“There is a river beneath the Hirana,” said Priya, into the velvet quiet of humming insects, of Malini’s uneven breath. “Your nursemaid was right about that. But it isn’t accessible to just anyone. I think if General Vikram or any imperial soldier tried to hack their way through the stone to it they would have found nothing. It’s… magic. And living, and it let me find it because of what I am.
“All rituals are in three parts in Ahiranya,” continued Priya. “I don’t know if it’s the same in Parijat or any other place, but we always knew as children that we’d have to pass through those waters three times, if we wanted the gifts of the yaksa. Since the founding of Parijatdvipa, the ritual has only given our elders the smallest gifts. Power to control the Hirana. No more. But we traveled through the waters, me and my siblings, at the festival of the dark of the moon, and… suddenly, we were as the elders had once been, in the Age of Flowers.
“The ones like me, who were passing through for the first time, we were changed. But the ones who were passing through the second time, or the third…” Priya shook her head. “It was as if a seed had been planted the first time, and it had been growing inside them until that moment. Something that had been growing in the waters, perhaps for years, bloomed in us. Our elders, they… they should have been pleased. But they were not. Because they thought…” Priya swallowed. Should she admit this? The terrible suspicion they’d had, of her siblings, of her? “The rot arrived when our powers did,” she said eventually. “It was smaller then, weaker, but they were afraid. They thought we were the cause. And that we were monstrous. We were too strong. So they killed us. Died with us.”
Priya propped herself up on her elbows. The green beneath her was soft. Soothing.
“I’ve been seeking the waters again,” said Priya. “Seeking the way. And I found it. But the finding—it has a price. And I’m paying it.”
Malini made a choked noise. But Priya did not look at her. “I don’t want pity,” she said, still staring at the green.
“What were you hoping to accomplish?” Malini said after several heartbeats, her voice low.
“I was trying to find… myself. After the others died, I… I think my mind tried to protect me. I forgot so much. I couldn’t use even the gifts I already had any longer.”
“And have you found yourself, Priya?”
Priya shook her head. “I don’t know what it means to be a temple child anymore. Maybe it means being useful to people who seek power,” she said, finally looking at Malini. “Maybe it means being monstrous. Sometimes it feels like it. But maybe… maybe it means something else. The children and I, we could control the Hirana. Control nature. Someone once told me that the strongest of us could even control the rot. Maybe what it means to be me is to… to be a cure.”
It was a hope she’d only started to consider now that she could feel the power fading out of her, ebbing and flowing. Now that she’d felt the heady sweetness of it. Could her magic really be monstrous, if it felt this sweet?
“You think you may have the power to end the rot?” Malini asked.
“Maybe,” said Priya. “It’s all—everything ismaybe. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter now, does it? I’m not going to survive to test my strength.”
The tree roots on the surface of the forest floor gave a little flutter, shivering, creaking their way across the soil as they reached for Priya.
“Should I beat them away?” Malini asked in a strange, dry voice. “Or are you calling them?”
Priya sighed, suddenly weary. “Leave me. Go to that Lord Rajan of yours. Go to your brother. Do—exactly what you’d hoped to. I know you want to. Don’t pretend you care what happens to me.”
“You saved my life,” Malini said. “You saved it more than once.”
“And you still don’t care,” said Priya. “I know that. So go.”
She could feel Malini considering it. Malini had the needle-flower now. Priya had told her to take it exactly for that reason. She could leave Priya here and walk to the bower of bones and begin her journey to Srugna. If she was swift, perhaps she would even catch up with Rao and all the other men.
“I’m dying anyway,” Priya added. “What does it matter?”I’ve served my purpose.
“What indeed,” Malini said, in a voice that was too sharp by far. Suddenly she wasn’t sitting back against the tree trunk. She was leaning over Priya, gaze intent, something fierce in the curl of her mouth.Thatheld Priya’s attention, even through the stupor of fever. Malini was often vulnerable, or cunning, or as blank as glass. But fierce? No. She was rarely that.
“You don’t have to believe that I care for you, Priya. You only have to believe that I need you. And I do need you.”
“You have the needle-flower. You know the way.”
“I need you,” Malini repeated. And there was so much in those words—in the set of her lips. “So, what can I do to ensure that you live? Do you know a healer?”
Priya thought of Gautam and how they’d parted. “No,” she said.
“Then how can I help you?”
A shiver racked her. Cold. She was beginning to feel cold. That was a bad sign with fever.
“There is someone out there who will save me.” The strength in her was fading, but she knew what she’d sensed in the waters: the sangam, the forest, intertwined. She’d sensed other kin. Perhaps even thrice-born, because their presence had felt nothing like her twice-born siblings—somehow sharper in the sangam, distant and brighter all at once.
“Where?”
Priya tried to speak. Swallowed. She lifted a hand, pointing the way, and marks carved themselves into the trees in response. Her heart raced.
