![]() ![]() The Ujijain attendant who was supposed to prepare me for my first-and probably last-meeting with the Prince of Ujijain didn’t speak. ![]() Skanda, my brother, would have made sure by now that no hearth in Bharata would welcome me. ![]() Home, where Nalini would have been waiting with a wry and inappropriate joke, her heart full of trust that I hadn’t deserved. Home, with the pockets of wildflowers and sandstone temples cut into the hills, with the people whose names I had come to murmur in my prayers before sleep. ![]() For a moment, thoughts of home choked me. Gauzy columns of fragrance spun slowly through the bath chambers, filling my lungs with an attar of roses. The bath was scalding, but after six months in a dungeon, it felt luxurious. I would have my throne if I had to carve a path of blood and bone to get it back. One might think one armor was stronger than the other, but a red lip was its own scimitar and a kohl-darkened eye could aim true as a steel-tipped arrow.ĭeath might be waiting, but I was going to be a queen. Today I would meet it not in my usual armor of leather and chain mail, but in the armor of silk and cosmetics. Death stood on the other side of the chamber doors. ![]()
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