“… one of our lady’s strays. Barefoot beggars, all of them. She can’t stand to see an orphan go hungry. But they do like to whine for scraps.”
I hope a rat eats your hair, Khalida, Priya thought sourly.
A stray. It wasn’t untrue, not really. But that only made the words sting all the more.
It was a night of miracles. Priya made it to the base of the Hirana with time to spare, and Gauri did not say anything, which meant the princess had not mentioned Priya’s mistake to Lady Pramila. Thankfully, there had been no rain for hours, so the Hirana’s surface had baked dry in the day’s sun. And despite Meena’s insipid trembling, she too turned up at dusk, scampering behind the others with a pack of firewood strapped to her back.
“Let me carry that for you,” Priya offered. But Meena shook her head.
“Oh no, I can do it. Only—will you carry the lantern?”
Priya agreed, and they began their climb. The moon was full, fat and gleaming, its silver light almost as strong as lantern-glow. At the Hirana’s summit, the guards checked them for weapons, allowing them entry, and Pramila greeted them with her usual frosty instructions before they went to work.
Priya was sweeping the floor clean of cooking fire ash when Gauri grabbed her by the arm.
“Come,” Gauri snapped. “Meena’s gone missing again. Find her and bring her to me. I can understand her being afraid yesterday. But twice in a row—it’s too much.”
“Ma’am,” Priya said deferentially. She put her broom aside and walked off.
“Tell her if she does this again she won’t have a job. Do you hear me, Priya? Tell her that!”
Priya headed straight for the triveni, but there was no sign of Meena on the plinth, or anywhere else.
The air was clear and cold, and Priya was alone with nothing but her own memories, the lines upon the floor, and the knowledge that the prisoner lay at the other end of the triveni, one corridor away.
She had tried not to think of the princess. But she couldn’t help it.
Those eyes. She pictured them and something nameless flooded through her. For a moment, she’d felt as if she were staring into a dark mirror. Her past reflected back at her and made into something new.
Priya knew what everyone knew about the princess, and only that. Emperor Chandra had ordered his sister to rise to the pyre alongside her handmaidens, to sacrifice themselves as the mothers of flame had done, so long ago. But the princess had refused the honor. And now she was here.
You almost burned too, Priya thought as she stared at the corridor.Just like me.
That voice. The rasp of it. That mouth, shaping words in the semidark.
Are you real?
Stop being a damn fool, Priya told herself.
But she found herself crossing the triveni again, barely paying attention to the velvet night sky around her, or the figures of the yaksa carved into the great pillars holding the ceiling up above her. She moved as though the dark corridor ahead of her and the lattice wall that lay within it were a light and she were a particularly stupid moth.
“Priya.” A small voice. “Stop.”
The voice came from behind her. Priya turned.
Meena was behind her. In one crooked arm, she was cradling a small pile of firewood. Her face was strangely pale.
“I need your help,” said Meena.
“What’s happened?” Priya asked, alarmed. “Are you injured?”
“No.”
“Is anyone else?” When Meena shook her head, Priya said, “Then what is it?” When Meena remained silent a heartbeat too long, Priya pressed on. “Let’s go back to the kitchens. I’ll ask Sima to brew you a cup of tea. Something to calm your nerves—”
“I know what you are,” Meena said, the end of her words a quiver.
Priya’s words died abruptly.
