Page 33 of The Prince Without Sorrow

Chapter Thirty-Two

Shakti

‘T HE WRETCHED WITCH CALLS ME AGAIN. ’

Emperor Adil was lounging on the Obsidian Throne when Shakti materialized in The Collective after turning in for the night. He wore black trousers and a long jacket with a gold leopard motif sewn into the left arm. A single ruby studded its eye. One hand rested under his chin as he gazed at her with scorn.

‘Adil,’ she greeted, not batting an eye. ‘Insult me all you want, but you’re the fool that karma finally caught.’

‘What do you want from me, girl?’ Adil remarked.

‘An answer,’ she replied. ‘If you’re not willing to give me one, I can simply replace you with Emperor Ashoka. I imagine it must be tedious for your consciousness to dwell in The Collective without use.’

Though he scoffed, the emperor made no attempt to refute her statement. ‘The Ghost Queen,’ she began, watching his reaction. Interest flickered in Adil’s eyes as he straightened on the throne. ‘What do you know of it?’

Dread rushed into her when he responded with a smile that echoed Princess Aarya’s. ‘A rare flower with a dubious story,’ he replied. ‘How did you come to hear of it, witch? Was it my daughter?’

‘She’s insistent on exploring noted deadlands in the south,’ Shakti confessed. ‘Aarya is your mirror, Adil, so there’s an underlying reason. What does she want with it?’

‘How do you not know anything about your own kind?’

Because Jaya didn’t teach me everything. Because sometimes, I didn’t listen.

She didn’t know which answer applied to his question. In truth, both statements sufficed.

Do you resent me for it, little bird?

‘Tell me,’ she ordered, pushing her aunt’s voice away.

‘How rich,’ Adil smirked, ‘I too attempted to locate them in my youth, but never did. I doubt Aarya’s quest would prove successful. Listen carefully, witch – the Ghost Queen is purported to reveal a mayakari if they come into contact with it.’

The Obsidian Throne distorted. Around her, the room flickered, shifting from black to a dappled white-blue before it reverted to its original state. It took Shakti a moment to realize that the sudden change was a response to her .

Reveal a mayakari?

‘You—’

‘Lie?’ Adil finished for her. ‘What would be the point? You cannot stop my daughter when she is determined to get something.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Shakti murmured, more to herself than Adil. ‘Why would it harm us?’

‘Pathetic,’ he said, laughing. ‘You are an embarrassment to your kind. Surely you must know how deadlands are formed, little girl?’

‘Of course, I do,’ Shakti snapped. ‘They’re created when a Great Spirit dies of unnatural causes. The land becomes tainted.’

‘Not so ignorant, then,’ Adil replied. ‘Such a death causes negative karmic energy, to bleed into the land and infect what regrows. That is what you say feels “tainted” to a witch. And it is the Ghost Queen that is said to harm your kind, because it only grows from what is, for lack of a better word, cursed . Magic harms magic, after all.’

‘But how does it reveal a mayakari?’

‘From ingestion,’ he responded, shrugging, ‘skin contact, perhaps, though I do not know its exact mechanism. Perhaps it could reveal and kill your kind at the same time – now that’s efficient. How laughable that the natural world your kind reveres the most can turn on you in such a way.’

Shakti frowned. He seemed so sure of its complications. ‘How do you know these things?’ she asked. For a man who claimed to hate the mayakari so much, there was information he was privy to that left her baffled as to how he knew it.

‘Manali had a sister,’ said Adil, sounding oddly disturbed. ‘Subhadrangi. Adopted, but acted as if they were blood. Came with her from their home state to live in the Golden City. To study. Take a guess where.’

She shrugged, impatient.

‘The mayakari library,’ Adil replied. He was watching her closely. Watching for her reaction, Shakti realized. ‘Because she was a witch. Whatever she told Manali, Manali told me.’

It was hard to stay expressionless. Jaw hanging open wide enough to swallow a hornets’ nest, Shakti shook her head vehemently. Impossible.

‘What – where is she now?’

‘I had her burned,’ Adil replied tonelessly. ‘Manali decided to fill the children’s heads with silly lies and told them she passed from an illness. I did not care enough to object, but the story of the Ghost Queen came from her and I in turn told Aarya.’

Shakti’s breathing became laboured. Her mind harkened back to that council meeting where Aarya had countered burn-testing. Where Arush had asked her for another option. Where she claimed not to have one.

Was this her grand solution?

She’s following a theory , Shakti reminded herself. Not fact. Nothing is proven.

But she couldn’t risk the princess continuing down this path. Rare flower indeed, but that did not mean it was impossible to find. Deadlands existed, which meant that the chance of a Ghost Queen sprouting existed.

What a headache.

She needed to cast this fancy of Princess Aarya’s away.

One more dream invasion couldn’t hurt , she thought to herself. Command her to cease this infernal search and have her appear indecisive in the process. She’s more of a threat than Arush.

Ignoring Adil’s taunts, Shakti closed her eyes and thought of Princess Aarya. When she reopened them, Adil and the Obsidian Throne were gone, and she was looking through glass at the princess’s dream.

Dream Aarya was trapped in the strangest-looking forest Shakti had ever seen.

Na and Hora trees shot up to the sky, the sky barely visible from the canopy. She had appeared in a clearing shaped into a perfect circle, but it was inconsistent. One blink, and she saw solid ground. The second time, there was mud, and then water. Seven blue lotuses were spread across the clearing, floating in mid-air. In the centre was Princess Aarya, brandishing a sword and attempting to wrench herself out of the ever-shifting ground.

Shakti entered the dream, surprised by the mild resistance she encountered, and morphed herself into Emperor Adil. It never stopped feeling like betrayal when she did.

‘Daughter,’ she called out to Aarya.

Clear water transformed into emerald, green moss around the princess’s legs as she turned to face Shakti. Yellow-white spores fell from the sky like raindrops, dusting her skin. ‘Father?’ she called out.

Nothing about the natural world here seemed inviting. Everything appeared ready to hurt despite its bright colours. ‘Why do you struggle?’ she asked, stepping into the clearing. Unlike Aarya, she didn’t sink. Instead, Shakti floated on the ground.

‘I—’ Aarya scrunched her brows as if she couldn’t explain how she found herself in this predicament. ‘I do not know. Help me, please.’

She extended her hand. Before Shakti could ponder the benefits of having the princess sink into the muddy depths of her own dream, a single spore landed on the princess’s outstretched palm. Amazed, Shakti watched as it expanded, inflated, and morphed into a clear, eight-petalled flower.

The princess sank deeper into the ground as she retracted her hand and stared at it. ‘The Ghost Queen,’ she murmured.

Oh, spirits.

‘The Ghost Queen isn’t real, daughter,’ Shakti said. Taking another step closer, she plucked the flower from Aarya’s hand and crushed it. ‘I command you to stop your search.’

The princess stopped struggling, causing the moss to spread like mould up her legs. ‘Father?’ she replied, confusion apparent. ‘Why are you...? You don’t understand —’

Willing herself to float higher, Shakti rose until her feet were at Princess Aarya’s shoulders. Without a second thought, she bent her knees and placed both her hands on the princess’s head.

To Aarya, it would’ve appeared as though she were being blessed by an elder, for she bowed her head. Shakti smiled inwardly, relishing the power she held over the princess in the dreamscape, and pushed.

Aarya let out a startled shriek.

Paying her no mind, Shakti continued to place pressure over the princess’s head, watching her sink deeper into the ground.

‘No empire will respect you if you chase rarities, daughter,’ she whispered. ‘Power comes from creating fact, not fiction.’

‘ Father! ’ Aarya screamed, arms flailing like a baby bird unable to fly. ‘ Stop, please! ’

Little bird, stop.

Jaya’s voice gave Shakti pause for a moment, forced her to look at what she was doing.

I’m not harming her , she told her aunt. This isn’t real. She’s not being burned alive.

There was no response. The guilt that came with her actions was not so strong any more, perhaps that was why.

Just as Aarya was up to her neck in moss and mud, Shakti saw her hands change. Corded and muscular one instant, thinner and veiny the next. My hands , she realized, before they shifted back to Adil’s.

Glancing down, she met the princess’s frightened eyes. Shakti felt no remorse. Mayakari had died under much worse conditions; at least Aarya would wake up to a new dawn sky.

‘You dream of it, but you don’t deserve the throne,’ she told her softly. ‘Struggle, daughter. Struggle and drown.’

One final push, and Princess Aarya’s head sank like stone beneath the moss.