A noise, like a splintering. The thorns unbowed their heads. Priya rose to her feet and flung herself onto her brother’s back, clawing his face like a cat. He swore and drove an elbow into her stomach. She made no noise—he must have winded her—and fell back hard against the ground.
The other rebels moved forward, but the ground rumbled, and split, kicking her back up into the air. She leapt onto her feet. Grabbed Malini’s arm, holding her, keeping her close, a manic light in her eyes.
“They need me,” Priya said, ragged. “Don’t worry. Stay near.”
There were hands, suddenly, against Malini’s throat, her shoulders—she twisted, furious, flinging a fist up without any sense of where it would land, and felt a burst of pain in her knuckles. Wood. The mask. She should have been more careful, but she was no warrior and did not know what to do.
Vines clambered up her arms, vicious spines digging into her attacker. And just to help things along, Priya threw a punch that knocked the mask askew. The rebel swore and let her go, and then Malini was upon the ground, and Priya was circling her, desperately outnumbered. Trying to keep her safe.
They were carrying weapons of wood, and this close Malini could feel the heat pouring off those weapons—a strange, immutable magic.
Think, she told herself.Think, think.
The heat was closer than it should have been. She looked down.
There was a dagger on the ground. It was made of wood, polished and honed to a sharp edge, and when she reached for it, it burned her fingers. She bit down on a curse and dropped it. Then she wrapped her pallu around her palm and grabbed it.
She thought of the lessons Alori had taught her. Of how to use a knife. Of how to gut or kill. The hollow concave of a heart. She thought of the fragility of her own flesh and bone, and how much she still had to accomplish.
Malini held the wood tight, adjusting to the burning warmth of it in her grip. She straightened. In her mind, she put aside the Malini she’d been beside the waterfall; put aside the woman she’d been for weeks on end, saved and seen by Priya’s eyes and hands and heart. She thought of pain, and how it could be leveraged, and the lessons your enemies can teach you, however unwitting.
She thought of her own ghost haunting her: a princess of Parijat, eyes cold.
She thought of Priya’s utter trust under her touch.
Malini rose up and darted against Priya’s back, clutching at her side. She could feel the stickiness of Priya’s blood—her own panicked heartbeat. She forced herself not to shake. Nothing good could come from an unsteady hand.
And then, without trembling, without hesitation, she placed the point of the knife beneath Priya’s ribs.
PRIYA
Priya didn’t know what she was feeling at first. Hands on her waist. Arms. She almost flung them off, but she heard a murmur against her ear. Malini’s voice.
“Priya. Please.”
Still, she considered throwing Malini back. Malini’s grip was limiting her movement, and they were entirely surrounded. Priya needed to move—needed to protect her.
Priya could feel the pull and tug of her magic moving the soil, trees, the plants to her will. She could feel the unnatural strength of her own hands. But none of it was enough. She was surrounded by rebels who had drunk vials of deathless water. And Ashok was watching, pity and amusement in his eyes.
Eyes that widened, in the half second before she felt the press of a knife against her skin.
“I’ll kill her before I let you take her,” said Malini.
She’d positioned the knife in the concave area beneath Priya’s ribs. It was a good place to angle a weapon. Better than the neck. Here, at the angle she held the blade, she could slide it up into Priya’s heart.
The rebels stood, shocked into stillness. And Priya…
Priya did nothing. She could feel blood still trickling down her scalp and shoulders from the wound in her hair.
“Priya could kill you where you stand,” said Ashok.
Malini laughed—a glorious laugh like the sound of a blade unsheathed.
“She could. But she won’t.”
Priya’s breaths were shallow. She didn’t know if she was afraid or not. Sweat stood out on her skin. The wooden knife burned. She was not sure she even felt betrayed.
“I know Priya. Every inch of her heart.” The way Malini saidheart, so savagely—it was as if she were truly talking of the muscle pulsing in Priya’s chest, and it made the breath seize in Priya’s throat. “She won’t touch me. She could snap my hand clean, but she won’t do it.”
