“You.” Juhi’s quiet voice feels like ice on my spine. “Follow me.”
I know better than to argue. I follow Juhi down the corridor to the schoolroom at the back of the house, nearly slamming into her when she suddenly stops.
“What happened?” I say—and then see that we’re not alone. “Oh.”
A shvetpanchhi is perched on a short desk in the center of the room, a bird the size of a human baby, white-feathered and red-eyed, blinking as I appear at the doorway.
“Gul?” Juhi looks the way some of the other novices do upon finding a dead bloodworm in their soup. “Do you know this bird?”
“Sort of.” Birds are a lot more difficult to whisper to, and two months ago, when I’d first tried to whisper to this shvetpanchhi, she’d pulled out some of my hair. These days, she brings me an occasional dead rat as a present. I always politely decline. “Would you like me to—”
“Please,” Juhi says, failing to suppress a shudder.
I bite back a smile. Shvetpanchhi aren’t dangerous to humans unless provoked; they can also be used to send messages over long distances. But this shvetpanchhi’s bloody beak is working against her image today. Sorry, I tell the bird. Can we talk later?
There’s a brief silence. Then the shvetpanchhi whistles softly and rises in the air, black tail feathers fanning as she flies out the window.
Juhi releases a breath. “Sit.”
I quietly pull up a cushion from the corner of the room and plop it down next to a short desk, where several cowrie shells are arranged in two perfect circles. Juhi sits next to me, and for the first time, I notice her exhaustion, the veins in her eyes redder than normal.
“You were scrying again,” I say. “Weren’t you?”
It’s not really a question. Juhi is the most powerful magus I’ve come across. She can modify the memories of several people at once; she’s an expert martial artist who mastered death magic at a young age. While all magic is draining in some form or another, everyone’s tipping point is different. And no magic takes more out of Juhi than scrying does. There have been a couple of times when I’ve seen Juhi lying on the floor of her room after a scrying session, Amira and Kali sprinkling water over her face, slapping circulation back into her hands and feet.
“No sleep for the wicked, as the thanedars say.” Juhi shrugs now and gives me a sudden smile. “Don’t look so worried, my girl.”
“I’m not worried.” Even though my heart leaps to my throat each time Juhi takes out her shells. Even though I wonder every day about what will happen to us if Juhi dies.
“The shells aren’t that bad. They led me to you, remember?”
“I remember.” Not that I believe I am the girl Juhi was looking for. I sigh. “I suppose you’re going to give me a new punishment, then.”
“I should, shouldn’t I? For that map. For nearly causing a riot in Ambarvadi. For bringing the head thanedar to our door.”
I feel my insides curl. No one piles on guilt better than Juhi.
She pauses briefly. “How long have you been with us, Gul?”
“Three days shy of two years.”
If the exact nature of my response surprises her, Juhi doesn’t show it. Her dark eyes narrow at the shells, which she now arranges to form a five-point star. “I’ve scried over and over during this time, looking for the Star Warrior. But the shells are always silent. They’ve been so ever since the day we found you in that zamindar’s stable in Dukal.”
I say nothing in response. There are days when I wonder if it could be true. If I really am the Star Warrior. Before I remember who I am. A magus with power that’s as unreliable as it is dangerous. You don’t need magic to kill someone, I remind myself. A well-placed dagger works; so does poison in a cup. All you need to do is get close.
“Why is finding the Star Warrior so important to you?” It’s a question I’ve asked Juhi many times in the past. “You always say you’ll tell me when the time is right. But you never do. Not the real answer anyway.”
“And why do you think rebelling against the raja’s atrocities isn’t a real enough answer?” she asks mildly.
I think back to my own parents, who hid me for years—and lost their lives for it. “People don’t rebel against tyrants unless they’re affected somehow,” I say. “Unless there’s a personal reason involved.”
It’s why I have asked Juhi several times over the past two years—with little success—to help get me into Ambar Fort.
“I can’t wait anymore,” I tell her now. “When I come of age in two months, I am going to infiltrate Ambar Fort. I am going to find Raja Lohar, and I’m going to kill him.” I gather my courage, the question spilling out of me again, for perhaps the twelfth time in two years. “Juhi Didi, please. Will you help me?”
Juhi stares at me, saying nothing for several long moments. Just when I think I’m not going to get any answer, she speaks again: “What do you know about the Great War?”
I frown. What? “What does this have to do with the question I asked?”
“Bear with me, please.” Juhi points to the mural in front of us. “Come now, we learned this when you first came here.”
Spanning the entire front wall of the schoolroom, the painting is a detailed map of the four corners of the known world. Bhoomi, the continent we live on, forms the map’s center and its focus: with the Free Lands of the Brim in the northwest and the land of Aman in the northeast. The kingdoms of the empire formerly called Svapnalok form a diamond between
