The Library of Fates(47)

“You troublemakers!” he cried in Shalingarsh. “You can’t run forever!”

“Watch yourself!” a woman snapped when I accidentally stepped on her foot. The rush of bodies and the heat was making me panic. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think straight.

“Stay with me,” Thala yelled.

But Nico’s rage competed with Thala’s desperation. “They’re criminals!” he cried. “Pickpockets! Thieves! Don’t let them escape!”

His voice was a bellow, echoing around us, bouncing against the walls of the temple, and even if it wasn’t true, I could see his words registering within people’s hearts from the way they looked at us.

I noticed it in the eyes of everyone we passed: terror, anger, rage. And it was directed at us. My legs shook with nervousness. We had seconds to get out of here, before someone blocked us or grabbed us, but how? In the distance, I could make out the doorway to the temple, but the crowds were so dense that getting out of here quickly wasn’t an option.

“We’ll never be able to just walk out of here,” Thala said. “Look at these crowds.” She gestured to them. “Any minute now, we’ve got an angry mob on our hands, and they don’t even know why they’re angry, or whom exactly they’re angry at . . . and what happens when they get to you and rip your scarf off your face and see that—”

She lowered her voice. “She looks exactly like you. Or you look like her—you are her. That’s why Meena sent us here. She wanted you to know who you are.”

Her words rang through me, echoing deep within me. I was trying to piece it together through my panic, but it was all a nonsensical blur.

“There’s no time for this,” I told Thala before I grabbed her hand, trying once again to squeeze through the throngs of bodies before me, to no avail.

She shook her head. “No. That’s not going to work,” she said.

“What can we do?” I asked her.

Her eyes lit up, and breathlessly, she exclaimed, “They’re your devotees. They’ll want to help you.” She was slowly making sense of something in her head, a small smile across her lips, but I wasn’t sure what.

Thala ripped the scarf away from my face, causing me to gasp.

“She’s the Goddess,” Thala yelled. “She requires your aid in exchange for her blessings!”

I looked at Thala, dumbfounded, as thousands of heads turned toward her voice, toward us, and audible cries filled the air around us. All of a sudden, people in the temple were dropping to their knees, and soon, a path to the exit was carved for us. For a moment, everything went still.

As Thala and I began to walk, devotees touched my feet. I tried to hide the look of astonishment on my face.

Thala pointed to Nico and his henchmen. They were the only ones who had remained standing, stunned still for the moment by what had come to pass. “Don’t let them through!” she implored the crowd. “They are trying to harm our beloved Goddess!”

Concerned murmurs traveled through the crowd, and a mob descended upon Nico and his men.

“Don’t look back,” Thala said to me as we swooped through the exit to the temple, cool air against my exposed cheeks. Instinctively, I pulled my scarf up with my free hand as I continued to hold on to Thala. I was speechless, shaken by what we had just experienced.

I thought about the little boy on the hill calling me “Devi.” Goddess. I thought of my father taking annual pilgrimages to the temple, while keeping me safe within the palace. I thought about Meena Amba insisting that we stop at Mount Moutza. I thought about how Varun had looked at me when I removed my scarf from my face. Even Arjun, telling me about visiting a temple on top of a hill before he became quiet. My entire body went cold. They all knew.

And yet an overwhelming sense of disbelief descended upon me. I had gone to the temple seeking help for myself entirely because I felt helpless. And if I was some sort of incarnation of Maya the Diviner, wouldn’t I feel it? Wouldn’t I have known it somewhere along the way? Instead, I simply felt lost and afraid. It had to be some sort of mistake, a misunderstanding.

Thala had powers. She could see the future, even the past. But what powers did I have? I was a mere mortal. I had royal blood, but on the run, with no home and no throne to return to, what did that even amount to? What could I possibly do to help my subjects, to save them from Sikander?

We rushed around the back of the temple, an empty stretch of the rocky cliffside overlooking the city.

Before I could catch my breath, I felt the cold slap of metal on my wrist. I shuddered.

“Got you.” It was a Macedon tongue. His voice was gruff and gleeful. He ripped my scarf away from my face and squinted at me. I was standing eye to eye with a large, burly man. He had thick eyebrows, a full beard, and a cruel mouth.

I tried to scream, but he covered my mouth with his filthy palm before he turned to a group of men behind him and yelled, “We have the royal runaway in our custody.”

“It’s her, isn’t it? Spiro, come here and take a look.”

A young soldier with a wiry frame and hair that was so pale it was nearly white approached. He stood facing me, his visage expressionless.

“It’s her,” he quietly said.

“The master will be pleased,” the first man said. “He sent many infantry units out looking for you. And we’ve found the oracle too! Today must be our lucky day!” he said.