“Do you plan to die in the cage?”
The sharp words make me look up, focus on his face again, the rugged planes of it, silver tinting parts of his shaggy black brows. Papa would have had brows like that, I think, if he had lived long enough.
I take the kachori. “Sau aabhaar.”
“There’s no need to thank me. You are to be the entertainment today, remember? And there’s no entertainment without a fight.”
The words are an echo of Major Shayla’s, but they do not have the same effect. Perhaps it’s because of the look on his face—the subtle tightening of his lips right before he turns away. There is a gentle tug at my shackles, forcing me to move sideways, like a wayward pet brought to heel.
“The cage,” I say, suddenly remembering the conversation I overheard between the serving girls on my very first day here. “The palace buys prizefighters at the flesh market, doesn’t it? To fight us in the cage?”
The Sky Warrior glances at me but says nothing.
Who am I fighting? I wonder. Or what?
The glass palace rises before us, teasing with glimpses of what could be inside: a throne, a king, a crown of firestones and pearls, imminent death. The Sky Warrior makes a sharp left, the magical bond between us pulling me along. He nods at a burly guard posted by the side entrance.
“Any more coming in today, Captain Emil?” the guard asks without even glancing at me.
“No,” the Sky Warrior says. “She’s the last of today’s lot.”
I might have missed what he said to me next had I not been following him close enough, might have mistaken the frown on his face for indifference.
“Win the crowd, girl. It’s the only way you’ll win your freedom.”
26GUL
The inside of the king’s palace makes Rani Mahal look like a relic from Svapnalok’s past. Reflecting Ambar’s desert heritage, enormous, iridescent palm trees form the pillars of a long tunnel, their false fronds curving overhead, weaving together to scatter bits of sunlight filtering in through the web of indradhanush and glass. The marble floor, though flat, looks like sand, glitters the way the desert might in the sunlight, with shifting dunelike patterns across the ground. At the very end of the tunnel is a giant metal box with bars surrounding every side, except the top and bottom.
“Steady,” Captain Emil says, before ushering me in and shutting the door. He raises his head upward and cries out: “Lift!”
Barely a moment later, the box gives a sudden jerk as if tipping to the side. I grab onto one of the bars and hold tight. The box rises in the air, Captain Emil’s legs disappearing first from sight, then his torso, then his head. I look above, but the roof is a mirror. I see only myself: my hair matted in strands around my terrified face.
A few moments later, the box rises into a room larger than any I’ve ever seen before.
This is not just a room, I realize. This is the throne room. The raj darbar, where the king holds his court.
Lightorbs glow overhead, brighter than the real sun, which is also warming the room. Rows upon rows of courtiers sit on elevated cushions, their eyes focused on me. My gaze, however, is drawn to the very center of the room’s end, to a giant glass dome affixed with moons and suns and hundreds of planets.
Underneath, I spot a man dressed in a deep-green angrakha and narrow trousers, raised on a gilded throne over everyone else, perched cross-legged on a set of giant red cushions. Gold dusts his high cheekbones over a pure-white mustache and beard. Pink conch pearls adorn his neck and ears and hang in tassels from his waistbelt. Tucked into the center of his emerald turban is an ornament I’ve only seen in paintings before: an enormous teardrop firestone set in gold and plumed with ostrich feathers, flames leaping within the gem’s many brilliant facets. Though I can’t make out his eyes at this distance, I feel them watching as a guard rolls open the doors of the box.
King Lohar. Seventy-fifth ruler of Ambar and the Desert of Dreams. He’s a man I’ve killed in a hundred different ways in my imagination over the past two years. A slit throat. A poisoned cup. An atashban blasted through the heart.
A shock goes through my shackles.
“Move!” the guard says.
I step out of the box and into the throne room. In person, the king does not look as imposing as he does in paintings, his cheeks hollow where they should be round, his limbs bony and weak where they should be muscled. Long fingers curl around the armrests of his throne like claws; indeed, with the beaked nose, he looks less like a man and more like a decrepit bird. Only his dark-brown eyes are the same, small and cruel as they take me in from head to toe, then he waves a hand, dismissing me entirely. The guard ushers me to the side, next to a man who is similarly shackled.
“Is that everything, Acharya?” the king asks.
“Yes, Ambarnaresh.” The voice belongs to the high priest: a tall man with shoulder-length black hair. Unlike acharyas in temples, who wear plain cotton robes and no jewelry, the king’s high priest wears a floor-length white tunic made of silk, gold hoops in his ears, and a priceless necklace of pale-green jade.
“Let’s begin,” the king commands. “We’ve waited long enough.”
The acharya bows deeply and then turns to face the audience.
“Lords and ladies of the court. Thank you for attending the spectacle. This month’s contenders include a thief who stole bread from the royal kitchens, a soldier accused of treason, and a serving girl who overstepped her boundaries by crossing the rekha.”
I break out in a cold sweat, hoping my shock doesn’t show itself. Are stealing bread and treason punished in the same way now? What kind of justice is this?
Applause
