26
Manas turns rigid when he sees Deven and me approach him outside my chamber door.
“I thought you were off duty,” I say.
“I thought you were in the chapel,” Manas rejoins.
“Soldier,” Deven warns, “may I remind you that this is the viraji?”
Manas faces his commander. “No, sir. Do you need to be reminded?”
A vein in Deven’s forehead bulges. “You’re excused from your post until further notice.”
Manas recoils with a hurt expression. He must be confused by his captain’s behavior. I rise to his aid. “Captain, he is only concerned—”
“Viraji,” Manas says sharply, and then he bows and marches away.
“Good gods, he’s mad,” I say, watching him turn the corner. Deven and I go inside my chamber, my head pulsing with every footstep.
“That imperial guard uniform has gone to his head.” Deven sighs at his own aggravation. “Manas is tired. I’ve been overworking him.”
“Do you think he knows we left the palace?”
“I doubt it, but we have to be more careful. Manas owes everything to the rajah. He will not stay silent if he believes we have wronged him.” Deven helps me lie down on my bed and rearranges the pillows behind me. The linens smell of sunshine and lavender. “This arrangement is for the best. Manas can get the rest he needs, and I will reassign Yatin to guard Natesa in the courtesans’ wing. While they are gone, I will look for the book.”
My gaze swings to him. “You’re going to look for the Zhaleh?”
He takes off his turban and lies down facing me. “Once I find it, we can negotiate for Hastin to help you leave the city.”
Leave Vanhi? That would mean no battle match, no wedding, no risk of the Voider being released . . . I stop before my hopes rise too high. “How will you do in two days what Hastin hasn’t done in nineteen years?”
“I have greater motivation than Hastin.” Deven takes my hand in his. “I want to be with you, Kali. Ever since I saw you eavesdropping in the temple, I’ve wanted you for myself.”
His deep voice eases through me like a sweet ache. This is everything I have wanted to hear. “But earlier tonight, you said—”
“I was trying to do what I thought was best. Everything has changed now. You are”—I cringe inwardly, waiting for him to say a demon, evil, a dirty bhuta—“remarkable. I will never meet anyone like you.”
“You don’t mind that I’m a Burner?”
Deven looks down at my hand, inspecting every line and curve of my palm. The low lamplight brushes the side of his face, warming it with a golden shadow. “I have known Brac is a bhuta all my life. I thought I was saving him pain by not acknowledging who he is, but when he needed me most, I turned my back on him. I won’t make the same mistake with you.” He lifts my hand to his cheek. “You would be a fine rani, but you have another choice. I want to leave together. We can go back up the Alpanas and hide. We can make our own fates.”
A tepid breeze carries in from the balcony, ushering with it the hushed rustle of palm fronds. I lean in closer to him. “Of course, Jaya would come too,” he adds.
My smile blooms. He knows that I would not go without Jaya, but there are others to think of. “What about your mother and the rest of the courtesans?”
Deven kisses my fingertips, and my heartbeat quickens. “The bhutas will free them once we find the book. By then, we will be on our way.” He presses his lips to a tender spot on my palm, and my mind turns fuzzy. “I will build us a modest cottage with a prayer alcove. Outside, we will have a meditation pond—”
“And a garden for Jaya to grow flowers.”
Deven smiles and kisses my pulse hammering at my wrist. “We will have fields and fields of greenery for our sheep, and a watering hole to swim in. I will build a fire every night for you to sketch by, and we will decorate the walls with your art. When we go out at night, we will look for the Samiya beacon in the distance.”
He has drawn a better image with his words than I could sketch. I can see Jaya trimming her flowers and Deven watching over our sheep. I can imagine warm meals by the fire and the Alpanas standing guard over us, keeping everyone else out and our peace in. I am tempted to escape into the life he has built, a promise of happiness waiting for us to jump into. I could leave here and never look back, but I do not know that Deven could.
I brush my fingers through his soft hair. “You would give up being a soldier? It’s your fate.”
“It is one fate. Being a guard for the empire is an honorable destiny, but more honorable would be to share my life with you. During the Razing, I almost lost you . . .” His voice clogs. “I cannot . . . I cannot let you go.”
I turn over his bandaged hand, still healing where I burned him. Holding on to me has already caused him injury. Would it be right to let him leave his family, his career, his identity as a soldier?
My hands wander to his face and stroke his jaw. “I don’t know, Deven. If the gods brought us here, shouldn’t we obey?” I fear his answer, but I cannot make him any promises until I know without a doubt that this is what he feels is right. Healer Baka used to say that there is no higher peace of mind than doing what the gods would have us do. I have never been certain enough of what the gods want to let that stand in my way, but Deven has. I will not rob him of that surety.
He rests the length of his body against mine and pulls me to him. “Obedience may be the greatest virtue, but the gods do not expect us to sacrifice what makes us happy, and nothing makes me happier than you.”
I rest my forehead against his.
“Leave this place with me, Kali.” His whispered offer lights up the deepest trenches of my soul. This is what I have wanted, for Deven to take me by the hand and lead me into the labyrinth of his heart. We could have our dream of peace and family. But this hope is too precious, too vivid to look at straight on.
“I . . .”
I want this. Need this. Cannot have this.
Deven cups my chin and lifts my gaze to his. “Will you come with me?”
Staring into his unguarded eyes, I stand with my tiptoes hanging over the brilliant abyss and let myself fall. “Yes.”
Deven touches his lips to mine and draws me deeper into his arms. He kisses me slowly and then urgently. He kisses me with his hands on me and my hands on him. He kisses me until my lips and heart ache for dawn to never come.
Despite my pleading, the sun makes its daily debut, in a rust-streaked sky. Daybreak’s first rays brighten my chamber to a dusky hue. I cuddle into Deven’s side and glide my hand up his jaw.
“Don’t leave,” I whisper.
He kisses my palm. “I have to search for the Zhaleh.”
“I wish I could stay with you instead of going to the tournament.”
“I’m sorry I won’t be there.” He smooths back my hair. “But you have to go. You have to play the role of the viraji, Kali. The rajah has to believe you’re his champion.”
I would rather be myself, but I can only be that person with Deven. He stands, leaving coldness on his side of my bed. I sit up to kiss him. “When will I see you?”
“Soon,” he promises against my lips. He pulls on his jacket and goes to the door. He sends me a smile that lays a blanket of contentment over me, and then he leaves.
I settle into my bed on a thick exhalation. I feel different, and not only from spending the night in Deven’s arms. My bones do not ache, and my head is clear. I reach over my shoulder and feel for abrasions, but they are gone as well. I close my eyes, and a single star burns, a guiding light in a black velvet sky. I finally feel how I had hoped I would every time Healer Baka persuaded me to try a new treatment—healthy, whole, and strong. If my first day of being a full-fledged bhuta is any indication of what is to come, this may not be as terrible as I thought.
Asha comes in with my breakfast tray. I stretch out on the other side of the bed to give the appearance that I slept there. “Good morning, Viraji.” Asha sets the tray on the table and pauses to look at me.
“Yes?” I ask.
She frowns to herself. “You have a glow about you.”
“I had a good dream,” I reply, smiling.
“Hmm,” Asha says as she busies herself tidying the chamber.
I get up and pull on my robe. A flicker of movement draws my gaze to the balcony. Brac’s face fills with a broad grin. Asha tugs down my bedspread, her back to the wide balcony, and I sneak over to Brac. I shove him behind the same drapery Deven and I hid inside, and I follow behind.
Brac’s eyes sparkle. “Been here before?”
My face warms. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for your lesson.”
“It will have to wait,” I whisper. “I must leave for the tournament soon.”
He stays close enough to almost touch. His skin smells of soap, and his copper hair is slightly damp, darkened to burnt amber. “I will be brief. We can practice on your servant.”
“No! You aren’t using Asha.”
“I won’t hurt her. I used to practice on Deven all the time.”
I squint at him. “He let you do that?”
Brac shrugs one shoulder. “Didn’t think to ask. You have to learn to use your powers. You cannot let them go to waste.” He slips out of the drapery before I can stop him and creeps up behind Asha. I observe from behind the curtain, afraid to move and draw her attention. Brac places his hands on both of her arms. Half a breath later, she falls forward onto the bed.
“You dolt! What did you do?” I hurry over to Asha, who is slumped on her side.
“I parched her, like I did to the courtesan in the carriage.” Brac bends over her. By all appearances, she is asleep. “See? Still breathing. Parching doesn’t hurt, and so long as she doesn’t see me, she won’t remember. She will stir soon, and then you can try.”
“I won’t—”
Asha’s eyelashes flutter. Brac puts his hands on her again, and she collapses, facedown.
“There. She will be out a little longer.” He repositions Asha’s head so that she can breathe. “When she starts to wake, put your hands on her skin. Every mortal has a fire within, the essence of who we are. Feel for that soul-fire and draw it out.”
“I have no idea what you just said!”
“Feel for mine.” He places my hand in his. “Do you sense the heat? Some say soul-fire is a buzz or a tickle.”
I concentrate on the warmth rising off him, and my skin tingles. “I think so.”
Asha groans. Brac moves my hand to her arm. “Go on. Pull her soul-fire in.”
I reach for Asha’s inner fire and locate a well of buzzing warmth. Wrapping my mind around it, I draw it in, and an intense glow fills my mind’s eye.
The light is too big, too immense. Unable to hold my inner fire back, I push it at her.
Brac yanks my hand off Asha, and dizziness washes over me. He catches me from reeling. “You pushed instead of pulled. Good thing I was here, or you would have scorched her.” He checks Asha’s breathing. “She’s all right.”
I lean against the bedpost and wait out the white dots zipping around my vision. “Scorched her?”
“What I did to your coachman,” Brac replies with a grim, set look.
“Oh,” I say. He means Jeevan. I would be angry, but Brac and I were enemies then. I look at Asha, picturing her as a pile of dust, and what he said strikes me harder. “I nearly killed her?”
“I wouldn’t have let you. I know that it’s challenging to contain your fire, but this is a skill you must master. A good Burner never reveals his powers. He will—”
“He?”
“She will parch her opponent, weakening them by drawing out their soul-fire, and then she will end the battle without anyone knowing what she did.”
Devious, but also ingenious. I can weaken my opponents and finish them in a way that no one could trace back the victory to my powers. But there is a flaw. “What if my opponent is armed? How do I get close enough to touch their skin?”
“That’s up to you. I’m only here to teach you Burner skills.” Brac runs a hand through his damp hair, preoccupied with his duty. “There’s more. You can burn low if you aren’t careful. Fire takes fuel, and so do we. Eating helps you restock your powers. Regardless, you could use more meals.” He pinches my skinny arm. I tug away from him and his quick grin. “You can also burn too high if you take in a lot of inner fire from others. To get rid of the excess soul-fire, you need to expel it in waves. You know how heat ripples off fire? You cannot see it, but when you get too close, it singes. That’s a heatwave. We will need somewhere safer to practice that . . . somewhere with less cloth. And people.” Brac looks down at Asha and starts to lift her veil. “I wonder if she’s pretty under there.”
I smack away his hand. “Help me with her.” We lift Asha to lie more comfortably on my bed and stand back. “She looks peaceful.”
“She’s going to wake with a horrible headache.”
I look at Brac sidelong. For all of his lightheartedness, it must have been painful to leave his family and join the bhutas. “Who taught you to use your powers?”
“No one. Burners are the rarest bhutas and the most destructive, so naturally the rajah sought to annihilate us first. My mother knew what I was and hid it. Everyone thought I was feverish, but when I got older, Hastin found me. He was looking for bhutas in hiding and recognized my symptoms. He helped me raze. After that, I read about the fundamentals of Burner abilities in Kishan’s private journals. The rest was trial and error.”
Noise travels up from the courtyard, where people gather for the procession to the amphitheater. Brac peeks out the balcony. “Don’t you have to be somewhere?”
I groan. He knows full well that I have to get to the tournament. “No wonder Deven didn’t miss you.”
“He didn’t?” Brac slants his eyebrows together, affronted.
“He did, but he blamed himself for your death, so give him time.”
Brac starts to the balcony. “Where is my elder brother now?”
“Looking for the book.”
“The Zhaleh?” Brac stops midstride and leans heavily against the wall. “That’s a different Deven than I know.”
“Will you help him?” I do not add that more is at stake than my bargain with Hastin. Deven can decide whether or not to tell his brother about our plan to leave Vanhi.
“You’re more likely to milk a scorpion than find the book. I have looked for it everywhere.”
“Please keep trying. And, Brac?” I tuck my robe tighter around me. “Jaya has been listening in on Gautam’s conversations with Tarek. She may have learned where to find the book.”
He shakes his head. “You should not have included your friend, but since she’s already involved, we will pay her a visit. You should practice parching today.”
“At the tournament?”
“The key is stealth. If you can parch someone there without others noticing, you can parch anywhere.”
After what I did to Asha, I am hesitant to use my newfound talents, but if Deven cannot find the Zhaleh, I will have a greater chance of winning my battle match with my powers. Still, I am afraid to test my Burner abilities and risk revealing them or, worse, accidentally scorching someone to cinders. I glance at Asha’s motionless form and pray harder that Deven succeeds.