Yes. Only time will tell if I will be anything apart from the girl whose very existence killed her parents. My throat pricks, my ribs growing tight.
“So.” I pause, unsure how to phrase my next question to these strange, dangerous women who have offered me an escape route. “Who are you?”
Kali laughs out loud. Even Juhi’s lips nudge in the direction of a smile. Only Amira seems unamused, her scowl deepening. In the background, their horses nicker. Agni nudges my shoulder protectively; I stroke her velvety nose.
“People who do not know us think we are ordinary Ambari women. Seamstresses. Midwives. Farmers. Mothers. Daughters. People like your zamindar will offer us food and shelter in exchange for a walk through the fields or a night in their beds.” Juhi’s eyes harden. “Of course, deceptive appearances are a must in our line of work.” She holds up a hand. There, right in the center of her palm, I see a golden tattoo shaped like a lotus.
“Do you know what this is?”
Warriors. My heart skips a beat. Protectors. “You’re the Sisterhood of the Golden Lotus. But I don’t understand. Do the Sisters … do you all have birthmarks?”
Juhi lowers her hand. “No. Only Amira and Kali. But I don’t limit the Sisterhood to marked girls. There are other women as well who need saving, who need to escape their pasts.”
I sense Juhi is now talking about herself, but I don’t have the courage to ask her about it.
“Long before I was born, my parents had another child, an elder sister I never got to know,” I say instead to fill the silence. “Ava, her name was. One day she came home sick, feverish. On the advice of the village healer, my parents took her to the big hospital in Ambarvadi, to see one of the vaids there. But even he couldn’t diagnose the cause of her illness or prescribe a cure.” With the exception of the gods, vaids, who train for several years in the art of healing and life magic, are our last barriers between life and death.
“The vaid told my parents that the sky goddess had called Ava back early, that the best of us died young. Ma would not accept it. After Ava died, she fasted for a whole month, praying to the goddess for justice, until she finally collapsed in the temple. When she came to, Ma said she had seen the goddess herself. The goddess had granted Ma a boon: a daughter. I was born ten months later, during the Month of Tears.”
People say rain poured from the sky every day of the month that year, infusing the land and the crops with magic. Men danced in the village square until their long white tunics and dhotis were drenched, their mouths open to the sky. Women caught one another by the wrists and twirled in circles outside, in the rain-soaked earth.
“My parents were so happy when Ma got pregnant.” My voice catches. “I wish she hadn’t. I wish I was never born.”
Outside, a pair of dogs begin barking, cutting through the heavy silence that has fallen over the room.
“Every birth has purpose,” Juhi says. “And yours is important or the Sky Warriors would not have come to this sleepy little village to look for you.”
She walks to a corner where their belongings are heaped together, and from the pile, she pulls out a small, sweet-smelling bundle wrapped in cloth. Even through the layers, I can smell the richness of nutty mawa and honeyweed and ghee, my dry mouth watering almost instantly. I am too hungry to care or be embarrassed by the way I fall upon the moon-shaped kachori, devouring the first one so quickly that Juhi gives me three more in quick succession, saying nothing even when I pick the flakes of fried dough out of my clothes and lick the sugary grease off my fingers. Slow down, Ma would have said. Slow down or you’ll be sick.
Hot tears slide down my cheeks.
None of the three Sisters who watch me eat speak a word of comfort. They quietly turn away when I begin to cry and talk among themselves—Kali making an exception by getting up to fetch a cup of water from the clay pot in the corner when I begin to hiccup. I can see, even through my grief, that this is a move neither Juhi nor Amira approve of. They glare at Kali, who only shakes her head.
“The girl has lost both mother and father,” she says. “What do you want me to do? Ignore her?”
“She’s already too soft,” Amira says. “Useless.”
My eyes dry up. Once again, I feel the strong urge to bite Amira. Instead, I wipe my face with the cleanest part of my sleeve.
“Are you from Ambarvadi?” I ask Juhi.
“We live in a village called Javeribad. A few miles west of Ambarvadi.”
Ambarvadi, the capital. A city glittering with houses made of marble and sandstone, havelis that make Zamindar Moolchand’s mansion look utterly ordinary. It is said that magic is so concentrated in Ambarvadi that the glow of it blots out the stars with its brilliance. A couple of miles from the city, King Lohar lives in a sprawling fortress on a high hill.
“Is Ambarvadi really the way people say it is?” I’ve always wondered if the stories our teachers told us are true or mere embellishments. More propaganda courtesy of the new Ministry of Truth established by King Lohar—an organization that monitors and controls the publication of all information in Ambar, from royal proclamations to scrolls of children’s stories.
“It is exactly that way. Which only makes it more dangerous.”
I think of the one and only portrait I saw of the palace—or a part of it, at least. A tall building in the shape of the sky goddess’s own crown, its tiered towers clustered together like sweets on a tray, the very tops of it hidden by mist, except for clear, sunlit days, when you could see its gleaming points and grilles and dust-pink domes.
“Does Raja Lohar live there?” I remember asking my father.
“No,” Papa said. “Ambar Fort is a giant complex consisting of two big palaces and several other buildings grouped together. The palace you see from the city of Ambarvadi is Rani Mahal, where the queens live. The king lives in Raj Mahal, a palace on the other side of the complex.”
Some say that Raj Mahal is a mirror image of Rani Mahal, but built with black marble and rainbow-hued metal called indradhanush. Some say that the king’s palace is made of firestones, thunder, and clouds. No one really knows, as no portraits are allowed. Some secrets were paramount to the king’s safety. Even then, I had the sense that Papa knew more about those secrets than he was telling me. And now I will never be able to ask him what they are. I swallow against the tickling sensation in my throat, barely holding back a fresh bout of tears.
Useless. My heart burns when I think of what Amira called me. I am not useless. I am not weak.
I recall King Lohar’s portrait that hangs in every school, every hospital, every government office, and even some private homes. The king is seated on a cushion, cross-legged, wearing a deep-blue angrakha embroidered with gems, matching narrow trousers and a sash. His cheeks are tinted with gold dust to indicate royal blood; his jootis, crafted by the kingdom’s finest shoemakers, are decorated with shimmering threads of indradhanush. Crowning his head is a turban of blue silk, set with a plumed ornament made of an enormous firestone in the shape of a teardrop.
I don’t know how I will do it, but one day I will meet Raja Lohar, I vow. And when I do, I will kill him.
“What do the Sky Warriors do?” I ask Juhi. “To the girls who are taken? Do they really drain them of their powers?”