Page 3 of The Prince Without Sorrow

Chapter Two

Shakti

L ATE AT NIGHT, THE PADDY FIELDS RESEMBLED A SWAMP.

Moonlight reflected off the water in pieces, broken by the rice stalks that stood neat and tall like a squadron of soldiers. The smell of mud was pervasive, and the scent of water buffalo lingered even after they had been taken in for the night by the farmers. Or perhaps it was their droppings; Shakti couldn’t tell. They smelled the same.

The ground beneath her slipper-clad feet was soft. Ready to crumble. She stood on a thin paddy bund, toes creating an indent on the damp earth. Despite the coolness in the air, her forehead was dusted with a light sheen of sweat and her hair stuck to her cheeks like tree sap to bark.

Opposite her, the town’s weapons-master, Hasith, pointed to her back foot.

‘Careful,’ he warned. Coarse-looking grey streaks dotted his long beard and tied-back hair. ‘Slip, and you’ll be helping smelt my weapons this entire week.’

The thought of being constrained inside an arid room with burning metal made Shakti scrunch her nose in distaste. Though she loved using weapons, making them was not a process she enjoyed, and Master Hasith knew that. It was why he peppered challenges into her combat lessons. The threat of hard labour made Shakti more determined to win.

‘Can’t you think of another punishment?’ she complained. ‘My arms are still hurting from last week.’

Master Hasith lunged, his feet maintaining perfect balance of the bund. ‘Then don’t slip,’ he said. His right foot swung out in a neat arc and hit the side of Shakti’s waist. More dank ground powdered beneath her as Shakti wobbled. Her front foot lifted off the ground and she quickly twisted, placing it behind her other foot to hold steady.

‘Good,’ Hasith called out. Then, ‘There’s no use in mastering long-range weapons if you can’t hold your own in close combat. You won’t always have your arrows with you.’ He nodded towards her bow and arrow that lay across from them.

She could argue that was what her sword was for, and she reminded him as such.

Master Hasith chuckled. ‘I’m surprised your aunt hasn’t tried to curse me yet,’ he said. ‘A smart woman like her would surely realize that you keep traipsing out of her house in the late hours of the night to practise combat.’

‘Please,’ she scoffed. ‘If anything, she would curse me . Aunty knows that I leave. She just hates that I like using weapons. Hates it even more that I’m good with them.’

Weapons were a tool for violence, and her aunt Jaya maintained that mayakari should not favour them. It was a tale Shakti had heard often when she had been informed of her witch blood. Pacifism was their way of life, a well-established philosophy that Jaya had tried to instil into her but failed. One could argue that she had given Shakti too much freedom and not enough education on the doctrines of the mayakari. They were two different personalities living in a small wooden house, and although Shakti tried to emulate her aunt’s gentle disposition, her penchant for explosiveness was difficult to set aside.

It had been that way since she was young, and she blamed part of it on Rohan.

Rohan was their next-door-neighbour’s son, two years older than she was. He used to tease Shakti to her wits’ end; her hair was pulled, her beloved drawings torn, her flute-playing ridiculed. He made fun of her long nose and two-toned lips as if they were the worst thing in the world. Shakti hated him. Despite Jaya’s insistence that she empathize or turn the other cheek, Shakti couldn’t manage to do so. She so badly wanted to curse him, to send a nature spirit after him like a malevolent ghost, but she couldn’t. After all, the mayakari had their code. Cursing bred nothing but negative karma.

‘It’s about safety, too, little bird,’ Jaya had declared. ‘Let it be known you’re a witch, and our lives are forfeit.’

Forfeit. As if they were in some sort of children’s game. It was why Jaya had them keeping their heads low, making sure they didn’t cast suspicion on themselves. Their existence was made known to a trusted few that Shakti could count with one hand. She’d learned to be cautious.

So, instead of cursing, she’d punched Rohan’s nose hard enough to break. Jaya had been horrified all the same, since violence was violence. However, Shakti had long since forgotten to care. If she couldn’t curse, she could defend.

Master Hasith recalled the story better than she did. According to him, a furious adolescent with short, heat-frazzled hair had come into his shop demanding that he teach her how to punch an irritating pest in a proper fashion.

It started out as a way to learn basic throws, but Shakti had ended up taking to it more than she thought. She became fascinated with the glowing silver daggers and swords that were hung carefully for appraisal at his store and was drawn to the elegant ironwood bows used by the archers that ventured out to hunt.

She’d asked Master Hasith to teach her how to throw a dagger with perfect aim. He’d complied.

For a while, it became a well-kept secret that she hid from Jaya. The story that she told her aunt was simple – that she’d gone to paint nature spirits in the wild forest. Unfortunately, Shakti’s perfect facade broke sooner than she thought.

Rohan had been the reason she came to Master Hasith, and he also became the reason her aunt found out about her combat lessons. The insufferable boy had sauntered over to her aunt’s back garden where Shakti was trying to scrub dried turmeric paste from a clay pot. He had jeered. Called her a pathetic little girl.

Shakti didn’t give him the chance to blink. By that time, she’d become accustomed to keeping a small dagger on her person. Within seconds, she’d thrown her weapon and it had lodged itself into the pinna of Rohan’s ear.

She still recalled the sound that came out of his mouth with fondness, a half-bray, half-squeal that sounded part donkey, part pig. To this day, she mocked the sound to his face whenever he mustered up the gall to throw verbal barbs at her.

When Jaya found out, she’d barred Shakti from picking up a weapon.

‘I shouldn’t have been so lenient with you,’ her aunt admonished. ‘Back in my day, elder mayakari drilled the four precepts into our heads.’

Do not curse. Do not manipulate. Do not harm. Do not kill.

Precepts were rules and she’d broken the third. Her aunt had taught her they were a way to keep a mayakari from using their powers to their full extent. The elder mayakari could blather on about how it was their code, their laws , but Shakti saw them for what they were: shackles; self-imposed restrictions on women more powerful than the ruling monarch. Despite her own beliefs, however, there was one thing she hated most in the world and that was seeing Jaya disappointed in her. It was a looming, itchy feeling that dulled everything. And so, to absolve her guilt, Shakti had promised not to respond to Rohan’s taunts with calculated violence.

It did not mean that she kept away from her secret lessons.

Lulled back into the present, Shakti refocused on Master Hasith, whose hand was outstretched. ‘Asking me to dance?’ she smiled.

Master Hasith chuckled. ‘You know, Jaya’s wife was very much like you.’

Not that Shakti would know. Her other aunt had disappeared on a trip to the Vihara Mountains when she was a baby. Jaya never spoke of her, and the only reminder she kept was a slim gold chain with an emerald pendant that had been given to her on her wedding day. Jaya never took the necklace off.

Sometimes, Shakti wanted to ask Jaya why she had not followed her wife. They did not have to stay here with the shadow of death looming over them, but Jaya’s response was always the same. Fleeing the empire was just as risky. The journey to the kingdom of Kalinga was heard to be guarded by Ran soldiers, and the icy north was a death sentence. The next viable option for a mayakari was to cross the Vihara Mountains in the east to Anurapura, but therein was the problem. The mountain region was notoriously dangerous and hazardous to cross. That, and the kingdom of Anurapura was not their terrain. They had their own mayakari with their own customs and ways of respecting the land.

In response to the weapons-master’s comment, Shakti splayed her index and middle fingers, and brought them towards Master Hasith’s eyes. When he moved to block, she diverted her attack, instead using the opposite arm to push his open chest, hard. The older man faltered, caught himself, and looked up as if he were about to say something to her when his stance shifted. Dark eyes narrowed as he peered over Shakti’s shoulder. She saw his nostrils flare as he took an audible sniff. Curious, Shakti craned her neck to see what had caught his eye.

Nestled in the lowest portion of the fields, they couldn’t see much of the township on the hill above them. Large and rectangular planks of wood cordoned off homes from agricultural land and the wild forests beyond it, but Shakti could see what had captured the weapons-master’s attention.

Smoke.

‘What on earth...’ Master Hasith said as they watched faint grey plumes drift into the berry-black sky.

‘Someone must be cooking a late meal,’ Shakti supplied. She turned back to continue their lesson, but it seemed that Master Hasith was no longer interested. Rather, he appeared worried.

‘That’s too much smoke,’ he replied, frowning. ‘Something isn’t right – come, Shakti.’

Both took off uphill, Shakti pausing only to gather her bow and arrow.

The climb uphill was harder than expected. Shakti’s calf muscles were aching by the time she sped past the open wooden gate that led into town, Master Hasith’s footsteps right behind her. The moment she passed the back entryway, the smell of smoke hit her hard.

It became stronger the closer she approached the town square: ripened fruit and chilli mixed with animal odour and burned wood, an unpleasant concoction. But that wasn’t all – there was another smell that she couldn’t identify, an unknown aroma that gnawed at her intestines like a hungry leopard tearing into rabbit flesh. She tried to place it. Something was being cooked. Roasted. It was like a slab of meat had spent too long in the sun before being thrown in a furnace. But it didn’t smell like animal meat.

Kolakola’s main business hub was small, and the market stalls had long since closed for the night, but the area was packed with people by the time her feet hit the limestone pavement. They were gathered around... a fire? Shakti was still not close enough to tell. Other than the full moon, torches were the only source of light, so it took her a moment to identify the unfamiliar men and women encircling the town square like guard dogs. Once she saw their red and black armour, her breath hitched. Dread pooled in her stomach when she spotted the grim-looking swords attached to their sides.

Soldiers. Emperor Adil’s dogs.

For the normal citizen, the Royal Guard represented safety. To the mayakari, they were a merchant of death.

Jaya , her thoughts raced to her aunt. Where’s Jaya? There were soldiers at Kolakola, and she had no idea why. The township had been taken by the Ran Empire years ago. They had no reason to be here.

Unless...

No , Shakti told herself firmly. No, this must be something else.

Voices played over each other as she edged closer, scraps of information being fed little by little:

‘ ... how terrible... ’

‘... well, what did you expect, the mines... ’

‘ ... wonder who accused them... ’

Acutely aware of Master Hasith voicing his caution behind her, Shakti pushed her way into the throng of townspeople. Sweat and rhododendron perfume, clean soap, and ash overpowered her senses. Elbows dug into her ribs and backs bumped into her chin, but Shakti pushed through.

She saw the blue flames first before she realized what she was seeing in front of her.

Burning bodies. Three, to be exact.

Bound. Gagged. Tied to thick wooden poles. That was what the smell had been.

Gasps and murmurs echoed all around her as Shakti huddled with the townspeople around the main square. Forcing back the tears that were threatening to spill out from her like a poorly built dam in the monsoon season, she assessed the three bodies in front of her. They were almost unrecognizable now, body parts reddened and blackened to a crisp, but she needed to appraise them closer. Shakti edged nearer to the front, straining to see above the heads of the men and women around her.

The malicious glint of a green object winked at her from the neck of one of corpses in the middle. Her heart sank.

‘No,’ she whispered. The contents of her dinner threatened to regurgitate. ‘Please, no .’

Flames licked Jaya’s distorted corpse in glacial blues and whites, a definitive sign of her mayakari lineage. Witches’ bodies burned hotter than the orange-yellow flames that engulfed normal human ones. That meant—

One of the bodies had to be Dharvi, the bookseller. She was a mayakari with a daughter of her own, Nayani. Well into her thirtieth year, Nayani had long left Kolakola for Taksila, only visiting her mother in sporadic bursts, and she’d arrived some weeks ago. Shakti spun, looking for her in the crowd and coming up empty. The other body then had to be Laila’s; the elderly mayakari who lived alone. Where was Nayani, then? Had she escaped, or was she still here, watching just like her?

Run , she told herself. I need to run.

Shakti found that she couldn’t move. Her feet were rooted to the spot, her mind still attempting to make sense of what she was seeing.

How did this happen? Who told them?

‘ No ,’ Shakti repeated. This had to be some sort of nightmare. This wasn’t real. Her aunt couldn’t be dead.

But she was, and Shakti was very much awake. Her entire body wound up tightly like the strings of a sitar as the world closed in around her. Squashed against so many bodies, claustrophobia set in. The tears welled up so much that her vision blurred, and she was left with no choice but to let them fall, cringing at the cold sting of salt against her flushed skin.

Hours ago, she had helped Jaya mix a herbal tonic for a client whose mouth ulcers refused to heal. Hours ago, she had hugged her aunt goodnight. Hours ago, she had no idea that the person she loved most in the world would be taken away in a flash.

The shocked murmurs of the townspeople rose to a crescendo as eyes widened, postures went slack, and backs bent into deep, hasty bows.

Shakti craned her neck upwards to spot the source of the crowd’s surprise. She noticed the sword first: a blade that was viciously long, cruelly curved, and adorned with gold at its hilt. It was attached to a man, tall and lean, his light brown skin gleaming under the moonlight. His hair was tied neatly behind him, fastened by a beautiful circlet embellished with rubies.

She knew without question the man who was gazing upon them with a secret smile.

‘My dear subjects,’ Emperor Adil remarked loudly. He had the powerful, guttural type of voice that caught the attention of anyone who listened. ‘Witness before you the death of these dangerous witches.’

Dangerous. She’d heard his disparaging lies spewed from many mouths a hundred times before.

Shakti swallowed. Her throat was as dry as sandpaper. Emperor Adil’s lies had cost Jaya’s life, and now, she was nothing more than a molten lump of flesh.

‘These mayakari have tampered with your mines,’ Emperor Adil continued. His voice was loud and insistent, dripping with conviction. ‘Weakened iron ore, caused the collapse of tunnels, caused death in the process.’

Tampered? Collapsed tunnels? She’d heard miners returning from the mountains complain about crumbling iron ore but had chalked it up to being a natural fault.

There was a stunned silence, before—

‘ They were good women .’

She stilled, as did the crowd around her. Master Hasith.

She couldn’t see him; he wasn’t within her line of sight. The old man had been right behind her.

Emperor Adil’s posture stiffened, but his smile remained intact.

‘Who said that?’ he called out to the crowd. No one answered. She silently hoped that Master Hasith would keep his mouth shut. At the loud silence, Shakti saw the smile briefly slip from the emperor’s mouth.

‘I do not take kindly to cowardice,’ he said. ‘Face me or watch your people face punishment on your behalf.’

There was another long beat of disquiet before she heard footsteps shuffling. From her right, Master Hasith emerged from the crowd.

Shakti could sense something ominous in the air. It crackled and spun its silent threads in the dark sky, waiting. Anticipating. Running was the safest option for her. It was too dangerous to stay. Jaya’s soft voice echoed in her head:

Giving up is still an act of courage, little bird.

Shakti knew the voice was right but, somehow, she could not find the courage to run. She chose foolishness; she chose to stay.

‘Your name?’ Emperor Adil inquired, assessing the weapons-master emotionlessly.

‘Hasith, Your Highness,’ he replied, unflinching as he bowed. If he was scared, he didn’t show it.

‘You believe these mayakari to be good women?’ Emperor Adil nearly spat out the words.

‘Without question, Your Highness.’

When murmurs of agreement arose from the crowd, her hands trembled. Shakti squeezed them together to calm herself down. Emperor Adil eyed Hasith with an expression of utmost pity and disdain.

‘You knew they lived here, and yet you reported nothing?’ Adil questioned.

Stop talking, Master Hasith , she wanted to scream at him. For a moment, his eyes flitted through the crowd until she swore they latched onto her.

Run , they seemed to say, before they find you.

He’s not being reckless , Shakti realized. He was buying her time.

‘Some of us understood that long-standing prejudices were built on nothing but lies, Your Highness.’

The crowd gasped. How bold. Brave. Stupid .

‘A mayakari sympathizer,’ said Emperor Adil softly. ‘I cannot stand your type. You understand that words spoken for the mayakari are words spoken against me , and yet you do it anyway.’

Hasith only had time to blink before Emperor Adil plunged the sword into his heart.

Screams erupted from the crowd as they edged away. Shakti could only stare in horrid fascination as blood blossomed through Hasith’s dust-plagued shirt, his eyes wide open, frozen in shock. He fell to the ground with an unceremonious thump , the sword still wedged firmly into his skin.

Emperor Adil’s gaze was unfeeling as he glanced up. At that moment, Shakti caught his eyes. They seemed to be alive with a dreadful delight.

‘It appears this town is plagued with sympathizers,’ said Emperor Adil. ‘Plagues must always be eradicated.’

The thread being spun in the sky above her finally revealed its finished tapestry: an array of death and destruction.

They were in danger. This had been his plan all along. They never had a chance.

‘Soldiers,’ she heard the emperor’s clear voice in the din, ‘spare no survivors.’