The Library of Fates(27)

“You can do this. You have the heart of a warrior. A rebel,” Thala said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I cried, but I thought about Sikander’s words at dinner. He had told me that my mother came from a family of revolutionaries.

Then again, according to him, they were the kind that don’t fight. The kind that talk.

Not to mention that none of them had survived Sikander’s father’s attack on their home.

But maybe she had.

“My mother . . . is she still alive?”

“Yes.”

“You promise you can help me bring my father back?” There was a desperate need for assurance in my voice.

“I promise.”

I imagined a reunion between my parents, the three of us together, happy. A sob escaped my lips.

“Okay,” I said, and I stumbled through the dark tunnel.

I closed my eyes, feeling my way through the dusty shaft with my hands. I landed on something furry and fought the urge to scream as it disentangled itself from my fingers, squeaking as it ran the other direction.

My whole body was trembling with fear when I felt something hard and square before me.

“There’s . . . something here.”

“What is it?” Thala cried.

I felt the flat surface of it—a box. No. A lantern! I felt around with my hands until I found a sulfur stick. I struck it against the wall and lit the lantern. But the light only illuminated a sight that sickened me with fear.

We were facing a dead end, a wall of stones. And there was no room to turn.

“No, no, no!” I shook my head, sobbing.

I was dizzy with fright now. We would be stuck here, starve to death in a space that was just barely large enough to hold me, balled up and covered with dirt.

“There!” Thala cried, pointing to the ceiling. “Look up! We’re here.”

I craned my neck and squinted to see what she was pointing at. It took me a moment to make out what it was: a golden triangle hung from the ceiling. A handle of some sort.

I reached for it, and as I did, a chunk of dried dirt fell to the ground before me, revealing a small corner of gold attached to the handle. I looked closely, running my hand over the surface of it.

“It’s a design of some sort,” Thala said, moving her palms over the surface to remove caked mud from hundreds of years of flooding.

I watched as an engraved tableau revealed itself to us with every stroke of Thala’s hand.

Next to the handle were three rubies, arranged in a triangle, mimicking the pattern of the rubies on the dagger Mala had given me. But there was more: elaborate carvings that appeared to tell a story. A fortress-like structure. It looked like the Temple of Rain with its grand stairway and elaborate pavilions. A forest full of trees. Some of the trees had faces chiseled into their trunks. Their branches looked like limbs. They were . . . alive.

“It’s just like the parable,” I whispered. “The Parable of the Land of Trees, it’s depicted here . . . ,” I said in amazement.

I was sitting up on my calves now, removing the dirt with both hands, trying to make sense of the discovery at the end of what was the most difficult journey of my life.

“There’s more . . . ,” I said as I noticed engravings of people flying through the air. A hilltop, with the sun rising just beyond it.

As I removed more dirt, I realized that the golden surface wasn’t just a work of art.

“It’s a door!” Thala said. But I was too mesmerized by the story before me to respond to her.

I traced my hands over the carvings: two people standing before a series of caves. Behind them, a large procession.

“Who did this?” I whispered to Thala. “Someone carved this door, they built this temple. What was it?”

But Thala wasn’t listening to me. She reached up and pushed the door open.

My eyes stung as they adjusted to the light. It was day. The sun was shining. After being in that dark, cramped space for so long, the very idea of light stunned me, made my eyes tear as though they were witnessing sunlight for the first time.

Thala reached for the lip of the doorway, hoisting her body up, crawling into a world that I realized terrified me perhaps even more than burrowing my way through a dark tunnel. And yet, I also knew I had to come out. All of it, all the sacrifices made on my behalf, crawling through that terrifying passage, it was for this: to come out the other end.

Thala reached her long, slender arms back down for me, and I noticed the tattoo on her shoulder again. It was an image of a tree, its branches and roots coiling around her collarbone. “Don’t worry, it’ll be all right,” she said, as though she were speaking to a skittish animal.

I reached for her hands, and she lifted me up into a small and empty alleyway. My breathing was heavy, ragged, my lungs screaming for air. But we had made it. We were free.





Twelve



I PRESSED MY FACE to the cold cobblestone beneath me, crying so hard that my entire body shook.

My thoughts were fragmented. Broken sentences sparked like fireflies from the recesses of my mind, barely registering before they flickered out again. All I could feel was pain.

Thala placed a gentle hand on my shaking back, but I barely took any notice of her.

I wished I had died right there in the palace with my father and Mala and probably Arjun too. I should have died, I told myself. I had survived all the people I loved. Worse than that, they had all perished trying to protect me, trying to help me.