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"The voice of a man's corpse is heard louder than a living girl's"- a lesson taught to us through slow practise in my father's palace. Long shady corridors where a princess could trip and melt away into a shadow and no one would have noticed. The three of us; mute ghosts. You couldn't have heard the sounds of our feet on the marble floors floors and you could have looked through our bodies like glass. We learnt to disappear like that spot of vision, the little black speck which follows your gaze but is never really there. And then when the time came, we yielded those husks of skin for Father to sell.
Ambika and Ambalika were better than I was. They were gold and silver, soft and malleable under their hands. But I? I was an ore. For me they came with hammers and pick axes. You should have learnt when it was being dealt to you gently, they told me.
"Devarata." A name of love, given to him by his mother. It sounded strange on my tongue.
I called him again. "Devarata, listen to me."
Indifference. The lines of his shoulders cut stiff into the sky. His palms were clenched into fists at his back.
"If you don't wed me, I'll be shelterless." My hands came up to my neck in a piteous attempt to soften the palpitation that was hammering away, deafening in my ears. "Please," I whispered to myself, almost choking in my own shame.
And like a traitor the wind carried that single word to him and I saw his shoulders move ever so slightly. Heard but always in supplication. And my knees were ready to give in. I looked at the floor. White marble glimmering like pearls in the sunlight with touches of gray where clouds had seeped in. When I fell, how loud would the sound echo?
But not yet. Not yet. An ore, always an ore.
"You're reputed to be a great man. Why, then, do you endeavour to make your image false?"
At this, he shook his head. A strand of black hair came free from the knot and blew along the wind. "You misunderstand, princess. It is not for my benevolence that my image is great to the people." He turned to me but didn't meet my eyes. "It is for that fatal vow."
A scoff escaped me. "Fatal for me, not you, Bheeshma." Yes, it was this name of his that sounded true on my tongue.
He had once looked at me with tenderness and it had made my throat clench. A reflection of my heart in his eyes, I had thought. But now he was looking at the floor, his jaw rigid and I wondered if it was guilt instead. Both in mine and his. We stood on the same floor.
"I cannot wed you, princess. You know that."
The garland weighed down on my hand like rocks. The hammering got louder.
"Look at me," I demanded. What for?
He kept his gaze on his feet. "Look at me, Bheeshma-" I swallowed thickly "-please." My eyes burnt and air stuck rigid in my throat. Becoming the living corpse.
And finally, Bheeshma looked. He looked at me with a strange twisted pity almost like he was looking at a dog licking salt into its sores and I heard it crack. The ore cracked. I came crashing down on that bed of thorns and fire.
Was it my voice that spoke? "Can you see me? Can you see any crime that I committed? Please, Bheeshma, please- I did nothing wrong! In the name of the dharma you abide, wed me, Bheeshma, I beg you, please please please-" Tears ran down my cheeks. Please please please. Save me. "Do not punish me for a crime I did not commit. All my life I submitted myself and I know there is no honour that I can find now, they made sure of that, but oh, Bheeshma, please-" I tried to close my lips but the words wouldn't stop spilling. I knew they weren't being heard. "Please let me die with a little dignity, yes? You can kill me just after we are wed and then your vow won't be broken either right? I don't ask for much. You'll still be Bheeshma and I- I, Amba, can die with dignity like a human. I beg it of you, can't you give me this much?" My voice skidded to a halt and I gasped for breath.
Bheeshma kept looking at me in that same way but now a smile tugged at his lips. A cruel, cruel smile. The beautiful princess of Kashi, beloved of King Salva made into this wretched broken beggar. Humiliation burnt in the hollow of my chest. "You should have learnt," they told me, their axes chipping away in my ribcage. But learning wouldn't have changed the outcome.
He studied my worn face, my tangled and rough hair. The bare soles of my feet red with blisters on the white hot marble. He met my eyes again. 'Oh what a pitiful creature you are,' his gaze seemed to say.
Everything burnt. My eyes, my limbs, my insides. I was trapped in a furnace. They would soften me and then put their fingers into me. Mold me to bear the spite of the world.
"You are innocent, Amba," he said. "I cannot kill you nor can I wed you. Forgive me," he said.
I searched for a need of forgiveness in his being. Was it there on the tilt of his lips, in those dark eyes? Or on the chin held high? Maybe on those unmovable shoulders or the set of his jaw? Vain, all was in vain. But did it matter? I had no forgiveness in me to give him either. He had taken from me all that I had ever learnt and had given me in return a burning that won't be quenched.
I laughed and he took a step back. "I know I am innocent," I told him as I stepped forward. I came closer to him, I wanted to see the look in his eyes as I spoke my next words- "And since you cannot wed me, how dare you presume I can forgive you either?"
His eyebrows shot up and a vein twitched on his forehead. The free strand of hair fell on his eye making him look scarred. I could see the question turn in his head: What? What what what?
"Leave my sight," he said between gritted teeth. "Leave. Leave right now, Amba."
But you're the one who brought me here. I was taught to be glass, did you know? My hand rose on its own and his jaw crashed hard under my palm. The sound reverbated in my mind.
His eyes widened in disbelief. He didn't flinch, didn't touch his face where my fingerprints were quickly becoming red.
"I curse you, Bheeshma. Just as this degradation you gifted to me and just as the rejections you made me swallow, I promise you that I will return it to you tenfold in my next life. The fire that scorches me now will burn this great image of yours to ashes under my feet. With your dying breath, you will see me and only me and then when you get dragged into Hell will this fire be finally quenched."
I could speak no more. Bheeshma took off his bracelet and handed it to me. "So shall it be," he said, quietly.
He knew who I was. I slipped his bracelet on the arrow and put it to the notch. He expanded his chest, daring me. "That arrow does not suit your soft hands, princess," he said and smiled.
I let the arrow go.
It found its mark home. Bheeshma jolted forward helplessly as blood spurted from his heart. He looked at me and his eyes were faded, moving rapidly.
"It does suit your heart though, Bheeshma," I said and smiled back.