“Through there. Follow—marks on the trees. Like fingers.”
“How helpful,” Malini said. But even in her daze, Priya could hear the fear beneath her wry tone. “Here,” she went on. “Lean on me again.”
It took a long time to lift Priya to standing once more, and Malini was panting when it was done, wan with exhaustion. But she held Priya with a grip like iron.
“It wasn’t my nursemaid who told me tales of Ahiranya’s yaksa and magic waters,” she said. “No self-respecting maid would risk her position like that.”
“No?” Priya thought she knew something of what it meant to be a self-respecting maid.
But Malini only smiled at that, a thin, tight smile, even as she stumbled forward on unsteady feet, and said, “No. No normal maid who has to worry about losing her position. It was my teacher, my sage who told me. She educated me. As the women of my mother’s family were educated. As princes are. And she taught me this too: no wars are won without allies.”
“Your allies are at the arch.”
“But I’m here, in this forsaken forest. And so are you.”
“Are we fighting a war right now, Malini?”
“Yes,” Malini said. “We always are.”
RAO
They waited at the bower of bones for a long, long time in the dark of the moon. They waited as Hiranaprastha began to glow with festival lights, which grew bright enough for the glow to be visible even through the dense forest. They waited as dawn approached, rosy-fingered, for Malini to come.
Rao had promised to wait through the night for Malini, and he did so, along with Lata and Prem and all of Prem’s men. Day came. The city continued to flicker, alight with both sun and flame. Surely the festival was over? But Rao knew nothing of Ahiranyi traditions. He couldn’t be sure.
He kept on waiting.
The men were restless. One of the messengers in Prem’s service—a man used to traveling across swathes of the empire—entertained the others by telling them about the strange nature of the seeker’s path.
“Srugna lies beyond the woods, on every map. It’s a long journey, usually. Weeks. But Ahiranyi’s forest doesn’t always obey normal rules, and on the seeker’s path time moves differently,” the messenger told them.
“Differently?” another man asked, clearly skeptical.
The messenger shrugged. “All I can tell you is that if you travel this path, you’ll make it to Srugna in days, not weeks. The locals say the yaksa built it. For all I know, they did.”
“Does it demand a price?”
Rao and the others turned. Lata was standing back, in shadow beneath the trees. He couldn’t quite make out her expression.
“I don’t know what you mean,” said the messenger.
“No tale would claim yaksa are inherently benevolent beings,” said Lata. “Not even to their own people. If they have made a path, if that path still exists long after their demise—I have no doubt that the magic of it is a double-edged sword.”
“Well, it’s not asafepath,” the messenger said thoughtfully. “Sometimes people go missing along it. Or turn up dead. But that’s no different from traveling the woods the normal way. You could just as easily be shot by a poacher or eaten by some wild animal.”
“Did you last travel it alone?”
The messenger shook his head.
“And how many of you made it to the other end?”
“That isn’t important.” Prem interrupted firmly. “We’re going the swift way, like it or not.” His voice held nothing of its usual languorous gentleness. It was a voice that brooked no argument. “We’ve stayed in Ahiranya far too long.”
There was a noise from behind Lata. One of the men who’d been on watch appeared, his expression grim.
“The city’s on fire,” he said.
“What do you mean, on fire?” Prem barked.
