" The horoscope loomed in my thoughts. Perhaps it had been right all this time. A marriage that partnered me with death. My wedding, sham though it was, would bring more than just my end. I breathed deeply and a calm spiraled through me.
This was my final taste: a helix of air, smacking of burnt things and bright leaves. I pulled the vial from my bangles, fingers shaking.
This was my last sight: purling fire and windows that soared out of reach. I raised the vial to my lips. My chest was tight, silk clinging damply to my back, my legs.
This was my last sound: the cadence of a heart still beating.
“May Gauri live a long life,” I mouthed.
The poison trickled thickly from the rim and I tilted my head back, eyes on the verge of shutting--
And then: a shatter.
My eyes opened to empty hands clutching nothing.
Spilled poison seeped into the rug and shards of glass glinted on the floor, but all of that was obscured by the shadow of a stranger.
“There’s no need for that,” said the stranger.
He wiped his hands on the front of his charcoal kurta, his face partially obscured by a sable hood studded with small diamonds. All I could see was his tapered jaw, the serpentine curve of his smile and the straight bridge of his nose. Like the suitors, he wore a garland of red flowers. And yet, all of that I could have forgotten.
Except his voice…
It drilled through the gloaming of my thoughts, pulled at me in the same way the mysterious intruder’s voice had tugged. But where the woman’s voice brought fury, this was different. The hollow inside me shifted, humming a reply in melted song. I could have been verse made flesh or compressed moonlight. Anything other than who I was now.
A second passed before I spoke. By then, the stranger’s lips had bent into a grin.
“Who are you?”
“One of your suitors,” he said, not missing a beat. He adjusted his garland.
I backed away, body tensing. I had never seen him before. I knew that with utmost certainty. Did he mean to harm me?
“That’s not an answer.”
“And that wasn’t a thank you,” he said. "

― Roshani Chokshi , The Star-Touched Queen (The Star-Touched Queen, #1)