The Library of Fates(46)

“When they built this temple, none of that existed,” I pointed out. “It was probably all plains and meadows and forest.”

My heart sank at my own words as I thought about everything that had changed in a couple of days for me. And yet, a wisp of hope was growing within me. Returning from the worst experience of one’s life was possible: Thala had taught me that.

“We’ll go in, say a prayer. Then we’ll get two horses and head to the Janaka Caves,” I told Thala.

Thala nodded, but she looked uncertain.

“What is it?” I asked.

She shook her head. “They say human plans are opportunities for entertainment for the immortals.”

“Are you trying to tell me something?” I asked.

Thala hesitated. “Maybe we shouldn’t go in.”

“What do you mean? Meena said we should stop here, and Varun . . .”

“It could be dangerous.”

“It’s a temple,” I said. “It’s probably the only place where we are safe in all of Shalingar.”

She nodded her head slowly, but I could tell that she sensed something was not quite right. And yet, I felt propelled toward the temple in a way I couldn’t even understand.

“I think I have to go inside,” I said to her.

She nodded. “I think you do too. But I’m also afraid.”

“Of what?”

She shook her head. “Something dangerous. Something I can’t quite see,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s like that occasionally—I told you I can’t see everything.”

“I know,” I told her. “But we’ll have to take the chance.”

¤

Heat radiated from the walls as though the rocks themselves were nursing a burning fever. Swarms of people were packed like fish caught in a net, except they weren’t trapped. They wanted to be here.

They had come from so many different walks of life: the young and the old, monks and scholars, locals, some foreigners that I could recognize from their strange and unique clothes. There were wanderers, carrying their belongings on their backs. The sick and the injured with bandages on their limbs. Newlyweds at the beginning of their journey together, asking for blessings. All of them swirling toward a golden statue that I could barely glimpse because all I could see was the mash of packed bodies before me.

I reached for Thala’s hand to make sure we stayed close and didn’t lose each other, but also because the claustrophobia was making me nervous. Beads of sweat were forming on my upper lip, and I wanted to rip my scarf away, but I knew I couldn’t. The very idea of anyone recognizing me terrified me, and yet I was struggling to breathe.

I squinted at the gold statue, her feet strewn with garlands made of marigolds and jasmine. People clamoring to touch her feet, catch a glimpse of her.

“That must be her—Maya the Diviner,” I whispered to Thala, but I still couldn’t see her.

I felt an urgency to touch the statue, to stand before it and make my plea, beg her to give us her blessings for our journey. I wondered if she could quell all the anxiety and fear swimming through the murky waters of my mind.

As I contemplated this, I realized that I, myself, had changed in some way. I had somehow become the kind of person who sought blessings and hope from a statue, who believed in magic. And I wasn’t ashamed of this.

If so many of my father’s own subjects believed that Maya the Diviner could help them, could save them, if even my father had made this journey so many times over the course of his life, who was I to turn my nose up at it?

Finally, we were close, almost before her. I squeezed my way through shoulders and elbows, and finally the crowds parted and there she was. I glanced at her gilded feet, the fabric draped over her auric legs. Her exposed shoulders, shimmering in the light, and in her hand, a dagger with three rubies on its side—exactly like the one Mala had given me.

I looked up at her face, and my heart stopped.

The face I was looking into was my own.





Twenty-Two



“THERE! THERE THEY ARE! Get them, now!” My head snapped back as though it were on a string. I wasn’t the only one. All around me, people halted their prayers and their pleas, pieces of parchment hovering midair between their fingers as they turned to look at him.

Nico was mere paces away from us, his men flanking him. My eyes met his as I realized we were the only ones in the entire temple whose faces were covered with scarves. I hadn’t thought that our attempt at hiding, at disguising ourselves, would be the very thing that gave us away.

My mind went blank, but my reflexes were quick. I grabbed Thala’s arm and tugged her through the crowds, pushing past a wall of bodies, terror lunging at my heart, ripping violently at my nerves. I couldn’t bear to look back.

“We need to get out of here!”

Thala’s reflexes were quick too. She dodged away from Nico’s henchmen, but Nico’s hands grabbed for me. I ducked, squeezing myself between two monks, dragging Thala along with me.

“Oh no, not this again!” Thala cried. We pushed through the bustle and jolt of bodies, a mess of arms and legs all around us, elbows digging into my flesh, sweaty palms on my back. Dozens of curious eyes turned to look at us. We were inadvertently starting a commotion, advancing in the wrong direction, pushing against the crowds instead of moving with them, and Nico’s leering voice was drawing attention to us.