Arjun's sword lay at Alia's hip, slapping her thigh with each careful tread through the dense woods. Beads of sweat spilled down her back in lazy rivers — her blouse drenched. Her shoulder muscles were stiff and ached, and Nandini's bandaging meant her mobility was limited. Alia's breathing came out in dry rasps only hours into their journey.
Yet she refused to stop.
She trudged along, desperate to put as much space between her and the Crown Prince. Everything made sense now. Yadav had sent the bandits. Yadav wanted her dead and the connection to the Gods eliminated. With her head on a spike, they would have free reign to trample over Maurya.
A new vigor rushed through her blood. She had always been fighting for her people. But now she was protecting them, too.
Their spat with Arjun — as well as Nandini's careful healing of her wound — had taken up valuable time. And the noble woman was slowing them down, though Alia had managed to bite her tongue. Yelling at the woman would not speed her up, but Alia's patience was slipping away like a kite caught in a stiff breeze. They would not reach the entrance to the caves until morning, which meant they would have to spend a night in the forest.
The very idea made her skin crawl. Though the labyrinth had its own horrors, the creatures in these woods, particularly the closer you got to the caves, were the stuff of myth and legend. Even as the sun shone bright in the sky, its rays leathering the skin of her back, she could hear strange animals. Occasional loud bangs ripped through the air, sending jolts down her spine.
But the voices were worse.
The birds in the forest were terrifying, like they had been plucked from children's nightmares. Their feathers were darker than the night sky, and Alia's fingers trembled at the thought of listening to their haunting songs when she could not see them.
For the birds carried the warnings of ghosts.
"Oh, please listen to our tale of woe,
Look at the wanderers, how they go,
So sure in step, but one move faux,
And the Reaper's face soon they'll know."
The demon-birds sang their cruel tune like it was a jig, tittering amongst themselves when they finished. Their batting wings mimicked applause.
"I wish they'd stop," Nandini cried, clasping her hands over her ears.
The song — and the birds — was relentless, dogging their every step. A part of Alia wanted to drive her new toy into their hearts and eat them for dinner, but she did not want to test these monsters. They would peck out her eyes. She was sure of it.
They continued their methodical march through the jungle. Alia had long ago given up on smacking the mosquitoes that picked at her skin, and red bumps lined her arms. She desperately wanted a sip of water, but Vikram guarded their canteens like they were Yadavan prisoners.
Nandini had plotted out a new route following their encounter with Arjun. As she wrapped her bleeding neck with gauze, the scholar had said, "If they have their own academic — and I'm sure they do — they'll expect us to follow the creek. It's the safest, surest route, but there are other paths to the caves."
Neither Vikram nor Alia had argued with the noblewoman, but as they continued their ascent, her mouth tasting like burnt firewood, she wished they had just killed Arjun and followed their original path.
You don't mean that.
Maybe she did. Alia knew far too little about this adventure, but one thing was certain. The caves held enough dangers. They didn't need a murderous gang of Yadavans chasing after them.
Fear laced down her fingertips as she considered the Yadavans. She did not want to think about the implications of how Maurya's greatest enemy came to know of her lineage. Alia could count on one hand the number of people who were supposed to know she was the lost princess. Could one of them have betrayed her?
Her eyes fell on Vikram. The distrust came by instinct. Years of running away from Kshat guards had trained her mind as such, but even Alia could see past her bias. He had saved her from the bandits (though Alia was still adamant she could have managed on her own). Though she could not deny that Arjun would have killed her had Vikram not arrived.
The thought of relying on a Kshat made her uneasy. Discomfort tugged at her stomach. She felt off-balance. Unnatural. Every part of her screamed its disapproval at the situation.
But she wasn't just a girl from the slums anymore. Alia didn't know what her future held if they managed to complete the ritual, but it certainly didn't include a return to Toshalwar. She imagined the Queen would train her for a few years, tutor her in the ways of proper etiquette and politicking. Alia was the only heir to the throne. She had a responsibility, even if she resented the burden.
Alia fell into step beside Vikram. They would need their own plan to deal with Arjun, and she didn't exactly want to loop Nandini — and her naive moral code — into their scheming. Alia stole a glance over her shoulder. The scholar had fallen a bit behind. Still in sight, but out of hearing range. Perfect.
"We need to do something about the Yadavans," she murmured under her breath, watching Vikram's arms flex as he brought his sword down and hacked away at the vegetation blocking their path.
He nodded grimly. "I know."
"What do you know of the Crown Prince? Surely there are some weaknesses we can exploit."
Vikram shrugged, his jaw clenched. "I'm not a soldier or a planner, princess. Just some muscle. If you want to know more about Arjun, you know who you have to ask."
"And you know why we can't ask her," she hissed back. "She hasn't seen what we have. She thinks the rules protect all of us."
Nandini was a sweet enough girl, and Alia had quickly grown fond of her, but she had not forgotten their differences. Even though she had spent a few years in the college, Nandini had always had a safety net, a home to go back to. And the rules — the holy code — were promulgated by men like her father, who created these notions of honor in order to mask their other failings.
Perhaps she was too cynical, but, in all her years, she had never seen a clean or fair fight — no matter the parties. Whether it was two noblemen who had challenged each other to a duel, or a scrap in a back alley, when it came down to it, everyone fought dirty.
"We should have killed him when we had the chance," she added under her breath. The birds had resumed their song. Between that, and the voices in her own head, she was certain she would go mad before they ever reached the labyrinth.
He shot her a stern glare. "We are better than that."
"And what good has come of it? He's tried to kill me twice now. His people killed the King years ago. And our country starves because people like him believe they are better than us." The words were laced with poison; her blood hummed with rage.
It was the one thing she had taken away from her time at the orphanage. Her burning hatred for Yadav, one that had only intensified in the past quarter-moon. They were a wretched people, breaking off from Maurya — a country that had given them so much — in a turbulent time of transition.
Fifty years ago, the Queen, Priya Maurani, had died, and she had not named a successor. Her two sons battled fiercely for the throne. The merchants backed the future King Keshav, and, with their support, he was able to outlast his brother, who was eventually executed for his crimes against the crown.
That should have been the end of it, but unrest had blossomed in the South. The farmers had valid concerns, Alia could admit that, believing that the King was now beholden to the people who had secured him the crown. But the Southern nobles, a particularly selfish brand of people, smelled power. They beseeched Pennmyr for help and received it. And King Keshav did not want another war.
But, without their farms, Maurya starved. Over the next five years, thousands died, thousands more starved. The teachers at the orphanage told terrible stories, their eyes glazing over as they recalled their hardships and suffering. Their hands trembled as they described eating rat stew in order to survive. Subsisting only on water for days on end. Even the wealthy were touched, though less so.
And Alia could see the impacts of the famine to this day. Their elders, what few they had, were shorter than average, with hunched backs and missing fingers — gnawed to the bone in the depths of their hunger.
All the while, Yadav had sat back and watched. The King, her Grandfather she supposed, had begged Yadav for aid, offered land, gold, and recognition for food. But they had refused, finding a twisted sense of joy in Mauryans wasting away to nothing.
They were a heartless breed, and she would never forget that. And now that she knew who Arjun was, she hated herself even more for her initial attraction.
Vikram sighed. "I hate them as much as you do. Which is exactly why we could not kill him. That would have made us Yadavans."
She frowned, wanting to argue but deciding against it. Yadav won because they were decisive and unrelenting. They had claimed independence, conquered the border towns, won the goodwill of Pennmyr, and, for all intents and purposes, were a prosperous nation.
"Okay fine, no sense in arguing about what's done. What do we do now? They're still after us."
He glanced back at Nandini. The mountainside was steep, and the branches and foliage easy to trip over. There was no doubt in her mind that Nandini was far too preoccupied with traversing the terrain to eavesdrop.
"I have a plan, but we'll need to steal her map first." VIkram grinned at Alia, a broad smile that reached the corners of his eyes. "I'm sure you can help with that."
Finally, something she was good at, but she could not shake the pang of guilt that struck her chest.
"Can't we just tell her? Her map is detailed, but no one can read it like she can."
Vikram raised his thick eyebrows, bemused. "Well, well, well, princess, since when did notorious liar Alia Preet get a conscience?"
She glared at him, her fingers itching to throw a twig at his head. She really hated the way he called her princess, as if it was some great cosmic joke. Not that he was wrong.
"That's not it," she huffed. "It's just... She's part of the team now. I don't like lying to her."
"She's not a risk-taker, you know that."
"She is quite literally trekking through the Purti Mountains, about to go through a deadly labyrinth of caves. I'm not sure she can take a bigger risk." Yet even as she snapped back, Alia knew he was right. Nandini was driven into the caves by her own academic desire, an inner burning for knowledge that could not be quenched. Her being here was inevitable. But Nandini would avoid additional detours from the road as best she could.
Vikram just stared at her, waiting for her to arrive at the same conclusion.
"Fine. And then?" she prodded, already feeling her fingertips tingle with anticipation, her body abuzz with readiness.
"Nandini said there are many different routes through these mountains. I'll carve a few trails, some misleads, into the terrain. We just need to make it through the night. They won't be able to follow us in the caves."
The plan felt too defensive to her. She did not want to bide time. She wanted to make a move, attack, hurt them, land a crushing blow. Anything but stall. But, she had no other plan of her own, and she had to be mindful of their limited resources. Too much exertion and they would die of dehydration.
"Okay, and what excuse will you give Nandini? You can't exactly disappear."
Vikram rolled his eyes, pretending offense at her disbelief in him. "Easy. We need to refill our canteens anyway. I'll tell her I'm headed to the creek."
"Then just say you need the map for that and leave me out of it!"
He pursed his lips at her, growing more frustrated with her incessant questions. "Alia," he said sternly, with all the exasperation of a peeved Kshat guard. "For once, use your head. To get to the creek, all you have to do is follow the setting sun. And there are plenty of floral markers along the way. She's not giving up the map for a route as easy as that."
He was right, and she hated it. "Fine," she muttered, not making an effort to hide her rage. They barely trusted each other as it was. If Nandini ever discovered this, she would never forgive them.
Which is why she can't find out.
Stealing the map was depressingly easy. The scroll had little weight, so she did not even need to replace it with anything. In fact, it barely even counted as stealing, as Nandini offered her satchel to her with an easy trust, happy to shift the weight of her burdens onto someone she deemed a friend.
But while it broke Alia's heart, it was also a healthy reminder of why she couldn't trust Nandini. She was too gullible, too foolish. One way or another, and probably by accident, she would betray them.
Alia slipped Vikram the map, who quickly stuffed it down his dhoti.
"It's going to be dark soon," he announced, turning to face Nandini. "I'm going to refill our canteens now."
The scholar nodded, taking a long sip from the near-empty flask. Alia finished it off, the water a cooling salve against her throat and calming her addled mind.
"Be careful," Nandini said softly, grazing his upper arm with a gentle touch.
He smiled back at her, his eyes warm. He's trying to protect her, Alia realized with a start. He thinks this is an honest lie. Something you tell to spare feelings.
Alia disagreed. This omission suggested neither of them respected Nandini enough to tell the truth. And perhaps they didn't. Alia admired the woman's courage, and even her bravery for embarking on this quest, but, when it came down to it, she was not a fighter. That wasn't her fault. She never had to be.
"I'm serious, Vikram. Meet us at the site before dark. We don't know what creatures come out at night here," Alia emphasized, reconsidering their plan. She was alright in a fight, but she was no blade master, and Nandini could not be counted on in a skirmish. Vikram was indispensable.
"Worried about me, princess?" Alia wanted to smack the smug look right off his face.
Maybe she didn't mind if he went and got himself killed.
She scowled at him, shooing him away. "If anyone has earned the right to kill you, it's me. You're not dying until I exact my revenge."
"Try not to miss me too much!" he called over his shoulder before disappearing into the thick jungle.
By the Gods was he annoying.
Alia's only concern now was making sure Nandini did not miss the map. She didn't think it would be too difficult. The scholar was struggling to make her way up the steep incline and had fashioned a walking cane out of a sturdier branch. Alia doubted she had the mental wherewithal to read the map, and they were closing in on their destination.
"We're getting close," Nandini gasped from behind her, clutching her cane. "According to Ma Yashoda's diaries, there is a clearing just before the cave, surrounded by iridescent purple flowers, with large petals and silvery centers. We should start seeing a few now. Just follow them."
VIkram was right. There were unseen paths all over these woods, floral markers for the trained eye. Yet she found no comfort in this assurance that they were on the right trail. She couldn't shake the feeling that the flowers were leading them straight into a trap.
And the birds began their mournful song once again.