The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

Navigating through the harem was like stepping into a riddle. I slipped off anything noisy-gold bracelets, dangling earrings-and stashed them behind a stone carving of a mynah bird. Silence, I had learned, was also key to spying. Father once said the real language of diplomacy was in the space between words. He wouldn’t waste time on the frivolities of the court, which meant that I had a limited amount of time to get to the throne room and I still had to deal with the most recent tutor. Father, while never on time, was nonetheless efficient. Within moments, my father would reveal his solution for dealing with the rebel kingdoms.

I could never trust the stillness of the harem. In the distance, the great double doors of the harem yawned open and the mellow midday heat crept in from the outside. Light clung to the curved torsos of statuettes and skimmed the reflections from still pools of water. Before me, the halls of the harem glittered, sharp as a predator’s eyes. When the noonday bell rang throughout the palace, even the smells-smoke and petals, salt and jasmine-had disappeared, scraped up by the wind and carried far into the shadowless realm of the dead. The mourners had dispersed as soon as the royal announcement ended and only the flames presided over Padmavathi’s burial. By the time the funerary procession ended, the sun had barely begun to edge its way across the sky. I was no spectral imprint of something that had lived and died and couldn’t leave this place behind.

To everyone else, I was a dead girl walking.

Even then, it was a comfort to know that there were no ghosts in my country. Give alms to the poor, and in your next life you’ll be rich. Do this, so you won’t come back as a cockroach. I couldn’t decide whether I thought reincarnation was a scare tactic or a hopeful message. Lives were remade instantly, souls unzipped and tipped into the streaked brilliance of a tiger, a gopi with lacquered eyes or a raja with a lap full of jewels. * * * In Bharata, no one believed in ghosts because the dead never lingered. In the eyes of the court, there was only one killer- Me. According to the royal physician, childbirth had killed Padmavathi, but no one believed him. They may have covered their lips with silk, but their words were unsheathed daggers. I couldn’t risk giving the wives more venom.

“It’s not right for you to stand at the front.” My jaw tightened, but I stepped back without a word. “Get away from there,” Mother Dhina hissed. I leaned closer to catch his words, only to be yanked back. I see war in the empty coffers, in the tents where once-spirited soldiers await the crematory grounds. I see war in the courtier’s brows, always bent in grief. I see war in my father’s face, pinching his cheeks sallow.

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi