Come to think of it, Juhi didn’t mention it, either, during our lessons over the past couple of years. Juhi gently traces the border between Ambar and Samudra on the map, her fingers lingering over the desert that separates the two. Her lips have grown so thin that I can barely see them.
“This has something to do with you—doesn’t it?” I ask hesitantly.
“Yes.” Juhi reaches into the folds of her sari and, to my surprise, pulls out a small drawstring purse. Made of blue silk and covered with embroidered golden lotuses, it is the most exquisite thing I’ve ever seen. “Rani Yashodhara did use a form of collateral. She put up her twenty-five-year-old sister, binding her to Lohar.”
She undoes the purse’s strings, pouring the contents into her hands. I stare at the gold choker she holds in her palm, the square edges of its pendant encrusted with fat, iridescent pearls. Engraved in the center is a weapon I’ve seen before only in illustrated scrolls, but one I instantly recognize: a Samudra split whip, embedded with mermaid hair and green waterstones that glow even in the faintest light. It is a symbol every child in Ambar learned to recognize several years ago and eventually associate with fear and bloodshed.
After a long moment, I look up at Juhi’s face, at the blue streaks in her hair, and wonder how I didn’t guess before. “Do the others know?”
“That I am Juhi, daughter of the late Balram, seventy-second king of Samudra? Amira and Kali do. The others may have guessed; I don’t know.”
Juhi’s voice grows hard. “Yashodhara thought I would be the perfect spy. That I would go into Ambar Fort, win over Lohar, learn his secrets. But Lohar didn’t trust me. The night of our binding, he made one of his guards strip me naked and search me in front of the court. ‘A security measure,’ he called it. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of screaming.”
My throat tightens, and for a moment, I think I’m going to throw up.
“He eventually tired of me, of course,” she continues. “Lohar’s obsession always has been with the Star Warrior. Once he began looking for her again, he forgot about torturing me. That was when I began making my move. Gathering power while pretending to be weak.”
“Was that where you met Amira and Kali?” I ask.
“Not exactly. And not by intention,” another voice says.
Amira stands in the open doorway, paler than I’ve seen her before. “Are you regaling her with tales of your time at Ambar Fort?” she asks Juhi. “Or did you head straight to the cesspits, where you found us?”
I do my best to keep my face expressionless even though my stomach is still churning from what I’ve heard.
“Are you afraid, child?” Amira drawls. “Can you handle hearing about what they do to magi girls they drain of their powers? Of how the guards like to play with them when they’re bored? I won’t even tell you what they did to the one and only non-magus girl over there.”
“I am not a child,” I say. Even though her words do make me ill.
“At Ambar Fort, without any control over your own powers, you will be far worse than a child. By some miracle, if you do kill the king, have you considered what will happen to you after that? What they’ll do to you at the palace? Have you even thought of whom you’ll end up putting in his place?”
I evade Amira’s gaze and focus on the empty silken purse. It doesn’t seem like a good idea to tell her I haven’t really thought beyond getting into the palace and killing King Lohar—two tasks that, in themselves, are massive and likely impossible. The idea of killing Major Shayla—the woman who murdered my parents—sometimes hovers in my mind as well, but she still does not take up as much space as the man who gave her those orders.
“Why does it matter who replaces Raja Lohar?” I ask. “Once he’s dead, the prophecy won’t matter anymore. The other king won’t bother hunting girls with birthmarks. There’ll be no more deaths, no more orphans.”
I can feel both of them staring at me now.
“How naive are you?” Amira cries out. “Tyrants always replace other tyrants—hasn’t history taught you anything?”
Juhi, on the other hand, is more sympathetic. “I understand your anger. Your need for revenge. But, Gul, even if I ignore everything else Amira said, I can’t deny that you need more control over your magic during combat.”
“More control?” Amira laughs. “She can barely do any magic as is.”
“She can whisper to animals,” Juhi says in a cool voice. “That’s also magic, Amira.”
“Yes, but it’s not useful if she plans to infiltrate the palace. Whispering doesn’t work on humans, so unless she somehow gets an armored leopard or a pack of dustwolves in with her, she’s completely helpless.”
My nails bite into the fleshy insides of my palms. The birthmark on my right arm begins to burn.
“She had the lowest score during last week’s practice fight,” Amira continues. “Her posture is poor, her aim weak. Even a spiked mace with poisoned tips would be of little use to her.”
Blood rushes to my arms and to my face, my body growing so hot that it feels like I’m on fire. There’s a flash of green light, and the silken blue purse before me explodes, ripping into fragments of cloth and lint. Juhi brushes a hand under my nostrils. My blood coats the creamy white pallu of her sari.
“Gul. Gul, look at me.”
Juhi’s voice breaks whatever trance I’m under. Shivers race down my body, and I wonder if I’m running a fever. Juhi brushes her thumbs up the sides of my nose and presses the bridge. Pain stabs my forehead.
“There,” she says. “That should clear up the blood.”
“How in the name of Zaal did you do that?” It’s Amira who speaks now, her voice sharper than I’ve ever heard it before.
My mouth opens, trembles. “I don’t
