“It’s over,” I said quietly. “Give the diamond to the Rani Amrita.”
Jagrati’s narrow nostrils flared. “Come and take it, little Rani,” she said to Amrita. “Come, unfasten it with your own hands, daughter of privilege! Or do you fear to be polluted by the touch of my skin?”
“No, Jagrati.” My lady Amrita lowered her hands, her voice grave. She took a step forward. “I do not.”
For the third time in two encounters, Jagrati recoiled violently from the Rani. Her hands went to the nape of her neck, working frantically at a clasp. Loosing the collar of gold filigree that held Kamadeva’s black diamond, she hurled it at Amrita’s feet. “Take it, then, damn you! Take it!”
Bowing her head, Amrita stooped to retrieve the necklace…
… and everything changed.
SEVENTY-TWO
The stone floor of the throne room of Kurugiri was hard beneath my knees, evoking a distant memory of scrubbing tiles in the temple of Riva.
Thinking it was odd that she seemed so tall, I gazed upward at my lady Amrita.
Upward? Yes, upward.
Taking a deep breath, I realized that I’d released the twilight and gone to my knees without thinking when Amrita picked up the necklace with Kamadeva’s diamond in it. My yew-wood bow and arrow lay on the floor before me like an offering.
I was not alone.
Everyone, everyone in the throne room capable of kneeling was doing so-save for the Spider Queen Jagrati. And even as I thought it, Jagrati swayed on her feet, then crumpled helplessly to her knees, huddling there.
“Moirin?” My lady Amrita sounded forlorn and confused, the collar of gold filigree dangling from one hand, Kamadeva’s diamond flickering in its setting. “What is it? What’s happening, eh?”
Unable to help myself, I touched my brow to the cool flagstones. The uncertainty in her voice made my heart ache. I wanted to comfort her, to pleasure her, to assuage her every fear. For now, all I could do was reply honestly. “You hold Kamadeva’s diamond and all its power, my lady.”
“I do?” Amrita asked in wonder. “I do, don’t I?”
My Rani was beautiful and terrible with it-but not like Kali dancing, no. Like a goddess, but a kinder, gentler one. The goddess Durga on her tiger, perhaps, her face filled with radiant light and fierce compassion.
“Yes,” I whispered.
She gazed around the throne room, taking in the cost of our endeavor. The Falconer Tarik Khaga sprawled on his back, his mouth agape. Dead. He was dead; his five remaining assassins were dead. Over a dozen of her best guards were dead or dying, and it would have been worse had it not been for Bao, kneeling with his staff across his lap, gazing at her in a worshipful manner.
Amrita touched her slender fingers to her lips. “Oh, gods!”
I bent and touched my brow to the floor again. “You did what was needful, highness.”
“Did I?”
I bowed low again. “Of course.”
“No!” There was a fierce note in my Rani’s musical voice, and her hands tugged at my shoulders. “No, no, no. Moirin, look at me. Talk to me, dear one. The gods sent you to me. Counsel me.” Hope lit her eyes. “Is there some higher purpose in this? Am I meant to use Kamadeva’s diamond to change the world to a kinder place?”
Fighting the urge to kneel, I sat on my heels and gazed at her.
Stone and sea! She was lovely, so lovely. Even as Kamadeva’s diamond had taken all that was dark and twisted and rage-filled within Jagrati and turned it into the stuff of bitter yearning, it took all of my lady Amrita’s warm, laughing, golden kindness and turned it into something far, far more powerful.
A future unspooled before my eyes…
She would be a queen such as this part of the world had never seen before: great and powerful in her compassion, terrible in her disappointment, moving men and women alike in a desire to please her, compelling love along with desire. Her influence would spread far and wide, her wisdom praised to the heavens.
But it would not last.
Ravindra’s clever, narrow face swam before my eyes, the collar fixed around his throat. He would do his best to keep his mother’s legacy alive; but he had been granted power, too much power.
His sons would fight and squabble. In the end, Kamadeva’s diamond would bring nothing but bloodshed and war.
“No, my lady Amrita,” I said with profound sorrow. “I do not believe so. It is too dangerous a tool to be wielded by mortal hands; and I do not believe you can change the world through magic. Not a change that is true, not a change that lasts.”
Amrita gazed at the black diamond in her hand for a long, long time. “I believe you are right,” she said at last. “It belongs in the temple from which it was taken.” She glanced at me, regret in her eyes. “You are wise for one so young, Moirin. Will you take it and conceal it for now? Kamadeva’s ashes should be at home with your gifts.”
I swallowed. “I will try, my lady.”
It was an effort to rise in her shining presence, but I made myself do it. I found a leather pouch on the belt of one of the slain assassins and untied it, dumping out a couple of unfamiliar throwing weapons. Silently, I held the open pouch out to Amrita, averting my eyes from the glorious light in her face. I heard the sound of gold filigree clinking softly, felt the pouch grow heavier, and pulled the thongs tight…
… and everything changed again.
Amrita sighed, a faint sound of loss. I braced myself for the influence of Kamadeva’s diamond, wondering if I would become as terrible and beautiful as Naamah in all her splendor, wondering what in the world I would do if that happened; but it didn’t. I felt the diamond singing softly to me, a song like a caress, but so long as I chose not to wield it, it seemed it was enough to conceal it.
I stole a glance at Amrita. She looked herself again-lovely, but ordinary and mortal. She met my eyes and gave me a rueful little smile. “I can still try to change the world, can’t I, Moirin? Or at least my little corner of it?”
I smiled back at her. “Yes, my lady. You can and will.”
The spell of Kamadeva’s diamond broken, the reality of our situation reasserted itself. Grown men stumbled to their feet, dazed, checking themselves for injuries. Others lay moaning and bleeding on the floor.
For a mercy, Bao took charge effortlessly, ordering the living to tend to the wounded, applying compresses and tourniquets, stanching the bleeding of myriad injuries. Although he was no physician, having been Master Lo’s apprentice for many years, he knew a fair bit; and I knew enough to help him.
Over a dozen dead… ah, gods!
I had seen worse, far worse, in Ch’in; but Ch’in was a vast empire, and the scale of that conflict almost unimaginable. Bhaktipur was a tiny kingdom, and the impact of the deaths that had occurred within this small throne room hit hard. I knew at least half the fallen by name, and all of them by sight.
In the midst of it all, Jagrati knelt huddled on the floor, her hands wrapped around her head, her body shivering.
We ignored her, worked around her, until there was nothing left to be done and it was impossible to ignore her any longer.
Bao nodded at her, his face tense. “What will you, highness?”
“I don’t know,” Amrita said uncertainly. “She is harmless now. But she has done great harm. I suppose… I suppose…” She shrugged helplessly. “We must take her with us, eh? Let the laws of justice decide her punishment.”
I stooped and touched Jagrati’s shoulder.
She uncoiled like a serpent, catching my hand in a hard grip and rising, her glittering gaze fixed on mine as she hauled me to my feet.
Memories, bitter memories, unfolded behind her eyes. Even without Kamadeva’s diamond, Jagrati’s gaunt, angular beauty was compelling. From a very early age, men had found it so, a great many men. They had used her hard, used her cruelly, taking her against the walls of alleys, over and over again, stealing away shame-faced and satisfied. There had been no recourse, no one to protect her. Until the day she had stolen Kamadeva’s diamond, she had been a helpless victim.