CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The guest rooms were exquisite. A bedroom with a four-poster bed draped in mosquito netting so fine it looked like clouds, a sitting room with a carved rosewood desk and shelves of books, and a private balcony overlooking the river.

Meera stood on the balcony and watched the water. It moved slowly here — not the rushing mountain rivers of Devgarh but a wide, patient flow that carried boats and debris and the reflected light of the sky.

You are thinking, Takshak observed. He was coiled on the roof above her, his scales blending with the honey-coloured stone so perfectly that from the ground he would be invisible.

"I'm thinking about Nisha."

The daughter.

"Aisha said Nisha studied everything she could about the Naga bond. She wanted to be Nag-Bandhu. If Tara was removed, the bond would break, and Nisha could position herself as the next Bandhu." Meera wrapped her arms around herself. "But you retreated to the lakes instead of choosing someone new."

Yes.

"Why?"

A long silence. Then: Because I felt Tara's death in my bones, and the grief was so vast that I could not bear the thought of another bond. I went to the deepest lake in the mountains and slept beneath the ice for two years. The water numbed the pain.

"But you came to me."

You are different. The bond came to me — I did not seek it. When you crossed into Chhaya Lok, the magic recognised you as my Bandhu before I even opened my eyes.* A pause. *It was like hearing a song I had forgotten. The melody was different, but the harmony was the same.

Meera's throat tightened. "Takshak."

Yes, Nag-Bandhu?

"I'm going to find who killed Tara. And I'm going to make sure they answer for it."

I know. That is why I chose to stay awake.

A knock at the door.

Meera crossed the room and opened it to find a girl — perhaps seventeen, dark-skinned, with sharp features and intelligent eyes that moved too quickly, taking in everything.

"You're Nisha," Meera said.

The girl startled. "How did you—"

"You have your mother's eyes."

Nisha's jaw tightened. "Mother said you weren't to be disturbed."

"And yet here you are."

A beat of silence. Then something shifted in Nisha's expression — a decision, quick and fierce. "I need to talk to you. Not here. Meet me at the river ghat at midnight. Come alone."

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because I know who killed Tara." Nisha's voice was barely a whisper. "And it wasn't my mother."

Before Meera could respond, Nisha was gone — her footsteps silent on the marble corridor, her shadow swallowed by the lamplight.

Interesting, Takshak said.

"That's one word for it."

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The dinner that evening was an elaborate affair — twelve courses served on silver thalis, each dish more complex than the last. Raja Vikramaditya turned out to be a gentle, scholarly man with wire-rimmed spectacles — an anomaly in Chhaya Lok — and a passion for astronomical charts that he spread across the dinner table between courses, much to Regan's visible irritation.

"You see, the stars here are not the same as in Prakash Lok," he explained, his finger tracing constellations on the chart. "We have the Naga Mandala — there, those seven stars in a serpentine pattern. And the Gandharva's Harp — those five. But the patterns shift. The sky is alive in a way that your sky is not."

"Our sky is alive too," Meera said. "We just measure it differently."

Vikramaditya beamed. "A woman of science! Regan, why didn't you tell me our guest was a woman of science?"

"She's a mythology professor," Regan said flatly.

"Mythology is the poetry of science," Vikramaditya said. "Every myth encodes an observation about the natural world. The Nagas in our stories — they represent the underground rivers, the seismic forces. The Gandharvas — the atmospheric phenomena, the aurora, the way sound behaves differently at altitude."

Meera leaned forward. "You've thought about this."

"I've thought about little else." He removed his spectacles and cleaned them on his shawl. "The tragedy of Chhaya Lok is that we have so much magic that we never needed to develop science. But the tragedy of Prakash Lok is that you have so much science that you forgot the magic."

"Vikramaditya," Regan said, in the tone of a woman who'd heard this particular monologue many times.

"Yes, my queen?"

"Our guest is tired."

"Of course." He replaced his spectacles and smiled at Meera. "We'll continue tomorrow. I want to show you the observatory."

As they rose from dinner, Meera caught Aisha's eye across the table. Aisha gave the smallest shake of her head — a warning. Not here. Not now.

But Meera was already counting the hours until midnight.

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