Page 4 of The Prince Without Sorrow

Chapter Three

Shakti

I N SEVEN PAINFUL HEARTBEATS, THE WORLD BLED INTO violence around her.

Soldiers unsheathed their swords and charged towards the crowd. Shrieks erupted around her as people scrambled to get back, to run and hide away in their homes. To burrow into a place where they couldn’t be found. Bodies shoved against bodies, parents stopped to hurry along a fallen child while others stopped for no one, abandoning bravery for the need to survive.

Shakti was quick. She scampered into an alleyway, wanting to unhear the sound of metal slicing into flesh, and shuddered at the screams that were silenced under the gleam of a sword.

‘I won’t die,’ she whispered as a hiccup burbled from her throat. ‘I won’t die.’

Clambering past a fruit vendor’s stall emptied of its usual ripened mangos and furry rambutans, she held her breath as she ran. The bow and arrow were a crushing weight against her back. She wished she had her sword, too, but it was hidden in her room, locked inside an intricately carved wooden chest. She was almost tempted to rush in the opposite direction to find it but that same soft echo of her aunt’s voice in her head stopped her from making a grave mistake.

Any sensible person would flee, little bird.

Flee. Yes. That was what she needed to do. There was no way to escape from the northern gate. The soldiers had arrived from there and it would be heavily guarded. Escaping out into the empty roads served no purpose, either. Likely, she would be shot down by arrows like a deer wandering out into open plains.

No, the only haven for a mayakari was the wild forest.

Back to the paddy fields , she willed herself forward. Her legs were still sore from combat training, but fear made her body forget. She skittered between small dirt paths, hands slapping against wood as she careened past the entrance to the rice fields. The steep decline made it easier for her to increase speed. Sticking to the grass was the smartest option, otherwise the stone-scattered path would create more noise. She could still see Master Hasith’s face, the exact moment the light vanished from his eyes. It was impossible to believe that he had just been training with her.

The smell of smoke became ten times more pungent. Shakti turned to see that her tiny mountainous community had quickly become a landscape painted in hellfire. Houses and buildings were being set alight, the smoke rising into the tepid night. Within minutes, she had seen more death than in all her twenty-two years combined. She could only hope some got away.

Muscle memory continued to drive her legs forward. Stalks of rice trampled beneath her feet and water soaked her slippers – there was no time to worry about running along the bunds to keep the plants undisturbed. There would be no one to care for them when the morning came.

The forestland grew bigger the closer she came. Populated by towering Na, Ironwood, Banyan and Sal trees, the wild forests covered a vast stretch of land. Within it, there roamed nature spirits, almost all minor, and three Great. No one – man, woman, or royal – would dare burn it.

When she reached the edge of the forest, Shakti turned just in time to see two figures coming the way she had. Others had thought to flee here, too. They were almost halfway there, so achingly close. Shakti blinked and, in seconds, the running figures were shot down by a barrage of arrows.

Stumbling back, Shakti’s outstretched hand slapped against the bark of a tree trunk. She pressed her palm to her lips and retreated further into the forest. She was out of range to shoot the emperor’s men, and there was no taking chances. Terrified cries continued to batter the night, ricocheting like echoes in an underground cave. And with each her chest tightened.

Shakti didn’t stop running until the screams became part of the din. She found herself beneath a Banyan tree and slumped against one of its hefty buttresses. Roughness scraped against her back, but she hardly registered it as pain. A minor inconvenience, at most. True pain came from her shattered heart. It was still rampaging, like an ox trying to break free of its enclosure.

Her breath came out in strained puffs. Leaning back, she allowed her body to relax as best as it could. Her mind was still an ongoing explosion of fireworks, so Shakti decided to close her eyes. Meditate. The first deep inhale did not come clean; it sputtered. On the second, it reduced.

Shakti focused on her breathing until she felt the rapid rise of her chest give way to something slower, more assured. Her tears had long since dried. They didn’t spring to her as easily as anger did. And though her breath settled, Shakti’s mind continued to taunt her. Her aunt’s burned sockets stared back like an angry demon. They screamed at her, asking why she had left her alone. Why did she leave her late at night to fight ?

Because not fighting would have had me end up like you, aunty .

The truth hurt, only because it had taken casualties with it.

‘ Human. ’

Soft. Sweet. Tinkling like a wind chime and jittering like a baby robin. The voice that spoke to her came out of a gaping black mouth with shimmery white eyes. Perched on the buttress above her was a pale blue creature with a spherical head and no neck. It bobbed like a raft on ocean waves atop a miniaturized infant’s body. A minor spirit.

‘ Hello ,’ Shakti replied. Anyone who was not a mayakari would hear birdsong or flutes during their conversation. Such was the language of the nature spirits. They were not made to be understood by humans who never learned to appreciate the natural world. ‘ Forgive me, spirit. I seek shelter by your tree. ’

The spirit answered by stretching its mouth into a half-moon and moving to perch on her shoulder. She felt a sudden flash of fear, the aching of foot soles, the warmth of a hollow. Heat. Relief. Minor spirits preferred non-verbal conversation, but that tended to vex her. Words were blunt and sure, but images contained too many possibilities.

From this spirit’s answer, she gathered that it promised safety and she welcomed it.

The spirit’s body cast an eerie blue glow that shone on her slippers. Shakti reached down to wipe away speckles of mud and grass but that did little to get rid of the uncomfortable feeling of water sluiced between her toes. Her navy cotton trousers were also damp at the hems.

The glow turned brighter. Images of a forest followed, burning. Unable to be revived. Dark tunnels closing in around her. It could sense that she felt despair.

‘ Yes ,’ Shakti said hoarsely. She cursed herself for the hitch in her voice. Meditation should have worked. It should have stopped the shattered pieces of her heart from cutting into her skin. It should have blunted her misery. Sitting here with the nature spirit, however, did nothing to assuage her. The little creature was a reminder of her aunt. The forest was a reminder of her aunt, of what she had taught her. That the world was not anyone’s to claim, that it was not theirs to possess. Memories of days and nights spent shaded beneath the towering canopy made Shakti hug her knees to her chest.

She was a mayakari. Such misfortune was expected in the Ran Empire. Danger was a promise. Inevitability did not make it any easier to swallow.

Irritably, she rubbed her eyes, lashes stuck together, teardrops clinging for dear life like a drowning man holding onto a rope. She was crying. Again.

This is no time for tears , she reprimanded herself. She fought with her mind, with that part of her that wanted to curl up into a ball and die. Or hide. She couldn’t just give up. She knew how to fight.

‘ The emperor killed my family ,’ she told the nature spirit. Red-hot rage pooled in the pit of her stomach, and she welcomed it. Sadness had no place in her heart. It would only make her weak, and weakness would get her killed. Complacency would get her killed. ‘ And here I am, hiding. ’

Its response was a flash of grey. A question: what is the alternative?

‘ I could run away ,’ Shakti said. She could travel further east to the vast stretch of the Vihara Mountain ranges that separated the Ran Empire and the kingdom of Anurapura. It would take weeks to get there, and the terrain would be treacherous, but safety could be guaranteed at Anurapura. At least, that was what Jaya had told her. ‘ I could keep myself alive. ’

But as she said it, something felt wrong.

Running away is still an act of courage, little bird .

It made perfect sense. It was logical, given her circumstances. But what was courage to Shakti? Surely, it wasn’t running away. Hiding. Lying low.

‘ Or I could fight back ,’ Shakti said, feeling a little foolish. What could she fight – an army? A monarch? An empire?

The minor spirit finally retorted verbally, and in sentences. Perhaps it disliked her response. ‘ Mayakari do not fight ,’ it fussed. ‘ Mayakari should not fight. ’

Abilities to speak to nature spirits, to curse the living, to raise the dead. Three great powers but only one regularly used. Jaya had always asked her to avoid using mayakari abilities to harm others. They were more sinister than simple weapons; they brought on bad karma and an unpleasant rebirth. To Shakti, it made no sense. If humans attacked with fire and swords, she could equally attack them with curses, karma be damned.

Why did she have to follow rules that seemed ridiculously antiquated? What was the point of limiting themselves like this?

This reality was a desert where nothing could thrive. It forced her to bury her sadness in a clay pot. It made her hands itch for her weapons.

This was Emperor Adil’s doing. This was his fault. Her aunt, Master Hasith, Dharvi, Laila – all were dead, and the townspeople suffered the same fate. Shakti only wished she could force that same fate on her so-called emperor.

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

Jaya was wrong; violence should be repaid with violence. Doing nothing was the mayakari way, but it would not be Shakti’s way. She couldn’t sit here knowing that justice was left to time. She could resist. She could fight.

She could curse.

If she didn’t there wouldn’t be any mayakari left. The emperor wouldn’t stop until they were all dead. She’d seen the fire in his eyes. Pettiness might not have been in Jaya’s nature, but it was in Shakti’s. Perhaps it was time to use the cursed language. And who was a better target for her venomous grief than the man who had so casually ruined her life?

Around her, fireflies flickered in and out of existence like miniature suns. Like ideas, they materialized and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Shakti could not imagine being a harbinger of death. How could she take a life and do right by Jaya? But how could she not? Jaya had been loyal to the mayakari ways, she had been faithful and now even her corpse was lost, cinders at the bottom of a mass grave. How was that right? How was that natural? How was that fair ? Was that the reward for obeying the precepts?

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

No. No longer.

‘Curse,’ Shakti whispered. The word came out soft and unsure like a freshly birthed calf struggling to walk on its awkwardly long legs. She had never cursed, had only been taught the language and its basic rules, but that was all she needed.

She curled her hands into fists. Curse. The words needed to mature faster and saying them aloud with conviction helped. ‘ I’ll make myself a promise ,’ she told the nature spirit. ‘ And you, little creature, will bear witness. ’

Another image, this time of flowers suffocated by weeds. For a moment, she felt her breathing stall as if the same vexatious weeds had wrapped around her throat, pressing against the skin until she was black and blue. The feeling vanished when the spirit jumped from its place upon her shoulder. It fell like a feather, slow and gentle, and she watched as its pale feet touched the ground. There were no footprints left behind. It tilted its head at her, expectant.

Shakti took a deep breath. Held it. ‘ I will curse Emperor Adil for his crimes ,’ she said, this time with more force. ‘ I will welcome vengeance where others have not. My aunt, Master Hasith, the mayakari, the people of Kolakola – their deaths will not be in vain. That is my promise. ’

The spirit offered her a sad smile before it vanished.

Shakti stood up. Her body felt less wracked, more jittery. The night air was still tinged with smoke, the quiet as stifling as a head cold.

Bow clenched between her hands, Shakti set off through the forest, listening for the sound of soldiers at her heel.