“I’d rather walk where I’m not stared at or called ‘dirt-licking filth’ for accidentally cutting across a magus’s path,” he mutters under his breath.
I pause before asking a question: “Does that upset you?”
“What? That people call me a dirt licker?”
I wince. “Will you stop saying that?”
“Get used to it. You’ll hear people say it frequently where we’re going.” He does not sound bitter about this, merely resigned.
“It’s said that your people tried to steal magic,” I say after a pause, thinking of the scrolls I’ve read. “Years before the Great War.”
“They did,” he says simply. “They stole elephant-loads of firestones right out of the jewel mines. They were protesting the new land tithe that Rani Megha imposed on us.”
A land tithe? I try to think back to what I read in the history scrolls, but I can’t remember anything about such a tax. Then again, the scrolls don’t mention Juhi, either. And while firestones did contain magic and stealing them was considered a crime—
“There were no kidnappings?” I ask. “No rituals to extract power from the magi?”
He laughs. “Your people have awfully convenient imaginations. You probably have forgotten or don’t even know of the non-magi children who disappeared and were then found decapitated outside temples as a punishment for stealing the firestones.”
“They decapitated children for firestones?” My stomach twists. For a moment, I wonder if Cavas is exaggerating, but the bleak look in his eyes tells me otherwise. “What happened to the firestones?” I ask finally.
“Some say they were lost. Some say they were sold to traders from distant lands across the Yellow Sea. No one really knows. After the non-magus rebellion was crushed, Rani Megha established the tenements and forced us out of our homes. Those who fought were imprisoned or executed. Those who survived—well, we had to choose between our own lives and history being rewritten for us.”
I’m silent for a long moment. “My father said this wasn’t how Svapnalok was supposed to be. That before the war, magi and non-magi lived in harmony. The old rulers never would have wanted this!”
“Well, what the old rulers wanted is of no consequence. Now there is no Svapnalok—only Ambar and three other kingdoms that couldn’t care less what happens to us here.”
My hand automatically goes to clutch the arm where my birthmark is, relieved to find it covered by the somewhat longish sleeves of the blouse. In fact, they cover nearly my entire elbow. The woman this outfit belongs to is clearly taller than I am.
“Make sure no one sees,” Cavas says now—and I know he’s talking about the birthmark. “If they do—”
“It won’t be good. I know.” I pause. “My mother buried me in a patch of soil meant for our garden to hide me from them. She was killed right in front of me. So was my father.”
We both say nothing for a long time, the scrape of our jootis against the unpaved road the only sound breaking the silence.
“I’m sorry.” It’s the first time today that he speaks to me without contempt. “There was a girl in the tenements. Her name was Bahar. They accused her of magic theft. But I think they took her away because she was also … She was like you.”
Meaning, she had a birthmark. My stomach clenches habitually, but instead of saying anything, I find myself staring at Cavas’s drawn face. This girl, whoever she was, had been important to him. I march forward, a little ahead of him, my face suffusing with a heat that has nothing to do with the burning sun overhead. Cavas soon catches up with his long stride.
“How do you plan to get me in?” I keep my voice brisk, strictly business again.
Cavas frowns, as if confused by my sudden change in tone. “We’ll tell them you lost your identification badge. The guards at the Walled City gates aren’t too bright. They’re easily swayed by a pretty face.”
I blink. Did he just call me pretty?
“Also, you will need to be haughtier,” he says. “The queens and their serving ladies act like everyone is beneath them. Not that it should be troublesome for you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
He raises an eyebrow. “I mean a magus like you is used to having servants.”
“I spent the last two months making fuel out of cow dung. When I wasn’t doing that, I was scrubbing pots or sweeping corridors or cleaning smelly toilets. We had chores to do where I lived.”
“There we go.” His face breaks into a sudden grin. “Act exactly like that in front of the guards.”
He surprises me so much with that smile, I forget to watch where I’m going. A trip and a thud, followed by a roar of laughter that floats overhead.
I am going to strangle him. I rise to my feet, ignoring the hand he holds out. Whenever I get the chance.
17CAVAS
The queens’ palace looms ahead, nearly a hundred of its windows facing us, stone and glass laced with magic to form intricate lattices that shield its inhabitants and gleam like jewels in the heat. The king’s palace, which is on the other side of Ambar Fort, has a throne room unlike any he has ever seen before, Govind said—which is the most the secrecy spell will allow him to tell us about Raj Mahal.
I take his word for it: Govind does not speak in hyperbole. Besides, it’s not like I will ever see the inside of either palace. The king might allow the palace to hire non-magi, but no one without magic is allowed to enter the buildings that make up the private residence of the royal family. Inauspicious, the high priest calls it. An insult to the gods—even though it was the gods who supposedly made everyone.
As a boy of four, I would ask Papa about Ma and where she
