A Crown of Wishes (The Star-Touched Queen, #2)

by Roshani Chokshi

His fears were his own, weren’t they? He’d spun them out from himself. He’d forged them from every hurt and fury. Fear was a reminder that even the insubstantial could kill. But insubstantial meant it had no shape. It couldn’t be conquered or tamed or avoided. Only moved through, with force and will. Vikram crouched, his fingers splayed on the ground, his breath forming icicles in the air. His fears bore down. Sharp. Hungry. He grinned. I made you. I own you. He repeated the words like a mantra, until he found the strength to stand … And run.

In the middle of war, the mind and body either fused or fractured. I’d seen men fracture right before my eyes as some final horror—sometimes a delicate thing, like a wedding bangle trampled in waste, or sometimes a terrible thing, like a body at the mercy of carrion birds—broke them. I survived by forcing every emotion so far down that there were days afterward where I had to dig my nails into my palm and draw blood just to know I was there. In war, I knew only movement and stillness. Life and death.

One part of me screamed that it felt too easy. And the other part screamed: Who cares? I stood there, caught between my past self and my present. I wanted to be strong, but showing strength wasn’t always about physical valor or even cunning. True strength sometimes demanded unstitching everything you knew. I unstitched myself. I turned myself blind to what I expected, and what I would have done had I never met Vikram or been forced to reckon with magic. I turned my back on the image of him floating facedown in the pool, ignoring how cowardice chased me.

While I’d been eating fear, it had tasted me too. I felt like a bone licked clean.

I used to think fear either numbed or nudged. Now I knew fear did neither. Fear was a key that fit every person’s hollow spaces—those things that kept us cold at night and that place where we retreated when no one was looking—and all it could do was unlock what was already there. Fear unlocked flames within me.

Our two trials required us to break free of fear and conquer desire. When Kubera told us that we were to find the key to immortality, I imagined something grand and coveted. Something that would make kings fall to their knees and even the gods would hide jealously. What we ended up with was everything and nothing like what I expected. Kubera took the ruby gently, reverently. He clasped both palms over the stone and when he opened his hands, a scarlet bird flew into the darkness. A story. This was the key to immortality. The thing that made kings quiver and deities distrustful: Nothing but a tale.

Vikram had never been pious. He believed in the stories because he needed to, because he had to hope that if there was one place where he belonged it was in some celestial framework. He needed to know he wasn’t some hiccup of fate. But for the first time, he felt a rush of something holy. There was a whiff of the sacred in all this darkness, a pulse that felt new and ancient. When he jumped into the dark and pried the ruby loose, calm had spiraled through him. Maybe he would never be anything more than a thread in the tapestry of fate. But he and Gauri had done something worthy of immortality’s attention. No one could take that story from him.

Now that the initial victory had worn off, the trial had left him spent and cold. He hoped magic would make him feel chosen for something, remarkable in ways he hadn’t realized. Instead, he discovered that magic hid her fangs behind fables. The stories of his childhood were not ways to live, but ways to see—a practiced blindness. And now he saw everything.

Gauri called out to him. “What about the other contestants?” Kubera stopped walking. He did not turn to face them as he said, “Oh, they woke up beneath trees or facedown in streams or perhaps not at all if they did not seem like appropriate vessels for stories. If you can’t tell a good tale, you’re of no use to me.”

The moment they left, Aasha sank into her chair, folding her hands in her lap. A wish? She had never considered the possibility that there might be something she could finally decide for herself. All her life, she and her sisters had shared everything. It made sense that they would assume that even a wish won by one of them would be something to share. Guilt twisted through Aasha. She didn’t want to share this.

Aasha wasn’t sure about being kind or brave, but she had certainly been curious. More and more, she had spent time out of the tent, pushing farther through the surrounding forests and not returning until she knew her presence would be missed. She couldn’t help it. There was so much to see, so much to try to capture before they would have to leave. Just the other day she had found a shrub full of bright blue berries. Before, if she ever tried to eat anything other than the desires of the yakshas and yakshinis who visited her, she would end up with the taste of ash in her mouth and immediately vomit. But this time, the berries had stayed bright and plump in her palm. Blue as shards of the heavens. And when she chewed them, flavor burst behind her lips: syrupy and sweet. Small seeds lodged themselves in her teeth. It had taken forever to get them out, but she savored that anyway. Neither frustration nor flavor had ever accompanied the feeding of a vishakanya. There were no words or experiences to capture sweetness—it felt like an innocent memory, something stumbled upon and too easily forgotten. A smile, interrupted. Edible poetry, indeed. After that, she caught herself rolling her tongue across the roof of her mouth, hunting for every ghost of that flavor.

The beasts forced open the jaws of the dead. The scent of stale death filled the air. It reminded me of the battlefields. Even though the stench disgusted me, it was familiar … even welcome. I didn’t revel in death, but I didn’t hate it either. Death had raised me, like an older sibling. Amid death, I had found my bearings as a soldier. Surrounded by death, I had found my place as a leader. And so when the small white story birds tore themselves from the mouths of the deceased, I watched instead of cowered. And I wondered how long those stories had been trapped. Whether they stank of rot. Or whether they smelled like rain, free and unburdened.

All this time, he thought magic had chosen him. Maybe magic never chose. Maybe it had always been about the fit. A key latching into a hole. Maybe there had been just enough holes in him for magic to slip through and hook him like spurs into cloth.

Kubera grinned. “Oh yes! But do not think that I had any hand in your success. I merely wanted to watch! And then, oh, perhaps I did feel a little attached to your soft hearts and your lingering looks. You were only bones and wanting. Exquisitely lovely.” “There’s more to us than that,” said Vikram. “To be sure, Fox Prince, to be sure,” said Kubera, waving a hand. “That was why I selected both of you.”

“Will you tell me a story, didi?” I asked. Maya nodded. I curled against her, resting my head in her lap as I used to do. And she braided my hair as she used to do. The sun poured gold into the sky. I couldn’t remember the details of the story Maya told me. But when she finished, I felt whole. Sometimes when you stare at a thing for too long, the moment you close your eyes, you can see the outline blurred in light. That’s how my heart felt, clinging to a last image and letting it illuminate

The horror of my hand poured through me, slow and thick. I couldn’t fight. I. Couldn’t. Fight. I shook my arm, trying to dislodge it. As if it were an insect. But the hand stayed. It stayed. The crystal caught the light. Held it. My throat tightened. Fighting was the last connection I had to Maya. Her stories made me brave. They made me see the world differently, fight for the world I wanted to see instead of the one I had. And my hand, even if it was only a part of that dream, had been … important. A flurry of goodbyes I’d never be able to utter choked me. I’d never know the weight of wielding both daggers at the same time. I’d never catch the scent of iron on my palm after a practice session. I wouldn’t even have the chance to worry calluses at my hands, because the glass would never wrinkle. “This is my sacrifice?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from shaking. My skin felt tight with shock. Fighting was my solace, my grip on control that couldn’t be taken from me. In Bharata, the battlegrounds were the only place where I could be myself. And Kubera had stolen that peace.

Even though I knew we were still in Alaka, I couldn’t sense the magic in the air. There was no curious weightlessness to the world, as if it were waiting to draw back its curtains and show me the wonder beneath the rot. The world stank only of death. Iron and salt and once-bright roses. Water strung through fish bones. I thought that the moment I’d won, my breath would catch and stars would pave my path. Instead, all I could think of was my own bone-weary exhaustion and the fact that I didn’t know myself anymore.

“You don’t have to make your wish now,” said Kubera. “But when you return, remember to tell a good tale. Make up details! I do love that. Perhaps you can tell the world I was a giant! Or that I rode on the back of several eagles. Actually, no. I never liked heights.” “Was it all just a story for you to collect?” Kubera tilted his head to one side. “It is impossible to collect a story. After all, the intersections of a tale and its consequences are far larger than you might ever imagine. May I tell you a tale?” I nodded, and he spread his hands as the imagery on the floor shifted. “Some tales that never end start with something as simple as an act of impulse and end with something as evil as an act of love.”

Aasha had wandered through the courtyard, circling the vishakanyas’ tent for most of the night until she summoned the courage to enter and reveal what she had done. She switched between her human and vishakanya self, bracing herself for disgust. But her sisters’ embraces were nothing but warm, though they were careful to make sure they could touch her. They pressed their true names to her wrists, and enchanted bracelets sprouted around her arms: protection spells and keys between worlds, charms for beauty and wealth, for good health and better dreams.

I wasn’t as nimble as I used to be. But there was some advantage to training with the left hand. People always defended themselves from a right-handed attack. The left surprised them. I liked being a surprise.

“I wonder if this is what Kubera wanted,” he murmured into my hair. “As an ending for us.” “Not an ending,” I said, raising my head. “A beginning to our story.”

Above us, something fluttered. I looked up and caught the edge of a scarlet wing. From here, I couldn’t tell whether one of Kubera’s story birds had followed us or whether it was just an ordinary bird hopping through the trees. But I did know that somewhere our story was taking flight. Maybe it had already traveled, from mouth and ear to mind and memory. And perhaps that in itself was the great secret—not just for legacy, but also for life. You could carry a story inside you and hold it up to the light when you needed it the most. You could peer through it, like a frame, and see how it changed your view when you looked out onto the world.