“We have what we need,” she said. “Priya. Are you well?”
PRIYA
“I’m fine,” said Priya, dazed. “I’m fine.”
She was suddenly kneeling. Had she planned to kneel? She wasn’t sure. Malini was beside her, knee touching her own.
“Priya,” Malini said, teeth chattering, as if cold or shock had overcome her. “Priya. Are you hurt?”
“No,” Priya said. “No, I’m not hurt.”
“I didn’t mean,” Malini began. Then halted. “I would never. I. I don’t think I would have.”
All her words were fragments. And Priya did not know how to feel, looking at her. She was perhaps a little shocked herself.
Priya pressed her forehead to Malini’s.
“Breathe with me,” she whispered, as the world steadied around them, and Bhumika’s power and her own wove the forest back into place. The soil smoothed, the trees settled. The leaves rustled in the wind.
When Malini pulled back, she had a brilliant streak of blood on her forehead. Priya touched a hand to her own scalp and winced.
“Here,” said Bhumika. She was looming over them, a cloth in hand, which Priya took and pressed hard to the wound. She didn’t think it was deep. Head wounds always bled far too much, shallow or not.
Finally, Priya looked around in wonder. Then she began to laugh.
“You’re—all of you. Is that really Commander Jeevan?Billu?You—Bhumika!”
“You seem to have lost your words, Priya,” Bhumika said serenely.
Priya felt tears threatening at her eyes, through the laughter. She forced them back.
“I was afraid for you.” Priya’s voice was rough.
“And I for you, although I don’t know why I bother, when you’re always throwing yourself into trouble.” Bhumika glanced at Malini, who was now standing behind Priya, watching them with the attention of a hawk. “Why,” Bhumika said, “are you in the forest with the emperor’s sister?”
“She would have died if I’d left her on the Hirana,” said Priya.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Lady Bhumika,” said Malini, bowing her head, just slightly, in the gesture of a noblewoman greeting a respected equal. After a moment, Bhumika returned it.
“We should speak privately,” said Bhumika.
The three of them walked some distance away from the traveling household—though Priya turned as they walked, looking for familiar faces in the crowd. With difficulty, Bhumika sat on the severed trunk of a tree, using Priya’s arm for support as she lowered herself. Priya kneeled down, Malini mimicking her. A small distance away, Khalida hovered, eyes narrowed and arms crossed.
Now that she was not using her twice-born gifts, Bhumika looked pained and tired. Her child was due so soon, Priya knew, and she felt a pang of worry run through her as Bhumika carefully straightened in her seat with a quiet sigh.
“Speak,” said Bhumika.
Priya was the one to explain the new agreement between them. The possibility of self-rule for Ahiranya—freedom entirely from the control of Parijatdvipa. As she spoke, she watched the way Malini looked between them, weighing up all she’d seen—Bhumika and Priya’s shared gifts, the informal way they spoke to one another—drawing her own conclusions about the bond between them.
At the end, Bhumika nodded. Said, “I see.” Then she leaned forward a little, expression thoughtful. “To me,” she went on, “the difference between a place in the empire and a place beyond it, as an ally nation, is—negligible. You may have noticed that our crops and our farmers have suffered greatly. We cannot easily feed ourselves. Our position is weak. To survive as an independent nation would require us to be like any city-state of Parijatdvipa in all but name. And we wouldstillhave no power at the imperial court.”
“I cannot promise you power at courtandfreedom,” Malini said. “But as for independence… Lady Bhumika, surely the symbolism is important, is it not? No one forgets what the Ahiranyi were in the Age of Flowers. Parijatdvipa does not forget the way your temple ancestors and the yaksa nearly took everything. Ruled everything. And my own people think, on balance, you would not have been kind masters.
“Your subjugation, as a vassal nation, has been a symbol to Parijatdvipa,” Malini continued. “A symbol of great power, demonstrating that no one may stand against Parijatdvipa’s nations without consequence. Your freedom, however yoked to the empire by commerce or need, will be a symbol to your own people, that you are no longer under the empire’s feet. Perhaps it would even be enough to make Ahiranya’s rebels obey you.”
Bhumika looked no less pained or tired, but there was a new light in her eyes.
