I resist the urge to vomit.
My daggers. I need my daggers.
I wait for Yukta Didi to leave the room before slipping out again, this time to the ramp leading into the servants’ quarters and then down the corridor and rickety staircase, into the garden, next to the bush of nightqueens. Heat beats down on my head. Peeking both ways, I wait before heading to the banyan tree where I hid the daggers and, to my relief, still find them there.
I’ve just retrieved the first when I hear the scrape of a jooti against the ground.
“Siya ji.” Prince Amar watches me with curious yellow eyes, a half smile playing on his lips. “I was hoping I could find you here.”
“Rajkumar!” Heart racing, I bow—a quick jerk of the head—holding my dirty hands behind my back, along with the dagger I’ve unearthed, the scabbard pressing hard into my skin.
Prince Amar glances at the dug-up earth and then back up at me. “Looks like the gardeners forgot to smooth out this patch of soil,” he says mildly.
“You said you were looking for me, Rajkumar Amar.” I force a smile, hoping I can distract him, even though a part of me wonders about how much he saw. If he will tell the king.
“Yes,” he continues. “I wanted to congratulate you in person for your remarkable duel with the mammoth. Especially after being confined by Prithvi Stone.”
I frown. “Prithvi Stone?”
“Confinement,” he says, as a way of explanation. “The small building you were kept in before the cage duel is made of Prithvi Stone. The material, when mixed with a clever bit of magic, can drain your energy by a considerable amount, can even lead to hallucinations.”
I frown, remembering the tiny anklets Malti wears. “Do Rajkumari Malti’s anklets have Prithvi Stone in them, too?”
“Ah, so you noticed.” He seems oddly pleased by this. “Yes, they have the tiniest slivers of the stone in them—enough to keep her magic in check, but certainly not enough to cause any visions. Malti’s earth magic is too powerful; it needs to be contained until she has more control over it.”
I study Amar’s face: his firestone-yellow eyes, his thin nose, his perfectly cut mustache. “You came to see me, didn’t you? In confinement. You kept telling me to wake up.”
There’s a long pause. For a moment, I think he’s going to deny this, but then he says, “I didn’t think you’d remember.”
“I thought I was dreaming,” I admit. “Or having a hallucination, as you called it. But I don’t understand. If the Prithvi Stone drained my energy, why didn’t it drain yours?”
“I was wearing a tunic made of firestones under my clothes.” He shifts aside the collar of his white tunic. Underneath, I spot chain mail, embedded with yellow and red gems. “It isn’t perfect, but it does the job.”
A spotted dove flutters past, perches on a branch overhead. I feel it staring at us and wonder, for a wild moment, if it’s the sky goddess again, come to watch over me.
“Why did you come see me?” I ask Amar, ignoring the bird.
“I wanted to warn you about what you might face in the cage.” He bites his lip, as if nervous. “I couldn’t overrule Major Shayla, not for a security breach, but I didn’t want to sit on my hands and do nothing. Unfortunately, that Prithvi Stone worked too well on you.”
“It did,” I acknowledge wryly. What am I supposed to tell him? That it was the thought that counts when it really doesn’t?
Prince Amar is silent for a long moment. Then, to my surprise, he raises his hands and snaps his fingers. A buzzing sound fills my ears, the kind that tells me a sound shield is now in place.
“I can still help you,” he says now. “I’ve been looking through our library of law scrolls in Raj Mahal. There is an old custom in Ambar, where a citizen—any citizen—is allowed to challenge an unwanted binding, even one commanded by the throne. If my father tries to force your hand, you can challenge him to a death duel. Did you know that?”
A death duel. I vaguely recall the words mentioned once at a school I went to. A death duel is the only kind of fight where murder isn’t punishable by the law.
The unease I’d felt upon seeing Amar in the garden a moment earlier triples. Why is he telling me this? Is he testing me? Could Amar possibly know why I’m really here? Who I am?
I curb my instinct to cover my right arm with a hand. Prince Amar has no way of knowing about my birthmark.
“Who told you I don’t want to bind with the yuvraj?” I barely keep the quiver out of my voice.
“You don’t have to say anything to show displeasure,” he says gently. “You have a most expressive face, Siya ji.”
“You want me to challenge the king, the most powerful magus in Ambar, to a death duel,” I say slowly, not believing his words. “Why in Svapnalok would you want me to do that?”
“You are powerful, too, Siya ji. You crossed the rekha. No other woman, in all these years, has been able to do so.”
“Major Shayla has!”
“Major Shayla has a token the maker of the rekha gave her, which allows her to pass through. Her magic isn’t powerful enough to let her through without its aid.”
“Who is the maker of the rekha?” I ask.
“I am.”
“You’re lying.” But he isn’t. From the sick sensation in my stomach, I realize I believe him. He’s telling the truth.
“I’m not,” he says now, a sad smile on his face. “And you know it. I’m not lying to you, Siya. I … I never have wanted to lie to you.”
Siya. Not Siya ji. There’s a warmth in his eyes that I haven’t seen before. No, I correct myself. Maybe I have seen it. When we met outside the green room. When he conjured those flowers for me. Amar isn’t like his
