15
KALINDA
The Claiming chamber is locked from the corridor, so I enter an adjoined room around the corner and close the door behind me. The cold, gray inspection chamber that is used for the first stage of the Claiming ritual is empty.
Circling the hollow area lit by wall lamps, I feel gooseflesh spread up my arms. Here in this very spot, the other recipients and I stood nude before Healer Baka for evaluation of our physical health, a practice to determine whether we were fit to be shown to the benefactor.
An inner door leads to the next chamber. Near it, on a table, is a pot of henna. The sisters used the henna to draw the mark of Enki down our spines. The single wave represented that we were in submission to the most fearsome benefactor who had ever visited our temple.
I am tempted to throw the pot and shatter the memory of Tarek’s arrival, but I pick it up and cradle it close. I once carried the mark of the kindred, dyed in henna on the backs of my hands. The number one was a symbol to all that I was the rajah’s first wife. Tarek may have avowed that I will only be remembered in association with him, but I earned my rank and nobility despite him.
And it all began in the next room.
On a whispered prayer for courage, I open the door to the Claiming chamber. The lamplit cave of a room is smaller than I recall but just as chilly. A mosaic of blue, white, yellow, and red swirls across the tile walls. A muslin veil hangs from ceiling to floor. In front of the veil, the red line on the ground is the same, chipped and worn. I set my toes on the painted mark. I stood here blindfolded while Tarek slunk out from behind the veil and first imposed his touch on me.
All at once, I am blind again. I crumple to the floor and hug the henna pot close. Gods alive, how many girls were claimed here? How many shook in terror and shed tears? The gods had a hand in my Claiming, but how many others can say the same?
Sobs wrench out of me. I cry for Jaya, Natesa, myself, and every other ward whose future was stolen in this chamber. For how long I weep, I do not know. But my inner winter emanates into the tile floor, muddying where my misery ends and the poison begins. Finally, spent, I lie in the dimness, too heartsick and frozen to leave this tomb of innocence.
Footfalls echo through the open door, compelling me to push myself up.
Ashwin fills the doorway. He takes in my swollen eyes and red nose. “Pons told me you were here.” He enters the Claiming chamber and turns his attention to the room itself. He runs a fingertip across the colorful wall that is too cheerful for the terrible ritual held here. At the veil, he reaches for the cloth but withdraws before touching it. “I’m sorry I disagreed with you in front of the priestess. My deepest apologies for giving you the impression that I would retain the Claiming. But I wish you had discussed your motives with me before announcing your intentions. I would have approached the priestess with you, Kalinda. We could have told her we wish to do away with the Claiming as a united front.” His levelheaded explanation negates my anger, for Ashwin is not the true source of my umbrage.
“I didn’t think you’d understand.”
He stares at the chipped red line on the floor. “I’d like to try.”
I, too, want him to understand why he can never repeat his father’s actions. “Tarek claimed me here.” Devoid of tears, I am plain in my recounting. “I was blindfolded and naked. He . . . he touched me.” Ashwin’s gaze sharpens to daggers, and I amend. “My hair, mostly. The rite took only a minute, but it was the longest of my life.”
“A minute is too long to be humiliated and terrified.” Ashwin crosses the room and sits beside me, one knee against his chest. “The wards are safe. With the war, no benefactors will come to claim them.” He leans his shoulder into mine. His touch is daylight in this miserable place. “I’ll change whatever you wish about the temples. I depend on your judgment, especially now . . .” His voice collapses to a whisper. “I’m afraid my decision to unleash Udug will be our ruin.”
I grip his knee. “You had to do it.”
“I still brought this war upon us. Because of me, we may have no future. I need you . . .” He shakes his head and starts over. “I beg of you to trust me.”
“I didn’t mean to exclude you. I trust you. I do.”
Ashwin toys with the gold cuff on my wrist, his gold cuff. He curls his fingers around my arm, and his thumb grazes my pulse. His caress smolders into me, lessening the constant cold, and I sink into his body. His mouth steadily lowers to mine and he says, “You came into my life like a star, the answer to all my wishes.”
He rubs his lips lightly over my own. Heat sparks between us. I lift my chin, yearning for more. He clutches at my waist, and delicious warmth sears into me. My mind goes fuzzy, like I am stretching out in a pool of sunlight.
This feels so right.
No, more than right. Necessary.
I drag him closer. Ashwin inclines me back, lowering me to the floor, and presses his body against mine. I splay my hands across his shoulders, and a vision overwhelms me.
Ashwin and I live in the Turquoise Palace. We sleep in late and stay up into the night. We take our meals in his private atrium and rule our people from twin thrones. I bear him an heir, a son, a Burner who will someday rule the empire justly and with compassion for his people, an example set by his father. Ashwin loves his son as much as he loves me. He defers to me in all things and honors me before his court of wives and courtesans.
I am his singular favorite, his kindred and only love.
The strong image is irrefutable. But it is not mine. The palace looks different than I remember. A fine duplicate but missing details that authenticate the vision. The vivid picture transitions.
Ashwin and I are entangled in the sheets of an enormous bed. He wants more heirs. He wants me.
“Marry me,” he whispers against my lips.
His hand slides up the back of my tunic. Before I can stop the vision from returning, we are in a bed once more in my mind’s eye. Ashwin’s hand creeps higher, tugging up my tunic, both in the Claiming chamber and in the palace. I want him to stop, but I am locked in two realities.
No.
I’m not in the palace, and this is not my dream. My dreams always include Jaya and Deven.
Always.
He kisses across my cheek, down my neck. “Marry me, Kalinda. Be my kindred. Fulfill my heart’s wish.” He nibbles at my throat. I push him away and leave my hands against his chest to prevent him from coming closer. His complexion is flushed and his lips damp. His hooded eyes still project the dream that played inside my head.
“What did you say?”
“Be my wife.”
“No, the part about your heart’s wish.”
“You fulfill the wish of my heart.” He leans in for a kiss.
I hold him back. My insides rattle apart. I twist from him, resting my forehead against the cool tile floor. “Oh, gods. I should have seen it before. Your heart’s wish. I’m your heart’s wish.”
“Kali—”
I shove at him. “Get off me. Don’t ever touch me again.”
“I—I don’t understand. What did I do?”
I adjust my tunic and rise on quaking knees. The wall patterns whirl around me. “You wished for me. When you unleashed Udug, you imagined me with you.”
“I imagined ruling in the palace. You know that.” Ashwin climbs to his knees, his hair disheveled from my hands stroking through the dark strands. My hunger for his warmth implores me to return to his arms, fasten my lips to his, and never ask another question.
“Did your heart’s wish include me ruling beside you?”
Ashwin’s eyes gleam his sincerity. “I’ve wished for you since we first met.”
His answer hits me like a staff to my stomach. I bowl over, and the icy sickness inside me spreads fast now that we are apart. Indah said she sensed Ashwin lied when he told the datu we are not intended to marry. In Ashwin’s heart, we are betrothed. When we touch, my pain eases because he wished for our union.
Ashwin wears a blank, slackened expression. “Kalinda, I told you how I felt about you before I unleashed Udug.”
“But you wished for me.” He returns my accusation with a series of rapid blinks. “This isn’t real! I’m drawn to you because you wished it.” The color in his cheeks drains away, and he presses his fist to his lips.
Another stone-cold thought strikes me.
Deven thinks I’m in love with Ashwin.
“If this is all an illusion, then why . . . ?” Ashwin waves at the floor and what just took place there.
“You wished that I’d rule the empire alongside you. Udug cannot defy your bidding.” I grip my teeth together to ward off another round of shivers. “Udug’s powers are still inside me. I’m safe from them when I’m near you.”
“Then stay close.” Ashwin steps forward to defend me from the cold, but I shuffle back and wrap my arms around myself. The violation of his imposed will crawls across my skin, stronger than my need for warmth. My teeth chatter involuntarily. I lock them down, but not before Ashwin sees. “You’re in pain.”
“Please keep away.” Ashwin did not manipulate me intentionally, but I do not trust myself near him.
He balls a fist and strikes at the veil. “Why won’t you let me help you?”
“Because I love Deven.” I clutch at my aching chest. “He’s my heart’s wish.”
Everything about Ashwin dims and sinks, his demeanor, his posture, his raised fist. Whatever light he shone for me extinguishes.
Why couldn’t he be Deven? I demand of the gods. Why did you tie me to a throne and a man my heart has not chosen? If I thought I could fall in love with Ashwin, I could set aside Deven right now. In his considerate, honorable way, he knows the choice is mine and loves me enough to walk away. But I never wanted Ashwin. Even if I had, any possible future with him has been permanently skewed.
I slip off his gold cuff and hold it out. “This is yours.”
Ashwin opens his mouth, but no words come. He reaches for his cuff, and his finger brushes my palm. My need for him hurts so badly tears spring into my vision. I pull back, and his chin falls to his chest.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
The door opens. Sarita sees my watery eyes and averts her gaze. “Kindred, the Lestarian woman asked me to find you and the prince. She said for you to meet her and the baldish man in the courtyard.”
Indah would only summon us for one purpose—the rebels must be close. Sarita watches us from the corner of her sight. Ashwin’s hair is still mussed and his tunic offset. Sarita is too innocent to conclude what we have been doing here alone, but I have a clear memory and suffer the ensuing guilt. I should have guessed my connection with Ashwin was contrived.
“That will be all, Sarita,” I say.
She hesitates in the doorway. “I’d like to go with you when you leave.”
The complication of another person on our journey is too much to consider now. “I’ll think on it. Thank you.” She exits the way she came. “We should go.”
The prince still will not look at me.
“Ashwin, please.”
He tips up his head, his eyes frigid. I risk my willpower and edge closer. Tempting soul-fire wafts off him, physical solace within my reach, but I hold myself taut.
“I’m still with you, Ashwin. You have my loyalty through whatever comes next. I know you’ll give the empire your all.”
“Don’t patronize me. I may be younger than you, but I’m not a child.” He tugs down his tunic jacket, a meticulous gesture Tarek was known for. “You may still be kindred, but this is my empire, and the gods will hold me responsible for what comes next.”
Ashwin storms out, his footsteps sounding like Tarek’s the day he walked into my life and flipped my future upside down. Rajah Tarek was a vengeful man, turned hard-hearted after the woman he loved, my mother, jilted him for my father. But I am not my mother any more than Ashwin is his father.
I pick up the henna pot I left on the floor, dip my finger into the sticky paste, and paint the backs of my hands. Soon enough, the henna will dry and flake off to reveal the mark of the kindred. Then Ashwin will be reminded that my fate is also tied to what becomes of the empire, and he will see that I will continue to fight to make certain that the most important aspect of his heart’s wish comes true.
Ashwin will be the next rajah. That is the only destiny I will accept.