I grab hold of his arm. “We have to hide you. I could turn you into someone else or—”
“I’ll not go into hiding again,” he says. “And I’m not concerned about Mr. Fowlson.”
“You’re not?”
He places the book on a high ledge by the window. “I’ve changed my mind. I need to know if Amar…I need to know. Do you understand?”
“You’re ready to see the realms,” I say.
“I don’t know that I’m ready,” he says, with a small scoffing laugh. “But I would go. I would see them.”
I offer him my hand. “Trust me.”
Kartik laces his fingers in mine. “Show me.”
“We must be careful,” I say. With everyone watching the performance, the lawn is empty and silent. But I wouldn’t want to draw any attention. We crouch and run low across the grass until we reach the turret of the East Wing. I put my hand out. The air crackles. The door shimmers into view. Kartik’s face shows true awe.
“That is extraordinary,” he whispers.
“That is nothing,” I say. I grip his hand and lead him through the corridor, and when we go through the door, he is a man transformed.
“Welcome to the realms,” I say.
* * *
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
* * *
I SHOW HIM THE GARDEN FIRST, BECAUSE THAT IS WHERE I first came to know this world and because it is so beautiful I want to share it with him. Kartik spins around, his head leaned back. White blossoms rain down, coating his hair and eyelashes like snow. He opens his palms to accept them. “This is the garden,” I say almost proudly. “There is the river. Over there is the grotto where the Runes of the Oracle once stood. This is where the Order ruled, where the Rakshana once ruled with them.”
“I feel as if I’m in a dream.” Kartik strides to the river and moves his hand over the singing waters. Eddies of silver, gold, and pink spring to the surface where he has touched it.
“Look at this,” I say. I blow on blades of grass and they become a flutter of butterfly wings. One lands on Kartik’s outstretched hand before flying away. I’ve never seen Kartik so happy, so carefree. He finds the hammock I wove weeks ago and falls into it, listening to the sweet murmuring of its threads. He rolls the sleeves of his shirt to a point above his elbows, and though it is immodest, I cannot keep myself from stealing quick glances at his exposed arms.
“Would you care to sit?” He offers the narrow strip beside him.
“No, thank you,” I manage to say. “There is so much else to see.”
I lead him through the poppy fields below the Temple, pointing to the high cliffs that rise above us. Etched into the sides are the sensual carvings of half-dressed women that brought a blush to my cheek the first time I saw them. From the corner of my eye, I watch Kartik, wondering if he will find them scandalous.
“They remind me of India,” he says.
“Yes, exactly so,” I say, hoping my voice does not betray me.
Kartik’s gaze dips to my neck and shyly down.
“I should show you the Caves of Sighs,” I say, my voice slightly hoarse.
I lead him through the narrow passage in the earth, up the mountain pass, among the pots that belch their colorful smoke, and to the top. The Hajin bow to us, and Kartik returns the gesture with respect.
“These are the Caves of Sighs,” I say. We pass the engraving of the two hands clasped inside a circle. Kartik stops before it.
“I know this. It’s Rakshana.”
“It belongs also to the Order,” I say.
“Do you know what it means?” he asks, moving closer to it.
I nod, blushing. “It is the symbol for love.”
He smiles. “Yes, I remember now. The hands inside a circle. You see? The hands are protected by the circle, the symbol of eternity.”
“Eternity?”
“Because there is no telling where it begins or ends, nor does it matter.”
He traces the pattern with his fingers.
I clear my throat faintly. “They say you can see each other’s dreams if you place your hands inside the circle.”
“Is that so?” He lets his palm rest just outside it.
“Yes,” I say.
Wind blows through the caves and they sigh. The stones speak. This is a place of dreams for those who are willing to see. Place your hands inside the circle and dream.
I put my hands inside the circle and wait. He doesn’t look at me and he doesn’t move. He will not do it. I know him. My heart sinks with the knowledge.
He shifts his hand inside, near my own. Our fingers and thumbs reach toward each other but do not quite touch, our hands two countries separated by the narrowest of oceans. And then his fingers nudge mine. The stones fade away. A bright white light forces me to close my eyes. My body falls away and I am inside a dream.
My arms shine with golden bangles that catch the light. My hands and feet have been painted in ornate patterns, like a bride’s. I wear a sari the deep purple of an orchid. When I move, the folds of the fabric change color, glistening from orange to red, from indigo to silver.
A celebration is taking place. Girls in bright yellow saris dance barefoot on a blanket of lotus blossoms. Smiling warmly, they dip their hands into large clay bowls, scooping up rose petals, which they throw high into the air. The colorful rain falls slowly, the petals settling in my hair and on my bare arms. The scent reminds me of my mother, but I am not sad. It is too joyful a day.
The girls clear a path for me. They run, tossing flowers until the way ahead is a fluttering spectacle of red and white. I follow them toward blue sky. I am at the mouth of a mighty stone temple as ancient as days. Above me, Shiva, the god of destruction and rebirth, sits meditating, his third eye seeing all. Below me are perhaps one hundred steps. I take my first step and everything vanishes—the temple, the girls, the flowers, everything. I am alone on desert sand, the only blot of color for miles. There is nothing in any direction but sky. Hours feel like seconds; seconds are hours, for time is a dream.
A warm wind rushes past, the grains of sand brushing gently at my cheeks. And then I see him. He’s no more than a speck coming toward me from the distance, but I know it’s him, and suddenly, he’s before me. He rides a painted horse, and his clothes are black and fine. A garland hangs from his neck. In the center of his forehead is a red mark made with turmeric, like an Indian bridegroom’s.
“Hello,” he says. He smiles, and it is brighter than the sun. He reaches down; I take his hand; and the world falls away again. We stand in a garden made fragrant by lotus blossoms as large as beds.
“Where are we?” I ask. My voice sounds strange in my ears.
“We’re here,” he says, as if that answers everything, and in a sense, it does.
He takes his knife and draws a ring around me in the dirt.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“This circle symbolizes the joining of our souls,” he answers. He circles me seven times, stepping into the enclosure on the seventh. We stand facing each other. He presses his palms to mine.
I do not know if I am dreaming.
He slips his hand behind my neck, pulling me gently toward him. His hands twine in my hair and he rubs the strands between his fingers like a fine silk he longs to purchase. And then his mouth is on mine, hungry, searching, overpowering.
This is a new world, and I will travel it.
I don’t know what I should like him to say: I love you. You are beautiful. Never leave me. It seems I hear all of this and yet he says only one word, my name, and I realize I have never heard him say it this way before: as if I am known. The skin of his chest is smooth under the weight of my fingers. When my lips brush against the hollow of his throat, he makes a sound that is a bit like a sigh and a growl.
“Gemma…”
His lips are on me in a fever of kissing. My mouth. My jaw. My neck. The insides of my arms. He places his hands at the small of my back and kisses my stomach through the rough fabric
of my dress, sending sparks through my veins. He lifts my hair and warms the back of my neck with his mouth, trailing kisses down my spine while his hands cup my breasts gently. The laces of my corset are loosened. I’m able to breathe him in now. Kartik has shed his shirt. I don’t recall when it happened, and for some reason, I forget to be shamed by it. I only note his beauty: the smooth brown of his skin, the breadth of his shoulders, the muscles of his arms, so very different from my own. The rose-strewn ground is soft and yielding under my body. Kartik presses against me, and I feel as if I could sink right through the giving earth. Instead, I push against him, feeling warm, till I think I could die from it.
“Are you certain…?”
For once, I do not feel apart. I kiss him again, letting my tongue explore the warmth just inside his lips. Kartik’s eyes flutter, and then he opens them wide, with a look I cannot describe, as if he has just glimpsed something precious that he thought lost. He pulls me tightly to him. My hands grip his shoulders. Our mouths and bodies speak for us in a new language as the trees shake loose a rain of petals that stick to our slickness like skins we will wear forever. And just like that, I am changed.
When I open my eyes, I am back in the Caves of Sighs. My fingers just graze Kartik’s on the stone. My breathing is heavy. Did he see what I saw? Did we dream the same dream? I dare not look at him. I feel his finger, as light as rain, beneath my chin. He turns my face to his.
“Did you dream?” I whisper.
“Yes,” he answers, and kisses me.
For the longest time we sit in the Caves of Sighs, talking of nothing and yet saying everything.
“I understand why my brothers in the Rakshana wanted to hold fast to such a place,” he says. He strokes the underside of my arm with his fingers. “It would be hard to leave it, I think.”
My throat is tight. Could we stay here? Would he stay if I asked him?
“Thank you for bringing me,” he says.
“You’re welcome,” I answer. “I’ve something else to share with you.”
I press our palms together. Our fingers tingle where they touch. His eyelids flicker and then they open wide in understanding of the magical gift I’ve given him.
Reluctantly, I take my hand away. “You can do anything.”
“Anything,” he repeats.
I nod.
“Well, then.”
He closes the small distance between us and puts his lips against mine. They are soft but the kiss is firm. He puts his hand sweetly on the back of my neck and pulls my face to him with the other. He kisses me again, harder this time, but it’s just as lovely. His lips are so necessary that I cannot imagine how I can live without tasting them always. Perhaps this is how girls fall—not in some crime of enchantment at the hands of a wicked ne’er-do-well, a grand before and after in which they are innocent victims who have no say in the matter. Perhaps they simply are kissed and want to kiss back. Perhaps they even kiss first. And why should they not?
I count the kisses—one, two, three, eight. Quickly, I pull away to catch my breath and my bearings. “But…you could have whatever you wished.”
“Exactly,” he says, nuzzling my neck.
“But,” I say, “you could turn stones to rubies or ride in a fine gentleman’s carriage.”
Kartik puts his hands on either side of my face. “To each his own magic,” he says, and kisses me again.
* * *
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
* * *
WHEN WE EMERGE FROM THE CAVES, ASHA IS THERE.
“Lady Hope, the gorgon is below. She would speak with you. She says it is urgent.”
“Gorgon?” Kartik says, eyes wide. His hand moves instinctively to his knife.
“You won’t have need of that,” I say. “The worst she shall do is vex you to death. Then you may wish it to end your own misery.”
Gorgon waits on the river. Kartik gasps at the sight of her fearsome green face and yellow eyes, the many snakes wriggling round her head like the rays of some forgotten sun god.
“Gorgon! You’ve returned,” I say, beaming. I have missed her, I find.
“I am sorry, Most High. You asked me not to seek you out, but it is of the utmost importance.”
My cheeks turn pink. “I was wrong. I spoke too harshly. May I present Kartik, late of the Rakshana.”
“Greetings,” Gorgon says.
“Greetings,” Kartik replies, his eyes still wide, his hand still on his knife.
Gorgon’s slithery voice is tinged with apprehension. “I have been to the Winterlands through a route my people once knew ages ago. I would show you what I have seen.”
“Take us,” I say, and we climb aboard.
I sit at the base of Gorgon’s thick neck, avoiding the snakes that hiss and writhe about her head. They venture too close at times, reminding me that even the most trusted of our allies have the power to maim. Kartik steers well clear of them. He stares at the strange, forbidding world ahead, for we are passing into the Winterlands. Green fog rolls in. The ship slips quietly down a narrow channel and into a cave. We pass under icy stalactites as long as a sea serpent’s teeth, and I recognize this place.
“I have seen Amar here,” I tell Kartik, and his face becomes grim.
“Here,” Gorgon says, slowing to a halt. “Just over there.”
She lowers the plank, and I wade through the few inches of stagnant water to the side of the cave, where something has washed up. It’s the water nymph who led me to Amar. Her lifeless eyes stare up at nothing.
“What has happened to her?” I ask. “Is it an illness?”
“Look closer,” Gorgon says.
I don’t want to touch her, but I do. Her skin is cold. Scales come off in my hands. They’re matted with dried blood. She has a wound—a deep red line at her neck.
“And you suspect the Winterlands creatures?” I ask.
Gorgon’s voice pulses in the cave. “This is greater than the Winterlands creatures. It is beyond my knowing.”
I close the nymph’s dull eyes so that she appears only to sleep.
“What would you have me do, Most High?” Gorgon asks.
“You’re asking me?”
“If you would lead, yes.”
If I would lead. Standing in this forsaken cave with the water nymph’s cold body so near and my friends so far, I must make a decision.
“I want to see more. I want to know. Can we travel farther?”
“As you wish.”
“You do not have to accompany me,” I say to Kartik. “I could return you to the camp first.”
“I will come,” he says. He checks the dagger in his boot.
“Most High,” Gorgon says. There is worry in her voice. “We have come this far without being detected. But I would not go farther without some protection. It might be wise to call upon your powers to aid us.”
“Agreed,” I say. “But I shall need to gift you, so that we might work our purpose together—”
“No,” Gorgon interrupts. “I would not hold the magic even for a moment.”
“I need you, Gorgon,” I say. “It requires all of us together.”
“I must not be freed,” Gorgon says. “As long as you understand this.”
“I understand,” I say. “We shall decide on an illusion and concentrate on only that one goal. Agreed?”
Kartik nods.
“Agreed,” Gorgon hisses.
I board the ship. I place one hand on Gorgon’s thick, scaly neck and the other on Kartik’s arm. The magic stretches between the three of us. I feel as if it is a wave I sit upon and I am not sucked under by it. We are united by purpose and we share the burden equally. I imagine the Viking ship we rode in the Winterlands—the tall sails, the oars. I imagine Kartik and myself as phantoms in tattered cloaks. Our hearts beat in rhythm. When I open my eyes, we have accomplished our task. Kartik and I appear as wraiths. Gorgon is like a statue, her snakes as still as marble.
“Gorgon?” I ask warily.
“I
am well, Most High. You have done well.”
“We have done well,” I say, and the satisfaction is no less for sharing it. “Let’s see what the Winterlands may be hiding.”
Gorgon guides us along the river where it winds through a canyon of black rock. Gray-green brume rises from the water. It thins as we move along, and as it does, I can see more of this strange land than I’ve seen before. Ragged flags marked with red stick up from the tops of the craggy mountains. They snap in the brisk wind, and it sounds like rifles firing. Hollows have been carved into the black rock. Gorgon glides close to one. Skulls are stacked dozens high. My heart gallops faster and faster. I want to turn back, but I must know what is happening.
A school of silver fish floats upon the water, dead.
“Perhaps it is nothing,” I say, uncertain.
“Perhaps,” she hisses. “And perhaps it is something very wrong indeed. I fear some terrible magic is at work.”
A crow circles overhead, a thick black thumbprint in the sky.
“Follow it,” I say to Gorgon.
A roaring fills my ears. We’ve come to a canyon where majestic falls border us on both sides. The water churns and we are buffeted. Kartik and I hold fast to each other and to Gorgon. Sharp rocks poke above the water and I am afraid we shall be dashed upon them, but Gorgon steers us clear, and we pass safely out of the canyon and into a shallow tidal pool glazed with ice. It is littered with bones and the carcasses of small dead animals. The cold wind cannot blow away the smell of death and decay. Small fires burn around the periphery. Smoke billows from them, thick and harsh, and I feel the burn of it in the back of my throat. A mix of ash and snow drifts down. It sticks to my skin. In the distance, an arch in the cliffs yields to the black sands of the plains.
Gorgon edges closer, and I could choke on my fear. For there behind the fires is an army of Winterlands creatures—skeletal trackers in tattered black robes, Poppy Warriors, pale creatures with skin like chalk and eyes ringed in black. So many creatures. I had not realized. This appears to be their camp, shielded as it is by the cliffs. They sit with the dead, who appear dazed and unseeing.