Priya said, in a choked voice, “My friends are in the mahal.”
Her friends. Those other maidservants. Malini swallowed and said, calmly, “Then they’re behind strong walls, and as safe as they can possibly be.”
But Priya was not listening to her. “I have this power. This gift in me. And it’s stronger now than it will ever be again. I need to help them. If anything happens to them, I…”
“Are you stronger than every rebel attacking the mahal and burning this city combined?” Malini asked. “Are you more cunning, are you cleverer, better equipped, and better placed to conquer them?”
“You only want to convince me to do what you need of me.”
“Yes,” Malini acknowledged. “But that doesn’t make me wrong. Save me, and you may save your Ahiranya. Save me and your country has an option beyond the rebels and whatever fate the emperor has in store for you. Please.”
Priya was not sure what to do, Malini knew that. She saw it in Priya’s eyes; in her downturned lips, tight as a bowstring drawn taut. And Malini could do no more to convince her.
“You’re right,” Priya said. “I made you a promise. And you made me one in return.”
And then she whirled, heading toward the cover of the forest, and Malini had no choice but to follow her.
They were deep into the dark and winding maze of trees when Priya suddenly stopped.
“Priya,” Malini said. She spoke quietly. Had she heard something? Seen something? “What is it?”
Priya was swaying faintly on her feet. She turned to face Malini slowly, blinking. She reached an arm up, wiping her eyes.
The hand she drew back was streaked with blood.
“Something,” Priya said. “Something is—wrong.”
Malini had no time to do or say anything before Priya crumpled to the ground.
ASHOK
He could barely feel Priya any longer.
He stood before the squat little fort—the rose palace, Bhumika’s ugly creation, of that he had no doubt—that lay at the heart of the mahal. Surrounded by gardens, its walls were a knot-work of thorns. Thorns as wide as a man’s arm. Thorns as sharp as a blade. They were gristly with blood.
She was within those walls. But Priya was not.
“I could reach you, Bhumika,” he murmured, eyes closed. “If I tried, I could do it.”
“They have archers on the roof,” one of his girls said quietly. She was standing in the cover of shadow, her mask raised.
“Not very good ones,” Ashok said calmly. “Those they lost on the outer walls.”
The boiling liquid they kept flinging down concerned him more. Cheap tricks, but they were effective, in light of her limited resources.
The mahal, after all, was shattered.
Ashok had only lost a few men and women. It wasn’t clear if the thorns or the arrows had killed them, in the end, but he thought it unlikely that anyone but Bhumika had put their lives to an end. His soft-spoken sister, too highborn to dirty her hands, had always been a monstrous opponent when she allowed herself the indulgence of proper battle. That apparently hadn’t changed.
No matter. Let her molder in this place. He didn’t need her anyway.
When he returned—when he was thrice-born, with all the strength of the waters in him—then they would talk about Ahiranya’s future. And his will would overpower her own.
“With me,” he said, and turned. He walked from the rose palace; walked from the broken mahal to the Hirana. It loomed above them. Together, they climbed, using the rope for purchase.
The last time he’d been upon the Hirana, his temple siblings had burned. He’d had nightmares for years after their deaths. An old rage rose in him as he climbed and looked at the carvings, both familiar and made strange by the passage of time. This had been his home once. This had beenhis.
On the Hirana, he put his rage to good use. The few guards they found, they killed efficiently. They explored the rooms. Found nothing. There was one woman only, unconscious on the ground in the northern chamber. Not, he thought, the imperial princess. A pity.
