The Library of Fates Read online

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  Penguin.com

  Copyright © 2017 Aditi Khorana

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-10199-903-5

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  For those who seek a better world, and for those who fight for one every day, I dedicate this book to you.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Author’s Note

  Parable of the Land of Trees

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  We shall not cease from exploration

  And the end of all our exploring

  Will be to arrive where we started

  And know the place for the first time

  —T. S. Eliot, from Little Gidding

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  OFTEN THE MORAL of a story is culled out at the end, but in the case of Library of Fates, I felt the need to state it up front: when we act with only our selfish interests in mind, disregarding the rights and experiences of others, everybody loses. But when we act in the service of the greater good, even if it costs us something—even if it costs us a lot—we are deeply and profoundly transformed by love, empathy, and wisdom. And so we transform the world.

  I know that many on our little planet are feeling a great deal of despair and terror today; I know this because I feel it too, this unsettled dread that descended upon me after the jolt of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In the weeks that followed, I couldn’t write. I was in a state of deep mourning, worried for the safety and well-being of friends and family, the state of the environment, of civil rights, of civil discourse. I had recently completed a manuscript about a louche, patriarchal dictator’s slimy advancements on an idyllic kingdom. Now life appeared to be imitating art.

  But I also knew that it was not the first time the forces of hatred and ignorance had somehow usurped power from those who seek goodness and equality. It was not the first time we had experienced grave disappointment in the systems and institutions we trust, or in humanity itself. Sadly, we know that hatred has always existed, even before this recent election.

  But it stings every time, doesn’t it? It shocks us to the core, leaving us feeling exposed and raw. I am a woman, an immigrant, brown, a writer. I grew up in a world that made no effort to hide its disdain for me. I have spent a lifetime shielding myself and those I love from the contempt cast against anyone in this society who is considered Other.

  That’s why I wrote this book, and the one before it, and why I’ll continue to write the ones that come after. Because I know that many times in our history, people like you and me have had to confront a culture of malevolence and antipathy and uproot it like a weed. And then we have to replace it with a new culture. A far better one. One in which we all matter, regardless of our race, gender, religion, or who we love. One in which our stories matter.

  And we will. Because we’re not broken. And we won’t be silenced. It is up to us to build webs of goodness wherever we go, up to us to uproot injustices and expose them to the light. So be brave, keep fighting, and I will fight alongside you.

  Aditi Khorana

  Parable of the Land of Trees

  LONG AGO, there was a land entirely occupied by some of the most beautiful and oldest trees in the world. These trees had inhabited the Earth longer than humans, longer than the vetalas—the immortals who roamed the planet alongside humans till they all but disappeared.

  They were wise trees and had existed on the Earth for such a great span of time, they had learned how to speak. They offered their visitors fruit and shade. They told captivating stories and made people laugh. They were servants to the land and to those around them.

  Those who had the good fortune to stumble upon the Land of Trees said that the experience stayed with them forever. They returned to their homes and spoke of this ethereal world, and so, word began to spread about the Land of Trees. Waves of new explorers trickled in, and soon visitors came in droves, marching into the land from all corners of the Earth.

  But these new visitors wanted more from the trees. They sought to own the trees and the land that they lived on. They spoke of opening up taverns and lodges and inns so people could stay when they came to visit. They wanted to build roads, bridges, an infrastructure that would allow individuals to come by the thousands so that they could experience the Land of Trees. But there was one problem with this . . .

  They needed the wood from the trees to build all of these things. And so they began to chop down the trees in order to build inns and taverns and roads and bridges. One by one, the trees came down, axes cutting into their trunks. Saws slicing away at their roots and branches.

  And soon, the Land of Trees was filled with inns and taverns and roads and bridges. Some trees survived, but they were so devastated by the loss of their family and friends that they stopped speaking, stopped laughing, stopped sharing their voices. Their despondency, their mistrust became silence, and the forest was no longer filled with laughter, with wisdom, with stories.

  For some time, people continued to visit, but instead of the Land of Trees, what they saw now was a land that had devolved into just another place on a map.

  After some time, people stopped coming, and now the Land of Trees is just like any other place. A place whose magic has been erased.

  But perhaps one day, you’ll find yourself walking through a forest, and maybe if you listen closely enough, and maybe if you ask from the very bottom of your heart, one of the trees might hear the longing in your soul—the longing for connection, the longing for something deeper that resides so far below the surface of the world in which we choose to
live out our day-to-day. And you’ll hear it, the voice of one of those trees, calling back to you, telling you that the world is alive with mysteries, and that in order to understand them, one must first learn to be still, to listen, and the world will unveil itself to you, as though it was waiting to do so all along.

  Prologue

  I STILL REMEMBER the first time my father told me the Parable of the Land of Trees. It was night, and outside my window, a soft quilt of mysterious darkness had settled over Chanakya Lake. But I felt safe under the gauze of the white silken mosquito net that hung over me, and my father’s presence reassured me. He sat at the edge of my bed and pointed out past the lake, past the mountains, to a horizon shrouded in mist. What he was really pointing to was a time that existed before us, to a world neither of us could even be sure had ever really prevailed.

  “Have I ever told you the Parable of the Land of Trees?” he asked me, his dark eyes fixed on that elusive brim between earth and sky, before they turned to look back at me, a wistful smile twitching on the edges of his lips.

  I shook my head. Outside my window, lanterns lit up the sterns of houseboats on the lake, their twins reflecting in the water, suggesting another world underneath that channel, a mirror to the one we inhabited now. I wondered about the people who slept on those boats, who lived in that sphere I had still never seen. I thought about all the places I had never visited, that I had heard about only in the stories people told me.

  And then in the gauzy lamplight, over the quiet, contented chirping of insects calling out to one another in the night, my father told me the tale. I didn’t understand then how stories have a way of staying with us long after people are gone. That night, I simply held on to his words: somber and thoughtful. I listened to his voice: calm, soft, measured, wise. It was how I would always remember it, taking for granted that it would always be there. I didn’t know then what I know now: that everything—my father, this moment, every experience that molds and shapes us—is ephemeral, evaporating into the air before we have a chance to grasp on to it, before we can truly even understand what it means.

  One

  PAPA WAS STANDING on the balcony outside his library when I arrived to meet him. From the doorway where I stood, I could see the sun setting over the lands he had inherited from his father, that for so long I had thought I would inherit from him one day, turning the hills and plains the color of burnished gold. Far out in the distance, snow covering the mountaintops glistened like a gilded scrim sparkling in the early evening light.

  Blue and silver minarets rose above the walled city of Shalingar’s capital—Ananta. A layer of marine fog settled over Chanakya Lake, revealing miniature houseboats wearing elaborate gardens on their roofs like soft, mossy hats. They sailed placidly across the flat, misty surface of the basin.

  But I was anything but placid. As I crossed the vast sanctuary cut of auric filigree and tomes, its gold and crystal domed ceiling dousing every shelf and book in honey-colored light, I measured my breaths, as though controlling each inhalation were the key to mastering my fate itself.

  I approached the balcony, and from there, I could hear the sound of the festivities below in the streets. Cannons exploded, making the stone walls of the palace tremble. And just below those walls, dancers swathed in white silk, green and red ribbons around their waists, twirled in the streets like spinning tops. The brazen blast of horns and the clop clop clop of horse hooves resounded through the palace quarters. Children flung rose petals into the sky. They fell back down into the mud streets, transforming the lanes between homes into blushing rivers. Elephants adorned in patchwork costumes embellished with mirrors, tassels, and festive silk ribbons made their way up these very rivers, carrying Macedon’s most important dignitaries on their backs. Brightly colored lanterns illuminated their path, like diyas lighting Emperor Sikander’s way to our home.

  My father stood, watching the festivities. When I approached, he turned abruptly, as though I had interrupted him from a dream, or perhaps a nightmare. “Sabahaat Shaam,” I said, giving him a warm hug.

  He started for a second. I realized that he had never before seen me this elaborately dressed and coiffed. My cheeks were covered in rouge tincture, my lips streaked with crimson; my lashes were curled and painted black like thick spider’s legs. I was wrapped in a magenta and gold sari, my hair piled high over my head.

  Earlier that day, Mala, my lady-in-waiting, and a retinue of her helpers had buzzed around me, a hive of activity that revolved around beautifying me from head to toe. It was a dance that took place whenever an important dignitary came to visit the kingdom, but today the hive spun and sped as though an inaudible tempo had accelerated everyone’s movements without warning.

  “Hold still, dear girl. When a great king arrives, one must look presentable,” Mala had said as she combed out my snarled hair, untangling the knots with her capable fingers.

  A great king.

  A great king who held the fate of our kingdom, as well as my own fate, in his hands.

  Papa regained his composure and smiled at me. “Sabahaat Shaam,” he said before he looked back at those packed streets before us. “I forget sometimes how lovely the kingdom is at this time of day. Not the dancers or the carnival down below . . . but the light,” he said, glimpsing the sky, shaking his head in disbelief. “It’s as though the sun and the moon want to offer our little kingdom their best.”

  “Luminaries,” I said to him. “That’s what Shree taught me in our astronomy tutorial—the sun and the moon are luminaries. And the way Shalingar bends toward the ocean . . . ,” I said, mimicking the curvature of the Earth. “It’s the light reflecting on the water.”

  Papa looked at me and laughed. “Or perhaps it’s just magic,” he said, and his eyes sparkled as he challenged me.

  I shook my head. “No such thing.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” he quietly responded, and for a moment, I was regretful of my words because a mask of seriousness transformed my father’s face again. “One day, after you’ve seen the world, you’ll understand just how special Shalingar is.”

  “I know how special it is, Papa.” I sighed. “If I could stay here forever . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “You always did speak of traveling the world, didn’t you?” he wistfully asked. “Now you’ll have the opportunity to do so.” But I could hear the lack of conviction in his voice. We both knew that this, what was about to transpire over the next few days, was not what either of us had in mind when I spoke of traveling the world.

  “Sikander was a friend of yours once, wasn’t he?” I changed the subject.

  If he had once been a friend of Papa’s, how bad could he really be? I wondered. I had, for the past several weeks, asked everyone I knew a variation of this question.

  “They’re all just . . . stories, aren’t they?” I had queried Arjun, my best friend, the night before as we slowly walked the grounds together.

  “Of course they’re just stories,” Arjun had mumbled.

  “Like that thing about how he had all the advisors on his father’s council stoned to death?”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.” Arjun shook his head vehemently before he pressed his lips in a thin line. But his silence for the remainder of the walk didn’t inspire confidence.

  ¤

  Now my father turned to me, and the light of the sunset caught his eyes, transforming them to gold. We looked alike, my father and I; people often told us this. I had his hands, with their long, tapered fingers, his smile, broad and easy, and his dark, wavy hair.

  “Friends . . . something like that. But it’s all in the past. I haven’t seen Sikander since you were a baby. Now we’re starting anew.” The uneasiness in his voice was difficult to ignore. I assumed he didn’t want to discuss it. It had never been his way to be open about the past.

  But I knew some things about Sikander and about Macedon beyond w
hat my tutor, Shree, had taught me about the Silk Road and Sikander’s conquests. I knew that my father had first met Sikander when they were both young scholars at the Military Academy of Macedon. And that they had been friends, once upon a time, at least according to Bandaka, Papa’s advisor and Arjun’s father.

  That was before Sikander took the throne by assassinating his own father and declaring himself the new emperor. After that, he battled his way through Anatolia, Syria, Phoenicia, Judea, Bactria. After his overthrow of Persia he became Sikander the Great, who led the greatest and fiercest standing army of all time. In just fifteen years, he had nearly quadrupled his territories, largely through battle. Who was he really, though? Who was he back when my father knew him?

  I attempted a different tack. “Did you like Macedon?” I asked Papa.

  “It’s . . . very advanced in some ways. Buildings so tall they block out the light. Giant arenas that took hundreds of years to build. They’re used for fighting: slaves fighting one another to the death. People cheering like madmen over it. Everyone has a slave, practically.” He shook his head. “They don’t believe in equality between the sexes. To question the leadership is considered a sin. And they like war. Very much.”

  I was quiet as I considered that it didn’t matter anyway what Macedon was like. I would see it from my window in Sikander’s harem, living among his other wives. I wouldn’t visit the great cities of the world, or rule over my kingdom the way my father had. I would be nothing more than a prisoner in Sikander’s bejeweled zenana of toys.

  I knew the thought of this sickened my father, just as it horrified me. I wanted to believe that my fate wasn’t yet sealed, but we both knew that my father’s options were limited. He could agree to Sikander’s proposal of marriage to me, and Shalingar would remain stable and have a powerful ally. Or he could refuse, and Sikander would undoubtedly take umbrage, as he was often known to do.