The Vishakanya's Choice by Roshani Chokshi Read Free Book Online

The Vishakanya’s Choice
    â€œD o you have an assignment today?” Sudha swallowed nervously.
    Urvashi shook her head, “No. Today, I wear red in honor of your virgin kill.”
    There was no blood on her hands, but Sudha’s mind wasn’t convinced. Unless they were on assignment, all vishakanyas wore white. But today, Urvashi wore an oxblood lehnga and a choker of rubies sat at the hollow of her throat.
    Sudha shuddered. “Do you have to call it that?”
    â€œYou should be proud,” said Urvashi, gliding across the moonlit room to stroke Sudha’s hair. “There are so many girls with bad fortune who never had this choice.”
    Sudha bit her lip. She remembered the day the village soothsayer entered her father’s shop and deciphered the vague language of her stars. They said her fate was nothing but young widowhood. They called it a blessing when they brought her to the Hastinapur Harem, told her she’d avoided a terrible fate and fed her enough poison to make her touch toxic.
    â€œDid we have a choice? An honest one. A
real
Choice.”
    The smile slipped off Urvashi’s face.
    â€œSudha, our horoscopes were all the same—widowed early, no children, no prospects. Would anyone choose that? Don’t be flippant. The kind of Choice you’re talking about belongs only to kings.”
    Sudha shrugged. Maybe her husband would’ve been a kind man with a warm touch. Maybe he would’ve fed her salty corn and rose lassi instead of poisoned bread and toxic treacle. Maybe she would’ve accepted the consequences of widowhood— forced invisibility, windows shut tight to her shadow, a lifetime of isolation—just to know what it meant to live.
    Urvashi bound her in red silk and Sudha grimaced when she caught her reflection. Red magnified her bones, widened her girth, flecked her skin with garnets, and swelled her with bloodlust. It made her look demonic, not beautiful.
    â€œWhen you get there, the red sari will guide you to the assignment. And when you’ve finished, the red sari will take you back to us.”
    â€œHow do you know they won’t kill me on the spot for showing up?”
    Urvashi looked shocked. “Do you think I’d send you to your death?”
    Sudha said nothing.
    â€œYou are a peace offering in disguise,” said Urvashi. “They are expecting you. Other conquered countries have also sent their courtesans as tributes. It has all been arranged.”
    Sudha nodded, resigned. Already she felt the silk jostling against her, as though it was anxious to get on with the assignment. Together they walked into the courtyard. Concentric circles of clay diyas gleamed around them like a thousand luminous eyes. Like everything in the Hastinapur Harem, the courtyard abided the Rule; no breathing creature broke its microcosm of uncut rubies and stoic marble. From the first time Sudha stepped foot inside its walls, the sisters pressed the Rule in the hollow of her mouth and lay the poison treacle on the grainy papillae of her tongue.
    â€œSwallow it, remember it,” they said.
    Â 
    Riddles started as a distraction. The first time she ate poison, she thought the world had pinched and convulsed around her. The sisters knew they could give her no sweet treat or cool water to relieve the pain. So they fed her a riddle.
    â€œKings won’t see it, but perhaps it is there. The heavens will never know it, for no one goes there. What is it?”
    Sudha choked on the poison. Her eyes burned. Nausea coiled in her gut. But her mind worked fiendishly, distractingly. When she looked into the grinning faces of her sisters, she said her answer around a mouthful of bitterness:
    â€œTheir equals.”
    Â 
    Her first taste of the Rule came a year later. She had spent the day sitting by the fountain when a stray kitten appeared beside her. It should have been a harmless caress. All she wanted was to feel the silky underside of its