The Library of Fates(58)

Thala closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were the color of sand. “Whether Sikander comes here or not, he won’t be able to harm the Sybillines.”

“There are at least a few hundred souls living here. Where are they supposed to hide? This is the last hidden place on the Earth.”

“On the Earth, yes.”

I shook my head at her cryptic response, and my mind returned to Arjun. My heart was filled with a desperate ache for him. “Do you know if I’ll ever see Arjun again?”

Thala closed her eyes, then opened them. This time, they were the color of the lagoon at the base of the caves. “I think . . . you will.” She looked confused for a moment before she turned to me. “It’s harder and harder for me to see anything now. But he’s right. It’ll never be the same between you again.”

Tears slipped from my eyes as I thought of him.

But there was something else on Thala’s mind. “I don’t feel safe here.”

“But you said Sikander wouldn’t—” The realization struck me as I said the words. “Chamak,” I remembered in frustration, burying my face in my hands.

“I don’t think we should stay here very long.”

I shook my head. “We won’t.” But I was overwhelmed with the thought of where exactly we would go next.

“Amrita?”

I turned to her.

“I know you feel like it’s all lost right now . . .”

“It is all lost, Thala.” I sighed. “Arjun is Sikander’s satrap. My kingdom is a colony of Macedon. My father and Mala are dead. My people have been enslaved. And I’ve brought you into a place where you’re surrounded by the very thing that could kill you. That almost did kill you, and I didn’t even think of that till now. What’s wrong with me?”

Thala shook her head. She was calm in the face of my panic, my outrage. “We won’t stay here long” was all she said.

“And where will we go?”

“I don’t know.”

I felt helpless, lost.

“Listen to me, Amrita. Before a few days ago, you didn’t even know of the Library, you didn’t know about the Keeper. You didn’t know you were Maya. You didn’t know you could crawl through a tunnel or be lifted on a sandstorm or outsmart Sikander’s men.” She looked right at me with a conviction that surprised me. “But now you do. There are answers to all our questions,” she said. “Just because you haven’t found them and I can’t see them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

I didn’t say anything more. Slowly, I removed my shoes before I undressed and stepped into the bathtub. I lingered there silently for at least an hour, still startled by all the revelations that had alighted upon me since our arrival here.

As the water cooled, my eyelids grew heavy. I reached for a linen towel on the side of the tub and stepped out, wiping myself dry.

Within minutes, I was in bed, wrapped in a warm blanket. My mind was blank. I didn’t know where we would go next, how the Sybillines could help me, or even if they would. I was grasping for answers, for absolutes, trying to hold on to anything that made sense. But nothing did. The Library, maybe it really is the only way, I thought before I fell into the deepest slumber of my life.





Twenty-Eight



THE AFTERNOON SUN FELL into the cave in thick, honeyed sheets that warmed my arms and legs. I opened my eyes slowly, absorbing the light like a plant desperate for the sun’s rays. I must have slept through the night and into the morning.

I sat up, noticing a stack of clothing at the foot of my bed. I reached for it. A white linen tunic and a pale blue salvar. Someone had lit the heating stove by my bed, and I watched the blue flames flicker and pop as I pulled the soft fabrics over my skin. Slowly, I ventured outside, my feet bare on the toasted rock.

From the ledge outside my cave, I scanned the bowl beneath me. Saaras was feeding with a flock of other birds. Thala was already up, dipping her feet in the blue lagoon by the falls, chatting with Tamas, who was sailing a miniature boat on the flat surface of the water. I noted the change in Thala’s body language. She was relaxed, laughing. I felt a mixture of emotions: relief that she was with someone, and glad that she felt at ease, but I was also jealous of her in that moment, envious that she could feel light when I felt as though I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders.

I sat down, hanging my legs off the thick ledge. My eyes followed the whirl of the rock, and I wondered how far up it went.

Did it reach the heavens? Was there even a heaven? If there was, was that where my father and Mala were right now? Or were they at some way station? A place where they regrouped, waiting to be reborn?

What force in the world had made my father my father, and Mala mine too? What had brought them into my life instead of someone else’s? What set of miracles, what magic delivered the people we loved to us? And what set of fates took them away?

Was it all connected to the Library of All Things?

I glanced at the mural of my own face. I felt as though it was mocking me. All I had in common with Maya was that we looked alike. She was magnificent, fearless, passionate. She inspired such hope in people, even hundreds of years after her existence.

But I was a girl on the run, terrified, guilty that I had managed to survive while almost everyone I knew had perished. And even those who did survive were suffering far worse than I was. Arjun’s life was ruined. Shree and Bandaka were suffering too, along with all my father’s subjects. And now I had brought Thala to a place that was dangerous for her.