A Crown of Wishes Read online

  Pururavas’s shoulders fell, and Vikram softened. His father could coax a wild leopard to rest its head on his lap, but he could never persuade the council to make Vikram a true king. Decades of complacency had sucked the marrow from the Emperor’s voice. The throne room should have been a seat of power, but in his father’s reign, it had become a playpen of wounded animals.

  “I received the council’s word that you would always be well provided for, and that you would receive a pardon within the next year should things sour,” he said, his voice wavering. “You would maintain status, be granted land. And I hoped that perhaps we might take advantage of your role as king to find an advantageous marriage—”

  “No.”

  Vikram’s hand fell to his side, hitting his pant leg. Something sharp met his palm. The ruby. Play the game and you may yet win your kingdom, not just the husk of its name. He’d stayed here long enough. Fire ran through his veins. He could change this life.

  “I will do as you ask, Father.”

  Pururavas raised an eyebrow. “What do you want in exchange?”

  “Am I so predictable? Do I never give without getting?” asked Vikram, grinning. “Now that you mention what I’d like, that does remind me that I would like to leave for a month before taking the throne. In the empire’s history, it is customary for the heir to spend a month away in meditation. You did the same yourself, Father. Puppet king or no, the council should at least want me to maintain an illusion of decorum.”

  His father eyed him shrewdly, and then he sighed.

  “For someone so decidedly against tradition, what has brought this on?”

  “Patriotism?” tried Vikram.

  Pururavas folded his arms. “Patriotism is not the reason. Where will you go?”

  “I know where to go. I need to figure out how to get there.”

  “You speak in riddles.”

  “I always did have a way with words.”

  “One month,” said the Emperor, his eyes glassy with tears. “I cannot buy you more time than that. But tell the Princess. The council needs to know you spoke with her.”

  Vikram grimaced. “On the eve before I leave, you want me to condemn a girl to death?”

  “You wish to be a king, do you not?”

  Vikram left his father’s menagerie. The guards led him down a hall painted a bright and vivid red. He twisted his hands. The last thing he wanted before he left was some inconsolable princess begging for her life. He’d never met her. What would he say? “A pleasure to meet you. Also, my kingdom is going to execute you at dawn. Goodbye.”

  He bit back a groan, swung open the door and plopped into the first chair. The Princess Gauri stood near the windows, her body blocking out the light. She was tall. Nearly as tall as a man. But it was her eyes that stopped him. They were as black as winter nights. Black as sleep. For a second, they transfixed him.

  Before he could speak, she ran toward him. Her mouth was smeared blood-like. And if she looked like a dream, it was only to distract his mind from realizing that she was a nightmare.

  Something glittered dangerously in her hands. Vikram rolled out of the chair. Behind him, he heard a series of curses and then a snapping sound. The Jewel of Bharata had broken the chair leg and was now holding it over her head. He looked up, ready to reason with this mad princess, and his breath caught. Glittering motes clung to the air around her. She glowed.

  Find the one who glows, with blood on the lips and fangs in the heart.

  And then she spoke:

  “Come near me, and I will kill you so swiftly you will have no time to cry for help.”

  4

  THE FOX PRINCE

  GAURI

  My plan with the pearl dust hadn’t worked. Never mind. I had something sharp in my hands, and that’s all that mattered. I cast a quick glance over the Prince. No weapons belt. Only a person who’d never supped at the table of fear would refuse to carry a knife. Coddled, pampered prince. He’d probably never fought for anything in his life. I cast a quick glance at the door. No sounds. No one was coming for him. If I needed to, I could end him right now and still slip out of the halls before the drunk guard woke up from the end of his shift. But the Prince might still have something useful on his person, maybe an heirloom of a brooch or decorative scabbard that I could sell in a market for at least a dozen mercenaries.

  Candlelight shone behind him, sending his features into an inscrutable blur. He was a gathering of lean limbs. Young, beardless, broad-shouldered and slender. He didn’t even bother rising to his feet after he’d rolled out of his chair. Instead he sat up, leaned forward and steepled his fingers. His fingers were long and slim, tapered and clean. He had the hands of a scholar. Not a soldier.

  “This is quite possibly the most exciting meeting I’ve ever had. Do continue.”

  My shoulders dropped. “What?”

  “You have demands, I imagine. Let’s hear them. I entered the room resigned, and now I stand intrigued.”

  “You’re sitting.”

  Brilliant observation, Gauri.

  He glanced down. “Too true. My intrigue is entirely supine. But I’d hate to make a liar of you. May I stand?”

  I lowered the broken chair leg to his throat. “Go ahead. But if you try to scream, I promise it won’t even leave your throat.”

  He stood. To his credit, he didn’t blink or tremble. Maybe he was brave. Or criminally stupid. He angled his body to the light and I studied his features. He couldn’t be much older than me. Dark hair fell over his brow. Golden brown eyes latched on to mine. He was handsome in a way that made me want to kick him on principle. And then he tilted his head. Fox-like. There was something of the trickster in his expression—wry mouth, pensive eyes.

  “Thank you, Princess.” He bowed gingerly, mindful of the chair leg. “Obviously you want something or you would have killed me on the spot. Or perhaps you couldn’t. I heard rumors that you’re a rather accomplished soldier, but between you and me, we both know that the reputations of royals are largely falsehoods.”

  Annoyance prickled across my skin. My life was filled with princes like him. Sometimes I’d even dispatched their marriage proposals with a single glare. I forgot how long it had been since I’d had a formal meeting. When they kept me prisoner, all I could do was shout my demands—water, clean linens, more food—and now I’d practically forgotten this dance of veiled threats and gilded words.

  “I want to get out of Ujijain,” I blurted.

  Subtle.

  He should have balked and flatly refused. Instead, he lifted one eyebrow as if to say: Is that all?

  “How uninspired. You were supposed to be the heir to the throne of Bharata,” he mused, “and now you have nothing. Yet all you ask from me is safe passage? Don’t you want more?”

  Of course I wanted more. I wanted my throne and my people’s safety. I wanted freedom from Skanda.

  “They sent me here to tell you that you will be executed,” he said quietly.

  I wasn’t shocked. Skanda had told me as much when he caught me: “Think of it this way, sister. Your death might even be useful. We may have a new ally if they do as I demand.” And then they had me gagged, bound, tossed into the back of a chariot and dumped over the border, where an Ujijain search party found me at dawn.

  The Prince was staring at me strangely. No man had looked at me that way. Men had looked at me in admiration, in fear, in lust. They’d looked at me with disbelief at who I was. He looked at me with disbelief at who I could be.

  “I want you—” he started.

  I glowered, pressing the chair leg into his neck. “I would die before I let you touch me.”

  “What an improvement. First it was me who would die. Now it is you who offers to die before touching me,” he said. “Another man might be insulted. Now, if you would allow me to finish—”

  I glared.

  “—I will give you your freedom and more in exchange for your aid as partner … in a game.”

  Molten longing
lit up his gaze. I could see straight down to the scrabbling, hungry wish in his eyes. It ignited me. Because I saw it in myself.

  “What kind of game?”

  He hesitated. He turned something in his fingers, a rather large ruby that shone with its own light.

  “A magical game.” He tossed the ruby into the air and I caught it.

  “What is it?”

  “Proof. Of magic. If you’re convinced by it, then I hope you will join me,” he said matter-of-factly. “Like you, I have everything to gain and nothing left to lose.”

  Madman.

  This was foolish. I had half a mind to knock him over the head with the chair leg and escape while I could. The ruby in my palm quivered, casting a scarlet light that swallowed my gaze. It was as if someone had hooked a thread through my spine and pulled up. I was out of myself. Out of this room. Out of, it seemed, time itself.

  The ruby held a promise. I saw myself on the throne, Nalini standing beside me with her head held high. I saw a world without my brother and traitorous Arjun. This magic felt like I had glanced at my destiny sideways, as if I had never seen it for what it was and now the hope of what I wanted most loomed bright and lurid in the corners of my heart. I had glimpsed enough of magic when Maya disappeared to know what it should feel like—a whisper and a roar, a wonder fusing into the bones, forcing you to believe that you could never live without it. When the light released me, I felt boneless with want.

  Prince Vikram plucked the ruby from my hand, eyeing me wordlessly. I dropped the chair leg. My breath was thin and cold, rattling in my chest. I had believed in magic ever since I saw the impossible: my sister returning from the graveyard of Bharata’s memories and disappearing into the Chakara Forest. But recognizing enchantment and feeling it surge within me was different. The ruby felt like a summoning. A seam twisting open inside my heart, taunting me with all that could happen if I only dared to seize it. And yet … terror cut through those imaginings. That … that thing had reached into my heart and held up my hopes to the light as if they were nothing more than pieces of colored glass.

  Ever since I lost Maya in the forest, I hated magic. It swallowed people whole the way it swallowed my sister. Instead of leaving me a body to mourn, the Otherworld had left me with a chest full of caution and a string of nightmares.

  Even if enchantment could help me, I wanted nothing to do with it. I would forge my own victory. No magic necessary.

  “Well?” asked the Prince.

  I eyed the large ruby. I could sell it for gold to buy an entire crew of mercenaries. And if I killed the heir of Ujijain, our two countries would enter enough turmoil that I could slip into Bharata unnoticed, free Nalini and leverage the chaos. Skanda wouldn’t know the first thing about warfare. Only I would be able to keep them safe. But first I had to get out, which meant that I needed this fool of a prince to free me under whatever pretense was necessary.

  “Tell me about this game.”

  He smirked, thinking he had won.

  “It’s called the Tournament of Wishes. The winners get a wish. Isn’t that more tempting than just freedom from Ujijain? If I freed you, you’d have as much luck as a beggar during a famine. But imagine what you could do with a wish? You could have your throne back, Princess. I am guessing you lost it since your own people want you dead.”

  My throat felt dry. A wish. In that second, I felt my sister’s hand reach through time to grasp my fingers. Her storytelling voice, like dusk and honey, poured through my thoughts:

  … they say the Lord of Treasures hosts a tournament for the very best and the very worst, the dreamers and the broken. He’ll play a game with you unlike any tournament you have ever played. You might have to find your true name in a castle of stars, or wrestle your voice from a demon, or sip poison and eat fear …

  My sister had spun me that tale when I was seven. I’d never forgotten it. But I forced down the desire to entertain it. I wouldn’t place my life at the mercy of magic. I’d spent enough of my life under Skanda’s control. I wouldn’t trade one tyrant for another.

  “The Tournament itself is held in a city of immeasurable treasure and wealth. I doubt many have heard about—”

  “Alaka,” I whispered. Only when I heard my voice did I realize I’d spoken the name aloud. My hand moved to my necklace.

  Vikram looked at me sharply. “How do you know that?”

  “Does it matter?” I snapped, dropping my fingers. “I know it’s a kingdom in the Otherworld. The palace of yakshas and yakshinis. They’re said to be the guardians of treasure found in trees, rivers and caves.”

  He blinked.

  “It’s also the home of Kubera, the Lord of Treasures and the guardian of the North,” I muttered.

  “So you are a scholar and a soldier. How unusual for a princess.”

  I laughed. “The women of Bharata are singers, artists, soldiers and academics. I’m no different from them.”

  “How do you know those stories?”

  “I have ears,” I said. He didn’t get to know about Maya. “You’ve told me what I’ll get out of this wish, but what about you? You’re the heir, what more could you want?”

  For a moment his expression clouded before he shrugged gracefully. “I want everything.”

  I recognized a deflection when I heard one, but his secrets meant nothing to me. Turning the ruby in my palms, I found a small engraving on the jewel that had not appeared until now. It was the outline of a man crawling on his hands and knees.

  “It’s a ticket. For two living entries into the game.”

  “Not two living exits?”

  I cursed inwardly. Why was I even asking? I had no desire to play this game.

  He grinned. “I asked the same question. Perhaps winning is the only way to leave. So. Princess Gauri, Jewel of Bharata and former heir to the throne. Will you be my partner?”

  Absolutely not. I glanced at the ruby in my hand. The moment we were out of Ujijain, I would kill him and take the jewel. I eyed his rich clothes. Those would fetch a good price too. And if I stole his clothes and cut his throat, his death would look as if a robber had gotten to him. No blame on Bharata. I smiled.

  “How long do we have to get there?” I asked.

  His smile was all victory: “New moon.”

  “That’s in three days.”

  “Admittedly, I am not quite sure how to get there,” said the Prince, steepling his fingers.

  “Did you ask the ruby?”

  His eyes widened. “Princess, you have depths of genius untold! I would have never thought to do the most obvious thing. Go ahead and ask it how to get to Alaka. See what answer you get.”

  I was well and truly going to maim him. I muttered the question at the ruby. The jewel spun and a length of parchment erupted from the crystal:

  Alaka is past the place where memories devour and the held-breath place to put an end to cowards.

  I may have wanted nothing to do with magic, but it still did something to me. The words of the parchment wrapped around my heart. When I blinked, I heard Maya’s voice in the dark, spinning tales of grand adventures that would always find their way into my dreams later. But the memory of her collapsed into shards of nightmare. I would never know what happened to her.

  “Helpful,” I said, trying to keep from wavering.

  “I’ve been thinking about it nonstop. We need an entryway into a place of magic. At first I considered entering through cremation grounds, but I have no desire to end up in Naraka—”

  “Do you know where to go or not?” I asked impatiently.

  “Can we truly know anything?”

  I rolled my eyes. “How soon can we leave?”

  “Not so fast, Princess. I want you to be my partner, but I need a demonstration that your reputation is more than rumor. I can’t defend both of us and I have no problem admitting I’d let you die.”

  “At last, we’ve found common ground,” I said sweetly. “I feel the same about you.”

  He stood up, br
acing his legs in what I assumed he thought was a fighting stance. But his balance was off center and his legs were not bent far enough to withstand an impact. His posture was nothing but posture. “Disarm me.”

  “I do not prey on the weak.”

  “That’s not what I hear.”

  Wrong thing to say. I feinted left. He fell for it. Naturally. He was not much of a fighter or strategist. In seconds, he was on his back.

  “That does not count,” he wheezed. “I was disarmed by your beauty.”

  “You were disarmed by a swift kick.”

  “That too.”

  He moved to stand, and I placed my foot on his chest. “I will not perform for you or anyone. Never ask me to do something like that again.”

  He stared at me. “Are you done?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I get up?”

  “No.”

  “I see you like your men with their egos gutted.”

  “Only when I’m feeling generous.”

  He laughed. “My apologies.”

  “We leave by nightfall,” I said. “And I want my weapons and clothes back.”

  He tucked his hands behind his head like a pillow before glancing at the ceiling.

  “Fine. Now can you kindly remove your foot from my chest?”

  5

  A GOLDEN APPLE

  GAURI

  The Fox kept only half his word. When I got back to my prison cell, my clothes had been discreetly tucked beneath a loose wooden tile. I still didn’t have my knives, not that I blamed the Prince. It was, perhaps, the first intelligent thing he’d done. Now all I had to do was wait until nightfall when he would—allegedly—spring me from this prison and we would escape.

  For the first time in months, I let my mind wander toward the hope of returning to Bharata. When I returned, there would be no question of who the throne belonged to. My brother would either sink to his knees or fall to them in pieces. Nalini would be free.