He saw the voice of the nameless and heard it ring in his ears. A mask—a mask of wood. A mask that was a face of flesh and jasmine and needle-flower, bright marigolds and heady sweet roses. A face on a body crawling free from waters deep and strange. He heard the nameless’s voice.
A coming. An inevitable coming.
He saw flowers wither in fire. Saw a pyre. The screams of women. His sister’s voice.
A coming, a coming. They come in water, they come in fire. They come.
This sliver—this fragment of Aditya’s own visions—speared through him.
They returned to the garden. Returned to themselves.
Their shared breathing was hoarse and unsteady, but Aditya found his equilibrium first.
Aditya’s expression was otherworldly, his eyes entirely black. He blinked, and blinked once again, and they returned to their normal dark gray. But the gift of the nameless was still in his voice when he spoke: the sure knowledge of what was preordained.
“There is a sickness coming to Parijatdvipa. There is a sickness coming to every land, imperial or not, a sentience rising that will destroy everything that matters to us. That is what I saw when you took me to the prayer gardens and the nameless spoke to me. If I had been named by prophecy at birth it would have been like this: ‘You will see them come, and in the nameless god’s eye, you will see the way to make them go.’” Aditya’s expression was tortured. “Now you have seen them, you know why I put aside the throne. Why I seek the way to understand what the nameless promised me.”
Rao did. The vision was so overwhelming that he reeled from it. The earth turned monstrous. The body turned monstrous. He thought of Prem, dead, with marigold petals seeping from his eyes.
“What are they?” Rao asked, choked.
“That I don’t know,” Aditya said somberly.
The way of priests was isolation and meditation—a surrender to fate. The opposite of kingship, where a man inevitably held the fate of swathes of people in his grasp.
“Then why agree with Malini? Why allow this rebellion at all?”
“The nameless gives me no answers,” said Aditya. “And in the silence of the nameless, my sister speaks. We’re told to trust fate, Rao. I wonder—I wonder if allowing the force of my sister’s will and belief to carry me is what the nameless wants from me. Or if… if her dream leads me astray from the truth. So I let men surround me, and name me emperor, and hope the answer will come.
“And of course, I miss myself,” Aditya added, in a voice so quiet it sounded like the confession it was. “I miss my old fate and my purpose. And for all that Parijatdvipa—the throne, the crown, the empire, all of it—is insignificant in comparison to the dangers that threaten this world, I miss my old life still.” Aditya released the basin. Moved away from it, to stand by Rao instead.
“The throne of Parijatdvipa—rule over my father and his land, and all the lands of the empire—is not a small thing,” Rao replied.
“I know you believe so. Part of me continues to also, despite the truth. You must see now,” Aditya murmured, “why I seek your name? Perhaps no mortal man deserves a complete image of fate. Perhaps no man can comprehend such a thing. But I have two great purposes tearing me in two. I need guidance. And when you’ve come so far to serve in this war, come with a name that is a prophecy—I have to ask. And hope you’re my answer.”
“I can’t speak it,” Rao said sadly. “Not yet.”
“And yet it concerns me, doesn’t it?” When Rao said nothing in response, Aditya exhaled and nodded. “I only wish you would tell me, so that I would know what to do.”
“That isn’t how it works,” Rao said. “You know it isn’t. And… Aditya. I.” He stopped. “I’m not a man who gets angry easily,” said Rao. “But what Chandra did to your sister, and mine, and Lady Narina, the way he mocked faith to burn them…” Rao grappled for calm, gazing fixedly at the neat lines of Aditya’s priestly shawl. “He was always cruel, Aditya. Cruel and vindictive. But I don’t need to be a priest of the nameless to see that this is only the start of what he can do, and will do, now that he has a measure of power. And if you cannot see that—if you cannot see that you must put him aside—then you are indeed not the friend I once knew. Whatever vision the nameless granted you when I took you to the gardens—the answer to what you need to do is plain.”
Aditya flinched as if he’d been struck. Rao ran a hand over his own face. “I—need to rest,” he said raggedly. “Aditya. About your sister…”
“I have men, watching the seeker’s path,” said Aditya. “Watching for lights, or strangers. If Malini comes, we’ll know of it. I promise you.”
“She was trapped in Hiranaprastha. On the Hirana,” said Rao roughly. “Dead, perhaps.”
“Ah, Rao.” Aditya sounded pitying. “We both know she isn’t dead. Now rest. You’ve had a terrible journey.”
We do not know, thought Rao, his thoughts sharpened by a hysterical edge of fury and despair. Wedo not.
But I do.
MALINI
They lay side by side on the bank of the rockpool, letting their saris dry out in the heat. There had been no rain, which was a relief. Just the day’s sunshine, and a faint breeze that mingled with the coolness of the water below them.
After all that Malini had been through—the burning of her heart sisters, her poisoning and imprisonment, her escape with Priya through a city aflame, and Priya’s near death—being here felt like a blessing. Kissing Priya in clear water, holding her arms, her warm skin—lying beside her here in the quiet warmth of sunlight—made Malini feel closer to happiness than she had been in a long time.
