“What would you have of me?” Malini asked, throat dry.
“There isn’t much time. Someone is coming for me.” Priya said the words carefully. Her eyes were unblinking. “Someone wants the waters that gave me this gift. Someone wants new power, greater power, so that they can destroy Parijatdvipa’s hold on Ahiranya.”
“How does a rebel know you’ve found these magical waters?”
“They felt it,” Priya said simply.
“Are so many people gifted with magic in this place?”
“Ahiranya isn’t like Parijat.”
“You know nothing about Parijat.”
“I’m part of Parijatdvipa, aren’t I?” Priya said. “I know a lot about what it means tobelongto your country. I probably know more than you do.”
Malini look at Priya’s face. Thought,I do not know this woman at all.
And yet that did not frighten her as it should have. She knew how many faces people possessed, one hidden beneath the other, good and monstrous, brave and cowardly, all of them true. She had learned young that a fine-bred brother could turn into a brute over nothing. Nothing. She had sat with lords and princes and kings, binding them to the vision of Emperor Aditya upon the throne. She had known the size and clout of their personal armies, the names of their wives, their greed and whispered sins—she had met them and learned them as one learns any stranger. She had learned them in person; pried them open and controlled them, and had still been aware that beneath all their carefully cataloged hungers and weaknesses likely lay a multitude of selves she would never see.
The face Priya wore now was a familiar one. She’d worn it when she killed the rebel maidservant on the triveni; when Malini had first looked at her and thought,I could use this one. It was the face of a temple daughter, formidable and strange. Priya was not just a maid or a weapon. She was something more, and Malini had no words for her.
“Malini,” Priya said, with sudden alarm. “Can you understand me?”
“I can.”
“You need a dose of the needle-flower.” Priya touched a hand back to her throat—not to the wound, but to the stoppered bottle, still safe upon its thread.
Malini shook her head, after a moment. “I don’t need it,” she said. It was not sickness that had distracted her. Her fingertips tingled as if there were fire inside them. “Continue.”
“Malini—”
“Tell me your deal,” Malini said sharply. “You said there wasn’t much time.”
Priya’s hand paused.
“Fine,” she said. “I want Ahiranya’s freedom. Entirely. No kindness or benevolence from your Emperor Aditya—no graciousness bestowed from on high. Ahiranya doesn’t need to be another nation bound to the empire. I want our independence. I’ll set you free, Malini. I will make sure you reach your nameless prince and his men. And in return, you will vow to me that you will give Ahiranya to me.”
“To you,” Malini said slowly. “And what would you do with it? Become its queen?”
Priya’s mouth quirked into a smile.
“Not me,” she said. “But belonging to Parijatdvipa has done this country no favors. No matter how kindly you say your brother Aditya will treat us, we’ll always be dogs at the table. We’ll always be angry if we remain chained to your empire.”
Malini said nothing for a moment. There were consequences to such a vow. She could not unilaterally alter the shape of Parijatdvipa. She did not know what Aditya or his men would say, in the face of a woman’s foolish promise.
Oh, vows could be broken. Of course they could. And yet Priya was… not entirely a safe person to lie to. And worse still, Malini did notwantto break a promise to her.
There was a sound, somewhere below them. Priya’s jaw hardened.
“Promise me this, or one way or another, you die here.”
“You’ll kill me after all, Priya?”
“No, you fool woman,” Priya said, eyes blazing. “No. Never me.”
Malini was not sure she understood what she felt in that moment—the furious storm of feeling in her—but she knew the choice that lay before her.
“I vow it,” she said. “If you save my life—if I am reunited with Rao—then Ahiranya is yours.”
