“No target is ever too big,” Kali’s voice comes to me—a memory from when I first began learning how to pick pockets. “No target is ever too strong.”
It helps me take a step back. To detach from my surroundings and scan my enemy for any exploitable weaknesses. The mammoth’s size contributes to its brutal strength. But it does not have my speed. It cannot scale the bars of the cage the way I can—the way I do when a trunk swings my way, the dagger held between my teeth, its edges pricking the sides of my mouth. Great. Now I’ll probably slice off my tongue.
The mammoth trumpets and slams its body against the bars. The hit vibrates through my body, makes my teeth ache. Out of desperation, I reach out to the mammoth with my mind: Can you hear me?
“What did you bring for us, Acharya?” someone shouts. “A girl or a monkey?”
More shouting, followed by jeers. Then: another voice. A sound that only I can hear in my head.
… pain, pain, pain … The mammoth’s words sink in before it lets forth a howl that feels like it might shatter my eardrums. Only barely holding on to the fragile bond I’ve created, I focus on a series of images—the mammoth’s memories now flashing through my head:
A snow-covered mountain, wind howling in my ears. Men with stone armor, pricking me with their little thorns. I roar my fury. Red light colors the sky. I fall …
This place is hot. Far too hot for a body like mine. Someone splashes me with water, a temporary relief. “This is no elephant, stupid girl,” says an awful voice. Small, wet hands touch my hot face. Cold, blessed cold. A kind voice asks me if I’m all right …
I see the mammoth’s trunk approaching from a distance, feel it hit my side before I fall to the cage floor, tears burning my eyes.
… kill the girl, kill the girl …
The taste of copper floods my tongue. It would be easy to be crushed under the mammoth’s foot. Perhaps I wouldn’t even feel the pain for long. Not the way I do now, hollow sounds echoing in my head, my body aching so badly I wonder if I’ve broken my ribs. Somehow, I rise up and look into the mammoth’s angry eyes.
I don’t want to kill you, I whisper through our bond, hoping the mammoth can hear me. I know how hot it was in that market. I know you.
A blink. I see the images that flicker through the mammoth’s mind as if it were my own: the whip flying, stinging, taking away the relief wet, cool hands brought.
“I don’t want to add to your pain,” I say out loud. The buzzing in my ears intensifies.
A voice from the audience breaks through: “Why is she talking to the animal? Is she a whispe—”
I focus again on the mammoth. I saw that man whipping you. I tried to stop him. Remember?
Another blink.
My heart leaps to my throat. I kneel, placing my dagger on the floor. The mammoth cries out again and charges at me. I grit my teeth. I could use death magic. Could aim an attacking spell right at the mammoth’s eyes—even without a magical weapon. Not doing so could be the biggest mistake of my life. The earth around me trembles. The mammoth’s trunk winds around my body and raises me into the air.
… kill. Crush her skull and be free …
Use your mind, Gul, I tell myself. Held tight in the mammoth’s grip, I force myself to think of cold things—of the candied ice I once ate at the moon festival, of chilly desert nights spent laughing with my parents by a bonfire in a village.
My birthmark grows warm and then cool. My fingers turn to ice. Cold seeps from my hands, which I curl around the mammoth’s trunk, his hot fur. “Do you remember me?” I ask, praying that my magic has worked and that my chilly hands aren’t simply a byproduct of my fear.
For a moment, I’m not sure if my words register through the red haze of pain the mammoth’s feeling. Then, a hairbreadth from the ceiling of the cage, it pauses.
The girl. You’re the girl from the flesh market …
“Yes.” I gasp for air. Yes, it’s me. We met before.
For a moment, the trunk sways, and I think it’s going to drop me. Instead, it places me gently on the ground, keeping its trunk curled around my body to hide my trembling.
One kindness for another, the mammoth tells me as I cling to it. You did not let me die in the market; I will not let you fall.
I dig my hands into its fur, pouring my thanks into the cold spell. I don’t need to talk to the mammoth to feel its relief. In the background, a chant goes up: “Siya! Siya! Siya!” Some of the men are even calling for my freedom. They seem to have completely forgotten that moments earlier they wanted me dead. From behind the gold bars, I watch the king stand and raise a hand in the air. The gesture earns him dead silence.
“It seems the trespasser has earned her freedom.”
Cheers erupt, Ambari bugles filling the raj darbar with the sound of celebration. Only I can see the look in the king’s eyes. A look that tells me everything his false smile doesn’t.
27CAVAS
Every month, the king holds a spectacle at Raj Mahal—an event that is talked about and discussed at length until the next one happens. It’s the sort of conversation that you can’t avoid, that you often become an unwitting listener to.
“Who was there this time?” Govind asks one of the stable boys.
“I heard there were only three this time. A thief, who got chewed up by a shadowlynx, then there was this giant ox of a man who was battling a little girl—I think she was a conjurer. Turned the dust
