“Should your brother Prince Aditya win, we can perhaps agree that symbolic freedom would be—helpful,” Bhumika said, with care. “But until he wins, Ahiranya will be vulnerable to Emperor Chandra, and to the other nations of Parijatdvipa. We do not have the strength to fend them off.”
“I believe you have a source of power that can protect you,” Malini said. “The rebels sought it. And Priya has the key.”
Finally, the two of them looked at Priya.
“Princess Malini. I think you and I should, perhaps, talk further alone,” said Bhumika.
Priya thought about protesting. She was, after all, not exactly uninvolved in any of this. But then Bhumika said, “Priya, I think there’s someone in my retinue you may want to go and meet.” She smiled, only slightly, but it was a true smile.
Malini did not touch her. Did not try to stop her. Her fingers twitched faintly where they rested on her knees, and in an even voice she said, “Thank you, Priya. You can go. Lady Bhumika and I will both be fine.”
Priya began to walk away. She glanced back only once. Malini’s back was to her. Her face was turned away, invisible, unknowable.
Priya didn’t touch the wound at her ribs. She took the blood-soaked cloth away from her head, crumpled it up, and kept on walking.
There’s someone in my retinue you may want to go and meet.
Sima. There was Sima, standing among the other maids, talking to a warrior who held his mace at his side. Sima, looking up, then running across the forest.
“Priya!”
Sima, hugging her fiercely.
“You’ve kept so many secrets from me,” Sima gasped.
“I had to,” Priya said, then coughed as Sima squeezed tighter. The burn beneath her ribshurt—a pain she didn’t want to contemplate, a pain deeper than skin and her capacity to understand her own wayward heart. “You’re hugging me too hard.”
“You’re a big girl, you can take it.”
“Your hair is in my mouth.”
Sima laughed wetly and pulled back. She gave Priya a huge grin, even as her eyes streamed.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just so glad you’re not dead.”
“I’m so glad you’re not dead too,” Priya said. “What are you doing here? And is that—are you carrying a scythe?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m here to bring you home safe. And because—because the city is in ruins, and Lady Bhumika is leading us now. So. There’s that.” Sima’s smile wavered, then faded. “I can’t exactly rely on my wages, now that the regent is dead.”
Priya looked at the people around her—at Commander Jeevan, watching her with flinty eyes. Of course the regent was dead.
“Rukh,” said Sima. “You’ll want to see him.”
Her heart was suddenly in her mouth. “See him? He’s here?”
Sima nodded.
“What is he doing in this place?” Priya asked. Who had brought a boy—a child—to the deep forest, to blood and to war?
“Lady Bhumika ordered him to come,” Sima said. She hesitated, then added, “Lady Bhumika… she knows Rukh did something he shouldn’t have. Spoke to people he shouldn’t have.”
So Bhumika had found out, then.
Maybe Rukh’s presence was a punishment. A punishment for Rukh—or a punishment for Priya, for bringing him into the mahal. But such viciousness didn’t seem like something Bhumika would willingly choose, so Priya was not sure she could believe it.
“I do want to see him,” Priya said. “Please.”
Sima nodded. Then she said, “Just. Prepare yourself, Priya. He’s not like he once was.”
