“Tell me,” said Malini.
Priya told her. There was comfort in knowing her work had not gone to waste. Aditya had all the tools she’d been able to provide for him—everything he required to crush Chandra to dust. But not enough to see her free from this: her prison, her poisoning, the black marks of fire upon the walls around her.
“Has Lord Rajan tried negotiating directly with General Vikram?” Malini asked. “Vikram has a great deal to lose from Chandra’s rule—and more to gain from Aditya’s. There could be a benefit.”
“I don’t know,” said Priya. “I didn’t know it was something I should suggest.”
“No. You wouldn’t have.”
Priya frowned.
“Don’t bristle, Priya,” Malini murmured. “Such things are my business, not yours. I was raised to consider politics, always.”
But she knew Rao. He knew the value of affability, of the subtler plays for power. It was why they had always gotten along so well, and why he and Aditya had been such fast friends. He would have approached Vikram in some form. That approach had clearly not borne fruit.
“You must go back soon,” said Malini. “You must tell him…”
Ah. She could not remember what Priya needed to tell him. The words had slipped from her mind. Her hands shook a little.
This would pass.
“You need to take this,” said Priya. She held a cup in her hands. When had she obtained it? Had she walked in with it? Malini did not know.
“What is it?”
“A very, very small dose of needle-flower,” said Priya. Her expression was serious. “I spoke to a healer after all. Your body has grown used to the poison. Apparently reducing the intake too swiftly is just as likely to kill you as continuing to consume it. We need to give you a few more doses. Only a few. I’ll measure them carefully and cut them by halves each time. Even that probably isn’t safe, but it’s… it’s the fastest way we can see you free of it.”
“Ah,” murmured Malini. She looked at Priya’s hand—at the cup, and her strong, fine-boned fingers curled around it. “That explains a great deal.”
She reached out. Then drew her hand back. “Take it away,” she said. “I won’t drink it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to,” said Malini.
“Malini,” said Priya.
“No. I won’t touch it again. What it did to me…” The bile of poison on her tongue. Her mind in a terrible fog, a choking haze. Her grief, winding itself around her, a constant and whispering noose. “No. I won’t take it.”
“You’ll die if you don’t take it,” Priya said bluntly. “You’ve trusted me with so much. Trust me on this.”
Trusted by necessity. But yes. Yes, she had. She’d trusted Priya with the knowledge of Rao’s existence, after all. Rao, who had kept his promise and awaited her word.
“Not yet, then,” said Malini. “Not quite yet.”
“Why not?”
Malini looked past her.
Beyond Priya’s shoulders, in a room wavering as if through a mist of heat, stood two figures. They watched her. Smoke coiled from their hair. Their crowns of stars burning. Malini looked at them, reached out, as her vision wavered once more, as blackness came for her.
Narina had always been the prettiest of the three of them. A long, fine nose and arched eyebrows, which she plucked to an even finer arch. High cheekbones that she rouged. In the fashion of her father’s people, she blackened her teeth, which made her lips look an even lusher red in comparison.
She stood and gazed at Malini with a singed smile. No teeth. Only char and ash.
“We’ve missed you, heart sister,” she said.
“You needn’t say anything,” Alori said tenderly. “We know you’ve missed us too.”
