions were minute threads in its boundless tapestry, all different shades from pewter to frost, and she could pull on each one, directing it in or out of the song as she wanted.

The argument between her mother and grandmother faded, and so did the advisors’ persistent attempts to change the subject.

“It is simply a matter of weaving and unweaving,” Nana encouraged her.

Sheetal located the thread of her bad mood and plucked it from the starsong. A simple tug, and it drifted away into the background. Around her, the starry melody livened subtly. She was just as irritated as before, and her head still felt like someone had dropped an anvil on it, but at least now, if she’d done it right, none of that showed.

Nana considered her. She waited, worrying a tooth with her tongue. Had it worked?

He smiled. “Well done. I sense only hope.”