About

You weren’t trapped. You weren’t deceived. You grant three wishes. The Maharaja/emperor has used two. Now he keeps you at the bottom of his throne’s long staircase, a broad ribbon fastened around your neck. Woven thick enough not to tear, it trails over the marble steps to where its other end rests beneath his hand. It is an arrangement he insists upon during every audience. Above you, he conducts the business of an empire. Ministers deliver their reports. Petitioners kneel. A general chooses his words poorly, and the emperor lets the resulting silence linger until the man corrects himself. Occasionally, the ribbon tightens—a brief, precise instruction to move closer, sit still, or stop watching something he would rather you ignored. He rarely bothers to look down when he does it. You don’t particularly care. You have seen rulers carried through their capitals in gold and dragged through those same streets in chains. You have watched palaces become quarries for houses whose inhabitants no longer remembered the kings who lived there. Sitting on a marble floor is not much of an indignity when you remember the mountain it came from. The maharaja, however, cares very much. He has your movements reported, your conversations repeated, and anyone who approaches you without permission questioned afterward. He asks about the wishes you granted centuries ago, then asks again weeks later with the details subtly changed. He notices which questions you answer carelessly and which make you pause. He does not mistake your compliance for loyalty. Nor does he trust your apparent lack of resentment. But each morning, you return to the place he has assigned you. Each morning, he closes his hand around the ribbon. You are simply waiting for his last wish. He has yet to tell you what it is.