The Jasmine Throne (The Burning Kingdoms, #1)

by Tasha Suri

“If only I lived in the Age of Flowers after all,” she said dryly, not allowing herself to feel any bitterness. “Then I could have married a woman like the ancients used to. But I could still have chosen to make a home with a nice girl, marriage or no marriage,” Priya added with a shrug.

“Now,” Priya said. “A tale of the yaksa.” She told Malini a simple tale. A story told to children, of a young man, a woodcutter, who was born under ill stars. If he fell in love, his beloved would share his cursed luck. Any man or woman he married would die an early death. “So he avoided other people,” Priya said. “And his family worried about him all the time. And then he told them he’d found someone to marry after all.” “Who?” Malini asked. “A tree.” “A tree?” “That,” Priya said, “is exactly how his family responded. They weren’t impressed, I promise you. But he garlanded the tree like it was a bride to him, and he told it tales and gave it offerings of flowers and secrets, and one day the tree transformed into a beautiful man. It had been a yaksa all along. The yaksa built the woodcutter a mahal of banyan and banana leaf, and they lived together happily. Now, when children are born ill-starred, we give them a first marriage to a tree, so the yaksa will watch over them, and their second, mortal marriage will be sweet.”

Do you think I’m monstrous, Malini?” Priya heard Malini’s footsteps drawing closer. But she didn’t really want to hear Malini’s reaction. She was afraid suddenly that Malini would say yes. So she spoke again instead, the words tumbling out of her. “Because I think you are. Or I’m afraid you are. Oh, you’re so lovely to me, you’re very good at being lovely, but you’re also the woman who organized a coup against the emperor. You’re deep waters, Malini. You’re so much more than you’re willing to show me, and that scares me. I think I’m always waiting for you to turn on me.”

The moment I saw you, I felt a tug. You are the feeling of falling, the tidal waters, the way a living thing will always turn, seeking light. It isn’t that I think you are good or kind, or even that I love you. It is only that, the moment I saw you, I knew I would seek you out. Just as I sought the deathless waters. Just as I sought my brother. Just as I seek all things—without thought, with nothing but want.

“If I had the ability, I would obliterate Chandra,” she said slowly, deliberately. “I would cut off the trade routes that carry him rice and grain. I would burn his fields and destroy his mines. I would take every ally from him—by bribe or violence. And I would kill him. Slowly, and dishonorably. That is what I would do if I were lucky enough to be you, Aditya. To have your privileges. But I would never be you because I would never have rejected my birthright as you did.”