Malini jerked to her feet. She strode over to Priya. Touched their foreheads together, setting Priya’s pulse thrumming. She smelled of clean skin and jasmine and she was too close, too close for Priya to see her clearly. All Priya could see was a shadow of dark hair. The flicker of the oil lamp, casting shadows on Malini’s cheek. Malini’s clenched jaw. Her lashes, damp.
“At least kiss me good-bye,” whispered Priya. “At least do that.”
Malini cupped her face in her hands and kissed her. Malini took her lip between her teeth, soothed the sting of it with the gentleness of her tongue, and kissed her deeper. Priya, her blood singing, cupped the back of Malini’s neck in her palm, the warm, silky skin, brushed her thumb over the feathery, faint tendrils of her hair at her nape and the faint silver of an old scar and drew Malini closer again, and again. It was a lush kiss, a biting one. It was a good-bye, and it made Priya’s heart hurt.
“I could make you stay,” Malini whispered, drawing back, her breath unsteady and a wild look in her eyes. “I could convince you. I’ve convinced so many people to do what I want in the past. If I can cajole someone into treason, surely I can convince you to stay by my side.” She leaned into Priya’s handhold. “You want to, after all. You don’t want to leave me. You wouldn’t be here, if you really wanted to leave me.”
There was want in her words, but fear too. Priya knew. It was the same fear Malini had admitted when she’d spoken of how she had almost placed a knife in Priya’s heart. It was fear of herself.
“You couldn’t convince me,” Priya told her. “Couldn’t trick me. I’m absolutely sure of that. I have a purpose and a goal and even you can’t make me give it up. I promise, Malini.” She kissed her again—the lightest brush of her lips against Malini’s cheek. “I promise.”
Malini exhaled.
“Good,” she said. “That’s good.” And then she turned her head, meeting Priya’s mouth with her own, brushing their lips together once again before she drew back. Drew back and turned away.
“You should go now, if you want to leave before it’s light. Go now, Priya.”
Priya looked at Malini. At her back, a forbidding line.
“I promise you I’ll come,” Priya said to her. “I know you don’t think much of prophecies. Or portents, or fate, or anything of that sort. But one day I am going to come and find you. By then, I expect you will have long forgotten me. Maybe I’ll only be able to walk the edges of whatever mahal you live in, but as… as long as you want me to, I’ll come. If you want me to find you, I’ll come.”
There were so many things Priya didn’t know how to say.
The moment I saw you, I felt a tug. You are the feeling of falling, the tidal waters, the way a living thing will always turn, seeking light. It isn’t that I think you are good or kind, or even that I love you. It is only that, the moment I saw you, I knew I would seek you out. Just as I sought the deathless waters. Just as I sought my brother. Just as I seek all things—without thought, with nothing but want.
Priya said again, “If you want.”
“You’ll always be welcome,” Malini said abruptly, as if the words had been wrenched out of her. “When you come and find me—you’ll be welcome. Now, Priya. Please.”
Priya swallowed. “Good-bye, Malini,” she said.
MALINI
Malini waited until she was sure that Priya would be long gone. She waited hours, in the strange light of the seeker’s path, sat at the writing table, no pen in hand. Then she rose to her feet and left the tent to ask for the whereabouts of Commander Jeevan.
As she’d expected, she was soon informed that Commander Jeevan and his men had returned to Bhumika’s retinue some time ago. When one of Rao’s party had gone to seek them out, approaching cautiously with a lantern held above his head to mark his presence, he’d found no signs of the camp.
“The Ahiranyi vanished,” said Rao. “Left, as far as anyone can tell, of their own accord.”
Rao had brought her food. Clean, simple fare, carried from the monastery: pickled vegetables; fermented beans; roti, cooked to char over the shared fire. She ate it without really tasting it. She’d thought—hoped—Aditya would come question her. But his reluctance to engage with his fate apparently extended even to this. It was Rao instead who stood in her tent, his hands clasped behind him, watching her with careful eyes.
“I told them to go,” Malini said.
Not true. It didn’t matter, of course. Truth and lies were both tools, to be used when most necessary. And she had made a vow to Priya that she intended to keep.
“They could have been useful,” Rao observed.
“Most were not,” said Malini, bluntly.
Rao’s eyes narrowed, a little. Canny. “The one who saved you…”
Malini shook her head. “I am in their debt,” she said. “They saved me from prison, and saved my life. If they’ve chosen to return to defend their nation—I cannot begrudge them. I can only be thankful.”
“Aditya told me you made them a promise.”
“I did,” said Malini. “And I’ll see it fulfilled.”
Rao looked at her for a long moment. “Malini,” he said. Hesitated.
