“Is it safe?” I asked him, my voice shaking a little.
“Yes.” Bao sounded subdued. I released the twilight, the daylit world returning in a rush. “Best your highnesses do not look, though. It isn’t pleasant.”
“Is he dead?” Ravindra asked fiercely.
“Oh, yes.” Bao nodded. “This time, I am very certain, young highness.”
“Oh, gods!” My lady Amrita’s lovely voice was hoarse from her near-garroting, and there were tears in it. “We were supposed to be safe here! How did he find this room?” Tears spilled from her eyes, streaking her face. “I cannot believe any of my people would betray us willingly!”
“Mama-ji, don’t cry!” Ravindra whispered, stroking her arm.
“I don’t think they did, highness.” Bao’s tone was as gentle as I’d ever heard it. “Not willingly, anyway.”
She met his sympathetic gaze. “That’s worse, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “That one’s name was Zoka. If he has another, I never heard it. He was a bad man, highness, one of the worst. He liked to hurt people. I am afraid he may have hurt one of yours.”
“Ah, no!” The sorrow in Amrita’s voice made my heart ache.
To everyone’s sorrow, Bao was right.
Hasan Dar’s guards found Zoka’s victim in a linen storeroom in the servants’ quarters. She was one of the Rani’s trusted attendants, a sweet girl named Sameera who took pride in her hair-dressing skills and often sang as she worked. She couldn’t have been much more than sixteen years old.
She was dead, garroted, the flesh of her slender throat swollen around the ligature mark.
And young Sameera had been tortured before she died. On her left hand, only her thumb and forefinger remained. The other three were bloody stumps with ragged bits of bone protruding from the fresh wounds. Three delicate severed fingers lay scattered on the floor of the storeroom.
Although Hasan Dar begged Amrita not to look, she insisted on it. She looked for a long, long time.
“Poor child,” she murmured, stooping to touch the girl’s maimed hand. “You tried to protect me, didn’t you? You held out as long as you could.” Raising the girl’s hand to her lips, she kissed it. “Surely, you will be reborn a warrior, my little brave heart.”
I wiped tears from my eyes.
Everyone was silent.
In the silence, the Rani Amrita stood. Twice in recent days, she had been frightened, badly frightened. Twice, she had nearly been killed.
Now she was angry.
I would not have thought my lovely, laughing lady Amrita could be terrible in her anger; but she was. There was a vein of dignity and quiet strength that ran deep beneath her kindness and charm, and this deed had tapped it.
“Enough!” Her voice rang, and her dark eyes flashed. “This is unacceptable. I will not remain a prisoner in my own palace, starting at shadows. I will not allow my people to be tortured and killed for their loyalty. No more fear, no more suffering. Enough. I do not care if we have not found the perfect plan. We are going to Kurugiri. I am going to Kurugiri. Once and for all, we will put an end to this!”
Ravindra swallowed hard, but he did not protest.
No one did.
I glanced at Bao, leaning on his staff. He nodded at me, promising whatever aid was required.
I glanced at Ravindra, thinking how I had flung the twilight around him.
I thought about Jagrati and Kamadeva’s diamond, and how I had been able to sense them in the twilight.
I thought about how Amrita had placed herself between me and Jagrati in the meadow, her hands raised in a warding mudra, holding the Spider Queen herself at bay.
“My lady Amrita,” I said softly. “I think I know how to take Kamadeva’s diamond out of play.”
Filled with fierce determination, Amrita turned her lustrous gaze on me. “Tell me.”
I did.
SIXTY-EIGHT
No one loved the plan, and our young chess-master Ravindra liked it least of all.
“It’s very dangerous, Mama-ji!” he said in an unwontedly frightened tone. “What if Moirin…..” He made a helpless gesture. “Falls victim again?”
“I won’t,” I murmured. “Not this way.”
“She won’t,” Amrita said with conviction. “Not with Bao-ji at her side, not with me there. I will not allow it.”
Bao met my gaze. “If we’re to survive the maze, it will require your magic after all, Moirin—even before we reach Kurugiri. There’s no other way. We’ll have to kill in stealth, you and I.”
“I know,” I said steadily. “And there is no honor in it. But I do believe that the stakes are high enough that the Maghuin Dhonn Herself will forgive me.”
Ravindra’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure?”
“No, young highness,” I said honestly to him. “Very little in life is certain. But I am quite sure that if we navigate the maze, I can find Jagrati and encompass her in the twilight, rendering her and Kamadeva’s diamond invisible for a time.”
“A time,” he echoed.
“A time is long enough for us to secure the fortress,” Hasan Dar said in a pragmatic voice. “That is all we need. Once it is done, there will be too many of us for her to contend with.”
“Once we have gained entrance to the fortress, she will make her stand in a smaller place.” Bao pointed at the drawing of Kurugiri’s layout. “Here in the throne room is my guess. We will not be able to fit more than a score of men in there.”
“How many can she control at once?” Hasan Dar inquired. “Can she force them to turn on their fellows?”
“I don’t know,” Bao admitted. “Only that the compulsion to do her bidding is powerful, but it can be overridden.”
“How?”
“Love.” Bao glanced at me, eyes crinkling in a smile of rare sweetness. “It is a force strong enough that it allowed me to walk away from her. It allowed the Rani to protect Moirin. Kamadeva’s diamond commands a powerful desire, but there is no love in Jagrati, only rage and hatred. So. I suggest you meditate on those you love, commander, and advise your men to do the same, whether it be their wives and sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, priests and mentors, or their love for and loyalty to the Rani Amrita herself. Love, and love alone, is the force that will allow you to resist.”
It was not a speech anyone would have expected Bao to make, me included. Hasan Dar inclined his head in surprised respect. “I will do that, Bao-ji.”
“Good.” Bao returned his attention to the map. “If I may make one more suggestion, I would advise dividing your men into two companies. Jagrati will have Lord Khaga and every last man standing guarding her.” He tapped the map. “The harem will be unguarded.”
The commander followed his thoughts. “So if everything else goes wrong, we can still rescue those poor unfortunates.”
Bao nodded. “Jagrati allows Lord Khaga his harem as a sop to his pride, a place he can go to prove his manhood when she denies him to dally with his assassins. Whatever else happens, we should plan to free the harem.”
“How many are there?”
“Counting the children?” Bao frowned in thought. “Twenty-five or thirty, perhaps. I do not know for sure. I was only allowed there once to search for Moirin.”
“There are children in that place?” Amrita asked in horror.
“Yes, highness.” Bao was silent a moment. “I do not think they were treated cruelly, at least not as children. The Falconer finds them distasteful, and avoids them. Even a woman bearing a child is repulsive to him.” His mouth tightened. “I heard it said that in the harem, it was every woman’s goal to conceive a son.”
“Why?” I asked, perplexed.
He looked askance at me. “If a woman bears him a son, the Falconer would not return to her bed. And she would not have to worry about a daughter growing up and being forced to share his.”
My stomach churned. “And you said it wasn’t terrible there?”
“I was in a very dark place within myself, Moirin,” Bao said quietly. “The hatred that Jagrati carries within her, it is like a sickness. I am still learning to live in brightness again.”
“It is not your fault, Bao-ji!” Ravindra said with indignant loyalty, his narrow hands forming a mudra of reassurance. “The gods always test the strongest heroes, the ones they love best in the world. Surely you passed!”
Bao smiled at him with genuine affection. “You are quite the hero yourself, young highness, rushing to protect your mother as you did! It would have gone far worse for me if you hadn’t.”
“Truly?” Ravindra flushed with pleasure.
“Truly.”
Thus for better or worse, our plan was established. It would take some days to assemble a sufficient force and arrange for supplies and other necessities, such as a battering ram that would have to be carried through the winding maze on foot.
In the meantime, we lived in fear.
Hasan Dar insisted that the Rani and her son continue to sleep in the hidden room. It made sense, for although the assassin Zoka had tortured the secret out of poor Sameera, he had taken it to his death.
Still, I could not blame either of them for being reluctant to return there.
“Would it help if Moirin and I stayed with you?” Bao offered. “I am sure it is against protocol, but…..”
My lady Amrita fingered her bruised throat. “Yes,” she said gratefully. “It would help very much, thank you.”
I didn’t think there was room in the small space for another bed. “We can put a pallet of blankets on the floor between you.”
“Even better!” Ravindra clapped his hands together with glee. “Bao-ji can share my bed, and Moirin can share yours, Mama-ji. It will be as though we were a large family, like your family in Galanka, eh?” The notion delighted him. “Yes, I will pretend Bao is my older brother, and you will pretend Moirin is your little sister.”
“I don’t think—” I began diplomatically.
“Would that make you happy, jewel of my heart?” Amrita asked her son. He nodded. She summoned a weary smile. “Then if Moirin and Bao do not mind, we shall do so, and have a game of pretending.”
Bao made a show of weighing the matter. “Do you snore, young highness?” he asked in a serious tone. “Because I cannot abide snoring. Do you steal the blankets at night? Because I do not like to be cold.”
Giggling, Ravindra shook his head. “No, older brother! I promise, I do not do either thing.”
Amrita touched my hand. “Do you mind?”
I smiled at her. “What do you think, my lady?”
She gave me a sidelong glance, a hint of her familiar, amused sparkle returning to her eyes. “I think I am very glad to see my son happy in the midst of this nightmare. I think your bad boy has a very large heart.” She caught my hand and squeezed it fondly. “And I think you do not mind at all, little sister.”
Of course I didn’t.
Even so, my nerves were strung tight that evening as Bao and I ascended the narrow stairway to the hidden room to ensure it was safe, both of us wrapped in the twilight. The memory of the assassin Zoka’s attack was fresh in my mind. Bao searched every corner, peered under the beds, over the balcony, his staff at the ready. Not until he nodded at me did I kindle the lamps and release the twilight, the bright-burning wicks turning from cool silver to flickering gold.
Safe; we were safe.
This time it was true.
It was a little bit funny, a little bit awkward, and altogether sweet as we turned our backs on one another to change into sleeping attire. The beds creaked as we climbed into them, a comforting, homely sound.
I was careful not to touch my lady Amrita, not wanting to presume on her affection.
“Oh, don’t be foolish, Moirin,” she chided me, laying her head on my shoulder. “All of us need all the comfort we can find. I am glad you are here.”
Relieved, I held her. “So am I.”
Her dark eyes glimmered at me, and she put her lips close to my ear. “Listen to our boys.”
Ravindra was telling Bao a tale about one of his favorite Bhodistani heroes, the great archer and warrior Arjuna, who was reluctant to do battle because of the many deaths it would cause. “But Lord Krishna convinced him it was his duty to protect his people,” he said in a solemn tone. “I think that is why my mother has decided she must go to Kurugiri. Do you think you could convince her to let me come, Bao-ji? You said I was a great help today.”
“So you were, little brother,” Bao said soothingly. “But you have a different responsibility. You must remain here with your tutor to remind us all what we are fighting for.”
Ravindra sighed. “Because I am too young?”
“You are very brave, but you are not a warrior yet.” Bao tickled him. “For example, warriors do not giggle.”
It was a boy’s laughter, helpless and unfettered, reminding me once more to be grateful that even in the midst of fear and darkness, love and laughter could survive. Amrita smiled quietly in the dim moonlight spilling from the balcony, her thoughts echoing mine. “I think your Bao is good for my Ravindra,” she murmured. “My son is such a serious boy. It is good to hear him laugh, especially during such a dreadful time.”
“I think your Ravindra is good for my Bao,” I said softly in reply. “He is helping him learn to live in brightness again.”
Amrita shivered against me. “I pray to all the gods that we are given the chance to do so,” she said in a low voice.