Priya touched her fingertips to the bottle. A firm touch that pressed it against the cloth of Malini’s blouse. “A reminder,” Priya said softly.
The plants in the soil around them and the silt of the rockpool shivered. The air went still. There was a sound. A splintering.
The remnants of needle-flower essence had furled into new life, splitting through the bottle until it was in shards, falling to the ground. The flower was ugly, all points, and a deep black like a river on a moonless night.
Malini thought of the tale Priya had told her, of worship, of a hollowed coconut shell filled with a profusion of flowers as an offering of devotion to the yaksa and the dead. A thing frivolous. A thing of heart.
“It won’t die,” said Priya. “Not until I do, I think. It’s a memento but not… not only of loss.”
She lowered her hand, and Malini immediately raised her own, touching those needlelike black edges. They were strangely silken beneath her fingers. The flower was alive, despite the chain threaded through it, metal through bud—and she drew the chain so that the poison flower was hidden beneath her blouse, a strange weight on her skin.
“You’re terrifying,” Malini said. There was no fear in her, though. She almost wished the flower were sharp-edged so that she could feel the pain of it against her breast.
Priya snorted. “Hardly,” she said. And then, with endearing self-consciousness, she tucked her hair behind her ear and looked away. “We should keep moving.”
Priya knew more of Malini than she thought she did. And Malini was struck, absurdly, by how much she liked the woman Priya had made her be, however fleetingly.
I know you.
Priya stopped. Turned her head just slightly. She was close enough that Malini could see the tension in her shoulders. The flare of her nostrils, like an animal scenting the air. Priya rose abruptly to her feet.
“We need to go,” said Priya. “Quickly. As quickly as we can.”
“What is it?”
“The people we met at the mahal. The ones I fought. They’re here. I can feel them. Comeon, Malini.”
Malini asked no more questions. She let Priya drag her to her feet. She followed Priya through the undergrowth, between the tall spears of the trees. And when Priya began to run, she did the same.
Sharp wood beneath her heels. The stinging snap of leaves and branches against her face, her arms, as sunlight blinked in and out of sight above them. Malini could hear nothing but the thud of her own heart, the ugly wheeze of her own breath in her ears. She wasn’t built for the business of running for her life.
“Don’t look!” Priya yelled. “Don’t look, just keep running—”
And Malini intended to follow Priya’s orders, she truly did. But something grasped at her ankle—a root she hadn’t seen perhaps, but it felt like something new, pushing through the soil, shoving her off-balance. She fell, and let out a gasp, and Priya caught her, and then they were both stumbling to a stop, surrounded by tall trees and ten figures in masks who slipped out from the shadows.
They were surrounded.
Priya turned, taking Malini by the arms, as if she wanted to push Malini behind her. But there was nowhere for Malini to hide, and no way for Priya to defend her from the circle of rebels, in their masks of dark wood. Priya’s hands tightened on Malini for a moment. Then she released her.
“Stay still,” said Priya. She raised one hand in the air.
The earth splintered, grass bending upon itself as thorns like spears shoved through the sod. Malini held herself perfectly still as they drove up through the ground around her feet—as the trees creaked, as if they were being drawn by some terrible gravity to bend toward the place where the rebels stood.
The rebels raised their own hands. Pushed Priya’s work down.
“That won’t work, Pri.” A man’s voice. Low, even. One of the rebels stepped forward. “We’ve all drunk from the vials today.” Eyes black, shadowed by the mask. “Put your hand down and come along obediently, hm? You’re wasting your energy. You have to see that.”
His words were echoed by the other rebels, with a susurration like wind through leaves.Obey. Obey.
Priya’s hand trembled. She opened it to the sky, the trees groaning dangerously. In response, the masked rebel tilted his head and a root forced its way from the ground, lashing tight around her wrist.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said. “But I will if I need to.”
“Ashok,” she said. “Let me go.”
“Kneel,” he said, and there was that whispered echo again. That chorus.
One of the thorns in the ground snapped. Ricocheted. With her free hand, Priya shoved Malini farther behind her. Priya made a noise that sounded as if she’d been punched, and then in the silence that followed, Malini saw a rivulet of blood snake down Priya’s hair, staining her neck and the back of her blouse.
