The birthmark on my arm begins to burn. In my mind, the goddess’s eyes glow green, and I am suddenly split in two, observing the scene from two vantage points: my own and Agni’s.
Even though I am still being restrained by Amira, I feel the bind of the rope around Agni’s mouth and head, feel the way her strength is muzzled by the spells woven into it. The air she breathes pricks my insides like ice. Danger, I hear her saying over and over. The little girl is in danger.
I’m all right, I try to tell Agni. I’m all right, Agni, I promise.
Another lungful of air, and suddenly I’m Gul again—only Gul—struggling against Amira, returned to my body. Whole again, I think, until the pain of the woman’s spell makes Agni double over, combines it with my own.
My vision clouds over. The world turns black.
* * *
When I come to, a pair of gray eyes look worriedly at me. “I’m sorry,” Kali says. “I only meant to stop you from hitting Amira, I swear. The spell I used must have been too strong.”
Kali reaches out with a hand again, but I crawl back against the wall. “Don’t touch me.” I force myself to my feet. I now can sense that Kali’s powers do not work if she’s not touching me. I do not need her probing the layers of my mind, discovering that I somehow momentarily slid into Agni’s.
Whispering. That’s what they call this kind of magic, where humans can telepathically communicate with animals. Before the Great War, whispering was a rare magic prized by many, including the Ambari royals. But as time went on and wild animals were domesticated, whispering became less and less important. Animal handling is now delegated entirely to non-magi. There are hardly any whisperers left in Ambar, most having gone to other kingdoms or to lands beyond the Yellow Sea.
For years, I’ve dreamed of discovering my own magic; as a child, I even prayed for it to the sky goddess. I don’t understand why the goddess decided to listen to my prayers now, nor do I understand why she chose to give me this particular power.
Whispering isn’t flashy or showy like the death magic used by Sky Warriors; in fact, few magi think of whispering as a valuable skill anymore. But I can’t help feeling excited by my new ability. If these women try to hurt me …
I glance at Agni, who isn’t moving anymore, and feel my heart sink. My discovery of my own hidden magic has come at a price.
“It’s all right,” the Samudra woman tells me. “Kali won’t hurt you.”
I would laugh, if not for the pain suddenly jabbing the left side of my ribs. Over the past few years, I’ve been hit by fighting spells at several village schools. Other magi children, who saw that whatever magic I had only came out as dull sparks during our classes, often mocked me for not shooting back a spell of my own. Kali’s spell to restrain me was slightly stronger, perhaps, but not much worse.
I hobble to Agni’s stall. I need to make sure she’s unharmed.
“The mare is fine. She’s only sleeping.” The woman’s lie would be as soothing as balm to anyone who didn’t feel the knifeburn of her wicked spell. “Why don’t you come with us?” The look in her eyes is an odd mix of both calculation and concern.
“Why should I?” I reach out to touch Agni’s nose; she is in pain. I can feel it by the way she shivers. “I don’t know you or these girls. How do I know you won’t take me to the Sky Warriors? That you won’t treat me as badly as you treated this horse?”
Surprise flickers through the woman’s eyes. She scrutinizes me, and I’m afraid she can sense what happened to me, the true reason I fainted. But she presses her lips together and says nothing. Instead, she turns to her companions and raises a hand. It is now that I notice the rings: thin, finely wrought marble bands on each finger. Pure white sangemarmar, used to amplify her powers. To my surprise, Kali lifts her sari petticoat up to the knee. Amira turns around, pushing down the shoulder of her blouse. The woman holds up the lantern to each exposed body part, one after the other.
Each girl has a birthmark. A brown one in the shape of a diamond right next to the dagger strapped to Kali’s calf; a black one in the shape of a falling star on Amira’s shoulder blade.
“My name is Juhi,” the black-eyed woman says. “And you must be the girl my shells have been leading me to. The girl from the prophecy.”
Instead of making my heart soar with triumph—Papa was right about me all along—Juhi’s words settle like curdled milk in my belly.
“What makes you think that? They have birthmarks as well!” I say, pointing to Amira and Kali. “One of them could easily be the Star Warrior.”
“I thought for a time that one of them might be,” Juhi admits. “But the shells do not lie. Whenever I asked them to show me the Star Warrior, they led me somewhere else, away from Amira and Kali. According to the prophecy, there is only one Star Warrior, and for a time, I thought she might be from Samudra or another kingdom.
“Yet the shells never lead me outside Ambar. Over the years, I’ve been to different towns and villages: Meghapur, Dhanbad, Amirgarh, and Sur. I stayed in every place for a few months, looking for her. But eventually the shells would grow cold, and I would lose the Star Warrior’s trail all over again. This time, the shells led me to Dukal.” Juhi studies my face, as if memorizing it. “And their magic has never felt stronger.”
My insides coil tight. No, I tell myself. It’s impossible. So what if my parents and I lived briefly in each of the places that Juhi mentioned? It doesn’t mean I’m the Star Warrior.
“The Star Warrior possesses magic unknown to all,” I say, recalling the words of the prophecy. “I can barely do any magic!” I’ve known this since the day I first entered a village schoolroom—and walked right into a battle of spells between two boys. Neither of us was hurt—the magic the boys produced wasn’t strong enough—but it wasn’t my first experience at feeling powerless. “You might as well take me to the tenements to live with non-magi.”
To my surprise, Juhi laughs. “Don’t be silly, my girl. The way you resisted Amira’s magic—a non-magus isn’t capable of doing that. Only another magus is.”
The comment elicits a smile from Kali and an eye roll from Amira.
“Kids at a village school called me a dirt licker once,” I say quietly. When I asked Papa what that was, he was so angry. He told me never to use that kind of language in the house. Ever. That it was a filthy word made of ignorance and fear of non-magi. After I was forced to leave school for my poor magic, Papa taught me at home from his own scrolls, and when he ran out of them, he would buy used scrolls at the bazaar. Just because you can’t go to school anymore, it doesn’t mean you should stop learning, he told me.
“Children only repeat what their elders say.” Juhi’s voice is grave. “Years before the Great War, magi and non-magi lived side by side, they bound with each other, they had children. Many things have changed since then, and the time will come when magi children will pay for their parents’ sins. When that is, I don’t know. The shells do not tell me this.
“But you are not a non-magus, Havovi. You may have suppressed your magic when you were very young, perhaps out of fear of revealing yourself because of your birthmark. Or you may simply be one among the hundreds of other magi girls who aren’t prophesied to save Ambar. Only time will tell.”