Page 1 of The Legend of Meneka
Maps
CHAPTER 1
Seduction is all I’ve ever known.
I am made for it. I have destroyed lives with it.
I never wanted to.
ICLOSE MY EYES SO I DON’T HAVE TO SEE THE HUNGER INQueen Tara’s face. Instead, I focus on my dance.
My body sways to the music of her singers. The beats of the drum mimic the beating of my heart. Flute strains whisper through my hair, entwining around my thick, coiling braid. The melody makes its way into my body and pulls gently, drawing my movements forward. I bend my arms to beckon to an imaginary lover.
Queen Tara’s sharp intake of breath echoes in my ears.
Amaravati’s magic fills me from head to toe.
The City of Immortals is my home. It is the cord connecting me to all of heaven’s magic. I am in the mortal realm, far from Amaravati now, but the city’s power builds behind my navel. It grows over my head like a shimmering halo, expanding around my body in gleams of gold dust. The magic of heaven comes to me in amorphous waves, then in deeper currents. Power pours into and out of me.
My aura starts to pulse. The sari I’m wearing tightens, emphasizing my curves. The necklaces against my collarbone start to tingle. My bangles clink, making music of their own, and the diamond belt around my waist glints brightly, throwing shafts of light across the room. Goose bumps erupt along my skin.
Slowly, languorously, I spin my wrist into a mudra, a dance sigil. The fingers of my right hand touch at the tips, then open into First Blush. A wild red rose blossoms out of thin air onto my palm.
The flower settles its weightless petals on my skin. To Queen Tara, who is avidly watching from her cushioned bed, it will look real. Rambha once told me that the true power of my dance lay not in my beauty but in the strength of my illusions. A smile forms on my lips as I think of her.
First a rose, then a garden, then the stormy cascade of a furious waterfall—the illusion forms rapidly, transforming Queen Tara’s bedchamber, burying it in a lush, untamed meadow. My hands move from one mudra into another. Lover’s Caress. Dew on Golden Skin. Heart Fire.
My hips undulate. My feet spin in small circles, arms thrown out in release. The music lifts in a crescendo, lilting, teasing, wrapping itself all over me like a beloved’s breath.
Dark gray rocks form on the walls, enclosing us in a private recess. Vines twine over the rocks, delicate buds unfurling. The thick perfume of a thousand passionflowers envelops us, heat and spice and musk. Moisture sprays my skin from the waterfall pouring from the high ceiling. In minutes, the illusion is so deep, even I am lost to it.
Iknowthe meadow is not real. That I am still in Queen Tara’s private quarters. But it is hard to remember when the scents of flowers tickle my nose and sun-warmed moss cushions my bare feet. Sweat beads my forehead, trickles down my throat, pools between my collarbones, before evaporating in mists of heat.
Happiness swells in my heart. I am beautiful. Intoxicating. This gushing waterfall is evidence—I am a creature of joy. Of love.
A creature of lust, Indra’s voice corrects me in my mind.
I stumble. The joy inside me withers, the honey sweetness curdlingto bitterness in my mouth. My eyes snap open, and because I have stopped dancing, the illusion wobbles.
The vines on the walls tremble. The flowers stutter. The fragrance which had overtaken the room softens, then starts to dissipate.
Queen Tara is still staring at me, slack-jawed and heavy-eyed, from her bed, but around us the magical meadow distorts. Rocks liquify into gray sludge. Silver glistens in loud, discordant flashes as the waterfall blinks in and out of existence, reacting to my darkening mood. Slowly the wild garden melts, returning us to her mortal bedchamber. Behind the privacy curtain, I see the shapes of Tara’s musicians. I did not cast my illusion for them, and they are not enchanted by my magic, but they will not interrupt us. Tara saw to that.Idid, with my command of her.
The queen blinks. Concern bleeds through the lust still clouding her eyes. She rises from her gold-threaded cushions.
“My sweet?” she asks, and her voice is throaty, heavy, akin to one speaking through viscous sleep.
It is a timbre I recognize only too well. I have come to associate it with success. With shame.
I say nothing, trying to shake the memory of Lord Indra’s voice from my head and sort through my growing chaos. A frown tightens my face, and I attempt to school it, hoping to retain some measure of the peace that I felt through my dance. Tara pulls me into her arms. She strokes my hair, tugging at the strands. Her thumb traces the outline of my lips, pulling at my mouth. Her fingers splay on my neck, holding me captive. My own shallow pulse echoes beneath her touch. An ironic laugh builds behind my mouth, that she—amark—is trying to smooth away my despair, even if it is in a mannershedesires, not one I need.
“Come,” she whispers. “I know what will please you.” She tries to lead me, but I shake my head, resisting the movement.
Tara has wanted me in her bed for months, but it is not to please me. It is to please herself. I know this becauseIhave created these thoughts in her.Reveal your lust, I command silently, and an image blossoms in my mind. Tara seizing my hair, bending me down to her. I am on my knees, naked except for my jewelry. My riches, my body, my mind—all of it belongs to her. Vulnerable and weak, I am to be her greatest jewel.
The image flares, then subsides. I hold my turmoil at bay, watching her and the deep hunger for me that she now feels.
This is the last stage of my seduction. When I first created this spell to discern her lust, I saw her ultimate supremacy over her nation, wrought through fire and sword. It took months to alter that desire. In discreet glances and poisonous whispers, I consolidated it, molding her to want me and me alone. My illusions were subtle and glorious, for her eyes alone. Convinced by them, she imprisoned her brother, exiled her cabinet, shattered age-old rules. Once she had been confident, her gaze imperious, her posture straight. Now she is a ghost of her former self—enraptured with me to the point of forgetting everything else, even food and drink. Her brown skin is waxy, the healthy glow gone.
