I laughed. “I am no creator.”
“Are you so certain?” she asked, tilting her head. Violet bloomed around her neck, and for the first time I had no wish to see night. I wanted to stay in these stolen hours between sunset and true dusk. “You created this beautiful garden. You create a new tale with every ending. That sounds like the role of a creator to me.”
I had never thought of it that way. There was something freeing in the way she spoke, the possibility of it all. I envied her. If I stood by her side, how different would the world look? Between us, the shatranj board lay forgotten. Faint stars bloomed across the dusky purple of her arm. She followed my gaze and frowned.
“I have to go now,” she said. Perhaps I was deluding myself, but she sounded reluctant.
“This has been … enlightening.”
“That’s quite the opposite of what I do,” she said, gesturing at the darkening length of her body. I tried to look away from her, but my sight kept snagging on the way her full lips danced on the edge of a grin. Or how I’d never seen hair as dark as hers, lush and starless as an eclipse.
I dragged my eyes up to meet hers and found her stare questioning. Curious.
“Pity our game went unfinished, but I’ll take my leave of you,” I muttered quickly.
Her hand brushed against my arm. Her touch was cold and burning. Just as quickly, she withdrew her hand. But she stayed close.
“Tomorrow, I think Nritti will be keeping me company from sunset to dusk.”
“Who?”
“You don’t know her?”
“Should I?”
She seemed stunned by this. Nritti, as it turned out, was an apsara who had earned the nickname the Jewel of the Heavens. They were friends.
“I see. Then I suppose—”
“Come at night,” she said, the words spilling from her.
“I knew you’d want to see me again.”
She leaned closer, placing a cold hand against my chest. My heart raced. She brought her lips to my ear: “Or perhaps I just want my other presents,” she said. “If you remember, I did ask for the moon for my throne and stars to wear in my hair.”
She drew away, but did nothing to increase the distance between us. Mischief flickered in her eyes. Cruel queen, indeed.
“I have not forgotten a single word that has passed your lips.”
“Is that so?” She raised an eyebrow. “I’m glad my words were memorable.”
I reached out, my thumb just barely grazing her lip. She stilled as I bent my head to her ear: “It wasn’t the words.”
*
When I left, I left with the taste of her laughter and the sound of her thoughts. I left with the scent of her hair clinging to my skin. I left imagining the world seen through her eyes. A world of stories folded quietly between stars, where the ink of night poured star-touched dreams into the world and whispered to the earth of all the things it could be the next day.
When I left, I understood a shard of human grief. Not the pining or the despair. But that bone-deep craving to spend a moment longer with someone.
4
NIGHT
I would not have you any other way.
Above me, the sky was on fire. The sun’s last rays illuminated the land, but the light stretched thin and haggard. I hugged my bright red knees to my chest. I glanced hopefully at my skin, searching for a telltale stain of blue. Nothing. I sighed. There were still hours left until nightfall. I walked to the glass garden right outside my grove and sat in the middle of its wonder. Around me, flat flames burned inside the translucent petals. Light crested off crystal buds, dancing from flower to flower before breaking on the inside of a garnet lotus. When the light broke, all I could think of was how every piece of this garden had been crafted from a shard of hope. A gardener long dead had hoped that someone he loved would see how every blossom and beauty was for her alone. And the Dharma Raja had remade that. For me. Hope—that colorless light—snuck into the fissures of my thoughts and bloomed. But what that hope wanted to grow into, I couldn’t quite name.
“I have so much to tell you!” hollered a voice from outside the grove.
I leapt to my feet in time to see Nritti gliding toward me. She stopped short at the sight of the glass garden.
“What is that?” she asked, frowning.
“A gift.”
“From who?”
“Not important.”
“Tell me.”
“You’re the one who ran—”
“Flew,” she corrected.
“Flew into my grove about having so much to tell me. You first.”
I still wasn’t sure whether I would tell her about the Dharma Raja or not. I still wasn’t sure what it meant. The garden was a beautiful and thoughtful present, but it wasn’t a vow. And I wouldn’t marry without love. And it’s not like I loved him. I hardly knew him.
Having sufficiently talked myself out of revealing anything, I fixed Nritti with an expectant stare.
“I saw Vanaj yesterday,” she said.
The blind princeling. I nodded.
“He is like … a cold winter breeze when you need it the most on a summer night.”
“Did you tell him that?” I cringed. “If I were Vanaj, I’d wish I was deaf instead.”
Nritti smacked my arm. “I am sharing my emotions!”
“Could you do it without bad metaphor?”
She exhaled. “I like him. He is sweet. Kind. Funny. He listens to me the way no one else has.” Nritti darted a glance to me. “Well. Not no one.”
“I understand that,” I said softly. “I’m happy for you, sister.”
“I thought … I thought maybe you wouldn’t be.”
“Why?”
“Because then we’ll spend less time together and I know that it can be too quiet for you here, by yourself. And what if you’re in the Night Bazaar and I’m not there? Who is going to decipher your foul sense of humor?”
I smiled even though her words stung. “Don’t worry about me. Less time together isn’t no time at all. And besides, we have an infinite amount of time.”
I didn’t tell her the other thought weighing in my head. Vanaj was a mortal, with a mortal’s life span. Many kings lived until they were as old as eight hundred, but they always died in the end. No matter how much she loved him, they were already running out of time together.
Happiness turned her beauty from striking to transcendent. Whatever dying light was left in the sky rushed to illuminate her.
“Thank you,” she said, squeezing my hand. “Now, tell me about this person.”
I revealed as much as I could without giving away who he was—the game of shatranj, the ease of our conversations, even his beauty. And at the end, Nritti said nothing.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, sister,” she said quietly. “Sometimes we women are our own worst traps. Our hopes snatch us like quicksand. Our loneliness forges a cage. Sometimes all it takes is one sweet glance and kind word to make us forget ourselves. I just don’t want to see you trapped.”
I bit back any hurt. Perhaps she was right. What if what I felt was nothing more than all my collective loneliness rising up at the first sign of affection?