“Ketu’s ship leaves at dawn. He wishes to see you first.”
Scroll case in hand, she followed Malin to her father’s room. Despite his injuries, her father had dressed in his Silat uniform, a hideous black and yellow suit that he must have thought looked solemn.
Chandi tossed the scroll case onto her father’s bed. And waited.
“Malin, carry my luggage to the ship,” her father said. “We’ll follow in a moment.”
When the Macan Gadungan had left, her father turned to her. “I suppose I owe you answers.” Chandi said nothing. “Do you know where the Moon Scions come from?”
Chandi shrugged. “After the gods created mankind, Chandra came to a human woman and loved her. We are their descendants.”
Her father eased himself back to the bed with obvious effort. “That’s the story. But the Moon Scions come from the Astral Temple. We found the secret there, in the old script, on the pillars. The Amrita makes the Moon Scions.”
“Amrita?”
“Nectar of Chandra. He chose us as his human disciples, gave us the secret to brew the Amrita. We can only distill it at the Astral Temple. This is why I must go. Must begin production immediately.”
Chandi’s mind reeled. Everything she’d known about herself was a lie. “What does that have to do with malaria?”
Her father coughed for a moment. “I gave you the Amrita when you were very young. You’d have died without it. Gave you more than we had to spare, to save you. Rahu was furious. He’d given his own daughter so little. We had to ration it.”
Chandi tried to swallow. They had changed her, while denying her cousin strong Blessings. No divine blood. No grace of the gods. “We… lie to everyone. Tell them we’re the blood of Chandra so they follow us.”
“They follow us because we’re strong. The Moon Scions learn the truth when they have children of their own. But I could have died today, and then you’d never know. Not with Rahu like this. I sent the priests to brew more Amrita as soon as Malin took the temple. Our supplies are exhausted. We’d lose everything without the temple. You understand what’s at stake, now, daughter? Our very way of life will collapse.”
Chandi slumped to the floor. She didn’t have the blood of a god in her. She was no better than anyone else. She’d been given a magic drug, and called divine for it.
Her father must have read her face. “We are the chosen of Chandra.” She shook her head but he continued without noticing. “We guarded our secrets too closely. We need more Moon Scions to match the Solars.”
“So now you’ll take more? Become stronger?”
Her father’s eyes went wide. “To take more is a short road to lunacy. No, it can only be given to someone new.”
The very nectar that gave them the power of a god brought them lunatics. Fitting. “What makes you think Chandra wanted any of this?”
His jaw tightened. “The script on the pillars. It’s older than us, than our people. Chandra wrote that script for his children to find.”
Chandi scoffed. The same pillars that gave the Solars the Sun Brand. “We should go if you want to make the ship at dawn.”
Chandi helped her father from the palace and down the harbor, ignoring the way he watched her. She’d find a way to keep the peace.
She would not lose Naresh.
Malin waited on the pier, by a ship bound for the Lunar trade ports on Puradvipa. A short trip from there to the Astral Temple.
Rain had come and gone at night, but the dawn came clear. The cawing of seagulls filled the air as the birds searched the docks for spoils.
Chandi waved farewell to her father. She and Malin remained standing on the pier long after the ship had drifted from sight. Even as it had become crowded with Solars about their day’s work.
When she turned from the sea, Malin followed, as she knew he would. “I need your help, Malin.”
“Past time you saw that. We have much to offer one another.”
“You saw what I saw yesterday. Rahu has gone lunatic. He once sent me to kill Anusapati for that.”
“I hope you’re not asking me to kill the War King. Even if I could, it would mean chaos through the Lunar Empire. Only your father could attempt it, and, obviously, he is not up to the task. Rahu is the most powerful Moon Scion I’ve ever known.”
They wound their way past Igni porters and entered the tube to the Civic District. Chandi tried not to glare at Malin. He spoke the truth. “One day my father will have to challenge him. He’ll have to. And I want you to support him.”
Whatever mistakes her father made in judging the Solars, he was her best hope. He had to see peace was best for all.
Malin grunted. “I’ll want something in return for that.”
Chandi nodded. They’d speak of this more. But she needed to return to her room, now that she knew what was in that vial. She dared not let it out of her sight again.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The harbormaster haggled with a Lunar captain about docking fees. Or perhaps the harbormaster set exorbitant fees, and the Lunar captain merely complained. Either way, he paid the fees.
Chandi had sought Naresh all morning. If she told him of the Amrita it might earn his trust. It might also sabotage the hold the Moon Scions held over her people. Perhaps that was justice, after twelve centuries of lies.
But Naresh had gone to escort Ratna. On the first sunny day since the rainy season began, Chandi’s cousin had decided to bring Revati to the harbor, if only to escape the domes. The smell of sea salt and shellfish almost overwhelmed Chandi. Even if she had grown to tolerate the fish as meals, the uncooked stench turned her stomach. Hundreds of small fishing jukungs came and went. With the sun shining overhead she could see all the way to the seafloor. Children swam under the docks, harassed by the watchmen to stay out of the boats’ ways.
During her first year in Kasusthali the arrival of any Lunar ship would have caused a stir, but such things had become far more common as the peace drew on. Despite her uncle and her father’s protests about the Solars holding the Astral Temple, the three years of peace had seen more stability and prosperity for both sides than the decades before. But had she, or the Solars, understood about the Amrita, they would have known no such peace could last.
Chandi left the Lunar dhow and continued down the boardwalk. And there, Revati sat, dangling her legs over the side of a pier, leaning against a line. Her mother stood nearby, talking to another Lunar captain. Perhaps Ratna thought he could spirit her away to freedom. But surely no captain would take that risk.
Ratna hadn’t invited Chandi along, but if her cousin brought Revati here, Naresh would be nearby. She saw him staring out over the sea, then glancing down at Revati every few moments.
Chandi blew her breath out through her teeth and waited for her heart to slow. When that didn’t happen, she walked down the pier to join them.
“Chandi!” Revati called, waving.
“Hello, Revati.”
The girl climbed up from the edge as Naresh turned around, his mouth open. Revati leapt into Chandi’s arms and she spun the child around once before setting her back down. Ratna looked over, then turned back to talk to the captain without so much as a nod. So be it.
Revati dragged her back to the lines and pointed down into the clear waters. A dugong swam about beneath the pier, exciting giggles from the girl every time it came into view. The sea cows didn’t often come near the busy harbor, though Chandi had seen them as a girl when her father had brought her down from their mountain home to the seaside. This lone dugong, apparently unafraid though surrounded by Solar ships and fishing boats, gave her pause.
“Where are the rest of its kind?” she asked Naresh.
“Away, farther offshore. They usually travel in herds. This one must be lost, or very brave.”
“Maybe both,” Chandi said as Naresh turned away. She watched the dugong for a time before she spoke again. “Please Naresh, I need to talk to you.”
“I have to watch them.” He glance
d at her, his eyes unreadable, then turned back to the sea. The dugong had swum out of view, so Revati leaned forward, searching for it.
“There are a dozen watchmen in easy reach. And I’m not going to give up, no matter how much you try to hide.”
He hesitated, then turned to face her again and slipped his hand around her wrist. She followed as he pulled her away, down the pier, away from Ratna and Revati. They couldn’t have true privacy here, but the side of a net-maker’s stall gave the closest they could hope for.
Though she had rehearsed it a dozen times in her head, she didn’t know where to start. “Rahu,” she began, watching his reaction. “My uncle, you can’t trust him.”
Naresh folded his arms over his chest, then leaned back against the stall.
How could she tell him this? She loved him, she couldn’t let Rahu destroy him. “When the Moon Scions overuse their powers, they can go lunatic. They become paranoid, power-mad, addicted to the Moon Blessings.”
Naresh pushed off the wall and put his hand on her shoulder. “Your uncle?”
She nodded. “He’ll never let the Astral Temple go. Never.”
Tell him. Tell him about the Amrita. Chandi reached for the vial tucked into her baju.
“I spoke to my mother,” Naresh said while Chandi debated. “She forbade my ever being with a Lunar, much less breaking off the engagement to Landorundun.”
Chandi’s face felt flushed. “Then you do want to be with me.”
His hair swayed as he shook his head. “What I want doesn’t matter. I have my duties. Landi might have agreed to end the engagement, but my mother won’t allow it. And I have to respect her wishes.”
“What in Chandra’s name are you talking about?” She ignored his cringe. “She doesn’t respect your wishes, so why should you respect hers? What does duty mean if you’re miserable? I did my duty and it cost me everything. You think you can have happiness if duty always comes first?” She glared at his sudden smirk.
“Sorry. You sounded like someone else who once spoke on the subject.”
“I love you. And you feel the same, but you’re marrying someone else.” She put her hand on his cheek. “Please, Naresh. You won’t be happy with someone you don’t love. Don’t waste your life in a loveless marriage.”
For a moment he took her hand in his, then drew it down from his cheek and released it. He opened his mouth as though to speak, but then shook his head and walked by her.
Damn him for walking away from her. And damn her if she’d let him. “Naresh!” she called, chasing him back down the pier. “Wait.”
He stopped then, but he didn’t turn around. “You have to let it go, Chandi.”
“Maybe when the ridiculous Solar wedding is over.” Ratna was looking at her, but she didn’t care. “Maybe when it’s all over. Until then, I might surprise you.”
“You won’t surprise me.”
She drew her Moon Blessing and shoved him off the edge of the pier. For a moment he flailed his arms and cried out. Then from midair he vanished. The sudden shove on her own back was all the warning she had.
None of her Blessings would help her when she was already falling through the air. The impact smacked her like a fist; saltwater rushed in her nose, burning her throat and sinuses. The water was only a dozen feet or so deep, so she kicked off the bottom and surfaced, coughed and sputtered the seawater from her throat. While treading water she looked up at him, watching her from the pier.
“Maybe you did surprise me,” he said, his eyes full of sympathy, “but you’re the one who fell because of it.”
After catching her breath, Chandi swam to the pier ladder. Ratna looked down at her, then just shook her head and dragged Revati along behind her, the child giggling all the way. Water streamed down Chandi’s face. How dare he?
Naresh had followed Ratna and Revati off the pier, away from the harbor. They left her standing there, dripping and alone.
So he would turn his back on her? The one person she thought she could trust. Now she knew she was alone. Only she could stop the madness of both Empires. With lunatics and fools guiding them, no wonder they had reached this point. But she would fix it all.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“I’ve been looking for you,” Chandi said as she approached Malin. The tiger leaned against a tree in the palace’s rooftop garden. Chandi might once have thought of this as a place she shared with Naresh, though she had seen Malin here more often.
“I like the fresh air.” He waved at the ground before him, so she took the offered place, sitting with her legs crossed.
Well, then let Malin have the garden. Naresh didn’t deserve it. If he couldn’t see something good when he had it, he didn’t deserve any of it. But then Malin could never show her the wonders Naresh had here.
The sun would set soon, closing the first sunny day in weeks. By the look of the clouds, rain would come tonight. Soon.
“Tell me about my uncle.”
“I tried to offer you alliance before. You slapped my hand away. If I help your father oust the War King, will he treat my people any better? His ambition rivals even Rahu’s. Worse, he’s a religious zealot who thinks the Moon Scions deserve to rule all other beings.”
Chandi scowled, then turned to face the sea. “I know who my father is.”
She felt Malin rise behind her. Her shoulders trembled when he put his hands on them. “Do you?” he whispered. “Can you promise me a better place for my people in the new Lunar Empire?”
If she couldn’t, if she refused him, they might never unseat Rahu. Her mind’s eye revealed the Solar and Lunar Empires ablaze, destroying each other in war. No, she would save the Skyfall Isles. And Malin would help her do so.
Malin was right. More right than he knew. She had her Blessings because something was done to her. Malin was the same. At last she nodded and pulled Malin back to the grass beside her. “I will see your people liberated, Malin. Now tell me about my uncle.”
Malin took her hand. His touch was rough. “He’s not your uncle.” Chandi cocked her head, but didn’t interrupt. “Rahu came here before the Fourth War, at a time when Lunars held the Astral Temple. Same year as me. Your father saw Rahu’s power as the road to his own. With no House left but himself, he claimed Rahu as a brother.”
And Rahu had arranged everything, from his own marriage to Calon, to the marriage of Chandi’s parents, to the creation of the Macan Gadungan. Everything to get himself named War King. So he could shatter centuries of peace. Because alternating years holding the Astral Temple wasn’t enough for him?
“Wherever he came from, Rahu lost something there. It made him obsessed with conquering the Skyfall Isles. I don’t think he’ll stop there, though.”
They lied to the entire Empire. Ratna wasn’t her cousin. And Malin was just one more victim. The vial tucked into her baju felt like an anchor. All his life, they had lied to Malin, told him he was made, that they were born superior to him. With one move she could reveal the truth. He deserved to know the truth.
A bird of paradise alighted in the nearby tree. She told herself it couldn’t be the same one Naresh had called to her that day in the garden, but she couldn’t shake its chirping from her mind.
“He’s not going to marry you, you know.”
She jerked at Malin’s sudden statement. What did he know?
“It’s not their way,” he said. “Their rules and traditions define them.”
“Now you give me advice on love?” She kept her eyes focused on the sunset.
“I didn’t tell your father about your infatuation. You might show some gratitude.”
Chandi bit her lip, tried to keep him from seeing her face. “And you know so much of the heart?”
“I know mine.” He cupped her chin in his fingers, gentler than she had ever known him, and turned her face toward his. “I’d be good for you.”
Chandi trembled in his grasp. Here, in the garden, for one moment, she needed to connect. And Malin had always been there
for her. When he leaned in to kiss her, she didn’t pull away.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Sleep had eluded Chandi most of the night, so she’d set out to run through the city earlier than usual. The Igni District seemed more awash with activity than usual, its people more wary. Tension showed in their brows, their shoulders, the way they watched her without the welcome she once felt.
It took her a moment to recognize the quiet. No children ran through the streets chasing balls or playing with ultops. As she made her way through the district, she found herself casting glances over her shoulder every block, expecting to find children. Those she did see didn’t play, only worked alongside their parents.
The district grew more crowded around the Shrine of Sacred Flame. Patrons and worshippers came in such a steady flow it took more than a phase before she could catch Semar alone. When her time came, she found herself unsure quite what to say. Semar was just one of many mistakes she’d made. She needed to fix it, before the trouble she’d stirred up led to war.
“Come, Chandi,” Semar called. He sat on the far side of the fire pit, eyes closed. “You lurk as though spying. Something troubles your mind, child,” he said when she did not speak. “You come and say nothing to me. Am I a stranger?”
So he knew she had seen the Stranger, then. “Sometimes I think you strange indeed, Semar. You talk of peace, but see benefit in war. You claim to want independence, but your people spend their days washing Solar homes. And you keep strange company.”
“So says the Lunar spy living in the palace of Solars.”
With his eyes closed at least he couldn’t see her cringe. “Speaking of the Solars, I wonder how you advise the man who advises the emperor.”
“I give all men the same advice.”
“And that is?”
“Only ask questions for which you truly want answers.” More of his games. She waited. “Sometimes the advisor has as much to learn as the advised.”
“The Stranger and Rahu know each other. Do they come from the same land? Rahu’s skin is not so fair as the Stranger’s. His hair isn’t the red-gold, either. And I know you know Kala, too.”