“You two,” the guard said, nodding his chin toward the group of us. “The raja would like to speak with you immediately.”
I rose to my feet. “We can play later,” I said to my brothers. “You two go, I’ll find Mohan.” I had started to walk away when the guard called.
“Yuvradnyi Kaikeyi, the raja wants you now.”
I turned to look at Yudhajit, shocked. He only shrugged at me.
We trailed behind the guard back to the palace, and each of my steps felt heavier than the last. Something had to be amiss for my father to summon me. But if I had done something to anger him, why would he want Yudhajit too?
As we approached the throne room, I dragged my feet against the stone, letting the guard and Yudhajit get farther and farther ahead. At the end of the hall the guard turned and glared, waiting by the closed door until I reached him, then swinging it open in a precise movement.
Yudhajit went in first, and I lingered a few seconds longer before following him into the flickering light of the hall. He half turned his head as I approached, and the light cast strange shadows on his wide forehead and narrow nose. His dark brown eyes held a flicker of apprehension and his lips were pressed into a thin line, in what I was sure was an eerie rendering of my own face.
I took my place a pace behind him and glanced surreptitiously around the room, afraid of attracting attention. During feasts, the high-ceilinged room was filled with rows of tables and throngs of people, and its cavernous depths did not seem large at all. Absent these preparations, the wooden pillars cast long shadows, the carvings of bulls and snakes and long-plumed birds that so entertained my younger brothers fading into the gloom. The huge crackling firepits, built partially to warm the entire hall when the weather turned in the winter and partially—I suspected—to intimidate visitors, made me feel even smaller than I usually did.
My father’s throne was carved out of dark wood into stark, undecorated lines, much like the man who sat upon it. One hand stroked his beard as he stared unwaveringly into the nearest pit, his thick eyebrows deeply furrowed. Despite the warmth of the flames, gooseflesh crawled up my skin, and I tried not to shiver.
After several minutes, Yudhajit, with all the patience of a twelve-year-old boy, blurted out, “Why did you call us here if you wanted to sit there and say nothing?”
Raja Ashwapati looked up at him as if he had not realized we were there. He did not spare so much as a glance for me, hidden behind my brother.
“Your mother—” he began. I glanced around the room, looking for her, but she was nowhere to be found. She would not have added much warmth to the room, but she was rarely cold the way Father was. Father opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, then said, “Your mother had to leave. She will not return.”
At that, Yudhajit laughed, and I winced. I wished we had learned this news from the guards, without Father present, so I could tell him it was not a prank. Had he not seen how distant our parents were toward each other, how quick to snap they were, how the edges of their relationship were fraying? But my brother, the brilliant heir, said, “We’re too old for you to joke with us this way, Father. Mother is radnyi. A queen wouldn’t just leave.”
“Kekaya is no longer radnyi,” Father said, and his eyes sought me out for the first time.
“Why—what—” Yudhajit’s shoulders drooped. “Who will…？” He trailed off, apparently unable to describe what our mother actually did.
Our father sighed. “As the yuvradnyi, Kaikeyi will slowly assume some of the duties of the queenship, until you are old enough to wed.”
I bit down on my tongue. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth and I swallowed before it could stain my teeth. I had no idea how to take on any of my mother’s responsibilities, nor did I have any desire to.
Yudhajit took my hand and squeezed it. “Surely Mother will come back,” he said. “She would not just leave us like that.”
The raja shook his head. “She told me she would never return. Kekaya is no longer welcome here.”
And just like that, we were dismissed.
In the hall, Yudhajit tried to speak to me, but I brushed him aside and raced back to my room, slamming the door behind me and falling to my knees. I knew what I needed to do.
Please, I prayed to the gods, those who watched over the land of Bharat. Please help me.
I invoked Chandra, the god of the moon, Nasatya, the god of twins, and Kubera, the god of the north. Please, bring my mother back. Please, grant me the knowledge I need in her absence.