Star Daughter(98)

Yes. Yes, she was.

“And now, welcome our fifth and final champion, Sheetal Mistry of House Pushya,” proclaimed House Dhanishta’s Esteemed Patriarch. Jeet was still fuming, but his attendants finally said something to quiet him down.

“Come, Sheetal,” Charumati said, touching her forehead in blessing. “It is your turn to shine.”

Everything had a cost; it just depended on what you were willing to pay.

Her pulse sprinting at top speed, Sheetal sat down on the cushion behind her dilruba. She brushed her damp palms on her sari. Did full stars have this problem, or was she just lucky that way?

Until now, she hadn’t really accepted she was transforming. Somehow she’d still believed she could stay right where she was, precariously balanced between mortal and star.

What did it matter if someone asked you to choose between hands and wings when wings weren’t real? But now they were, and she had to deal with it.

“Minal,” she asked as casually as she could, “can you help me with this string?”

Minal, who’d never bothered with music since their earsplitting unit on the recorder in fifth grade, dropped down next to her. “What’s going on?”

“Tell Padmini to bring me my circlet,” Sheetal whispered. “When she comes to inspire me.”

“What?”

“Tell her to bring me the circlet.” Sheetal might not need the circlet for her scheme, but it would make a great symbol.

Minal nodded and left.

Her belly slackening in relief, Sheetal arranged the neck of her dilruba against her shoulder.

That simple contact sent the music flooding through her. It longed to live, to be expressed, to float from heart to heart.

She could have dissolved into it. She could, even now, just give in. But she didn’t; a few wisps of humanity remained within her, and she clung to them like a rope.

The court of stars watched her, expectant. Waiting for her to wow them; waiting for her to colossally wreck it all.

She shut her eyes, imagining being inspired. In her mind, music danced from her onto the strings, notes ringing out in a metallic glossolalia like a human’s voice.

Story. She was nothing but the words of a story, one tale weaving imperceptibly into the next. She was the loom that wove the tapestry. She was the tapestry that joined all things.

Her insides had been hollowed out, leaving only melody and harmony, scales and song. A remote part of her mind observed that the entire hall had hushed, all whispers silenced, but that observation had no meaning.

Sheetal let her fingers shimmy along the strings, cajoling the instrument to surrender its secrets. It was a love song, a paean to the dreams she had once sung in a backyard full of green grass and white daisies.

The music blazed inside her, demanding release. Now she understood why Nani and Charumati had chosen her as their champion, why they’d planned this moment for when she stood in the space between worlds. The stars gave voice to the sidereal melody, but only Sheetal could actually reach past that and create her own song.

This is what you were born for, star daughter, the starsong told her. Songcraft.

The song was right.

Giving this moment up was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever done.

“Stop!” Charumati cried.

Sheetal opened her eyes, her core alight, to see the court gawking at her mother. It was happening. She had just enough time to think, I’m going to be sick, before Padmini appeared before her, box in hand.

She could feel Minal, Dev, Padmini, and even Beena eyeing her with concern, and she shut them all out. It was the only way she’d be able to do this.

Before Padmini could ask what was going on, Sheetal wrested the box from her hands and prized out the starry circlet. Her mother and Nani were both running toward her, but they couldn’t reach her before she jammed the circlet onto her head.

And then, finally, finally, finally, she set her fire free.

Instantly her fingers stung as if brushed by invisible nettles. Ice stabbed through her, a knife of cold dousing her inner flame, before it flared again, filling her.

Then she relaxed backward into the song, into the cosmic dance that linked all beings, celestial and earthbound, through all time and space.

The room grew silver with starshine. Sheetal’s temples throbbed in time with her galloping heart.

She sank her teeth into her tongue, taking solace in the pain. First this flame, ignored and suppressed for so long, had burned Dad. Then she’d thought maybe she could use it to fix everyone else. But it had always been waiting to transform her.

A voice came from far off, high with alarm: “Sheetal, dikri, what did you do?”

She was warm, so very warm. Her brain pounded with heat. The song rushed in and around her, discordant, raucous. It hurt so much. But she stayed with it, studying the individual strands, teasing out their meaning.

“Oh, no,” someone else said. Minal.

Sheetal’s blood swirled, afire. Her skin burned so horribly, she wanted to scratch her face off just to stop the pain.

There was anger in the song, wrath and disdain and undisguised hatred. It felt like lava, guzzling everything in its path before it cooled to stone. Its flood of fury and malice nearly washed her away.

This was old, old anger, woven into the very fabric of the starry court, and Sheetal couldn’t blame anyone for feeling it. She’d never be able to undo what Dev’s ancestor had done.