All failure was born from weakness. This was truth. He had known better than to send Meena on a task that required both patience and cunning. She was—she had been—too rash and too fierce, too openhearted. And she had known she was dying. She had known they were all dying. Desperation had undone her. And as her leader, he should have known it would.
But Ashok had wanted her to succeed. He had wanted it because she had reminded him of another girl and another time, of hopes sacrificed, and he had thought,If Meena is even a shadow of her…
He lowered his hand. Kritika waited, quiet and watchful. “I have been a fool,” he said finally.
Sentimentality had its place when it served a function; when it helped achieve the greater ideal of an Ahiranya free and powerful, as it had once been. But his love—no. The blood tenderness of it was nothing but weakness.
Love had led him astray and wasted Meena’s life. Even now, his weak nature quailed at the thought of doing what was necessary. Even now, he thought of a night long ago, when he had kneeled under the wavering light of lanterns, his hands upon bird-bone-thin shoulders. His sister’s shoulders.
He remembered telling her a lie.Wait here, he’d said.And I’ll come back for you. I promise.
She’d looked at him with such trust. He’d never forgotten that look.
“There is a maidservant in the regent’s household. A woman named Priya. Tell our newest addition to bring her to me. The resistance has need of her.”
He had tried to save her once. He had let her go. He had set loyal eyes on her now and again, and through them, he had watched as she had grown up without him. He’d believed he could let her live free of the purpose that held him constantly by the throat. But he could not be weak any longer. He had felt her in the sangam. She had been there when Meena had died. There was strength in her now—so much power, more than she had possessed in all the years he’d kept watch on her—and he could use her.
If only he had made this decision sooner. If only he had told Meena to reach out to her, to ally with her. But no matter. There was still a way forward. He could still turn his sister’s gifts to his own ends.
Ahiranya was worth any price. Even her.
VIKRAM
Late nights were often a requirement of Vikram’s role as regent of Ahiranya, and they were at times a pleasure. Other times they were a burden. Sometimes, like tonight, they were both.
Tonight, Vikram was playing the diplomat, entertaining one of the low princes of Saketa, Prince Prem, who had been merrily holed up in a brothel in a neighborhood of disrepute, drinking and whoring with a few of his men and a handful of disreputable noble cousins. According to the complex rules of Saketan blood lineage, Prem was considered a first cousin of the high prince who ruled his city-state, and was therefore of similar status to Vikram. Despite his role as regent of Ahiranya, Vikram did not possess a jot of highborn blood. Everything he’d earned under the last emperor, Sikander, he had earned in his own right as a general of Parijatdvipa.
Another low prince or city-state royal might have demanded more obsequiousness from Vikram than he would have enjoyed providing, but Prince Prem was a genial, frivolous lecher and no trouble at all, requiring nothing but the typical courtesies. He’d visited Vikram a few times since his arrival, and had largely been pleasant if rather unedifying company. He held his liquor well and had brought an excellent Saketan vintage with him on every visit. He played pachisa with the grace required not to irritate, his moves measured and his repartee witty.
It would have been a pleasant evening, much like the ones that had come before it, if not for the presence of Lord Santosh. The man had refused to play pachisa. “I know the other nations of Parijatdvipa like it,” he’d sneered. “But in Parijat we are more refined.” He hadn’t touched Prem’s Saketan wine, or the array of Ahiranyi liquors arranged in beautiful colored casks upon the table for the delectation of guests, instead demanding that a proper Parijati liquor be brought for him. This, he did not share.
As he drank, he interrogated Vikram about Ahiranya’s rebellions, which had grown notably bloodier since Emperor Chandra’s coronation. He commented on the high number of Ahiranyi servants in the mahal—“If this weremymahal, General Vikram, I would fill it withourcountryfolk”—and asked question after barbed question about the routines of the guards, based on the observations his own men, scattered through Vikram’s forces, had fed back to him.
After an hour of Santosh’s attention, Vikram’s patience was wearing thin, and Prince Prem was attacking his wine with worrying enthusiasm, a false smile fixed to his mouth. And still, Santosh continued.
This is the man Emperor Chandra sends to sniff around my regency, Vikram thought with hysterical despair.This buffoon. I should let him have it. Either he will destroy Ahiranya within a year, or it will destroy him.
But Vikram would not, and could not, give up his regency so easily. For years, he had held this fractious nation together, paying every necessary price to see it survive under his rule. Until Emperor Chandra commanded his removal, he would fake ignorance of Santosh’s purpose and do his best to maintain everything he had.
That Emperor Chandra liked Lord Santosh well enough to allow him to prod at Vikram’s authority did not reflect well on the emperor. Chandra was nothing like his elder brother, Aditya, who had at least had the semblance of a good ruler: a suitable coterie of friends and advisors, drawn from across the nations of Parijatdvipa, and therefore the full support of the empire’s city-states. And a sense of honor that would have stopped him from indulging in anything too ambitious.
A shame that he’d found a new faith and left his duties behind.
“Tell us about Parijat,” cut in Prem. “How is it in the capital? Is Harsinghar as beautiful as I remember it?”
“Harsinghar is always the most beautiful of cities,” said Santosh seriously. “The palace is being redecorated.”
“How so?” Vikram asked. He did not have any particular interest in architecture, but he would feign an interest if he had to.
“Statues are going to be built for the new mothers in the imperial court, so they may be thanked and worshipped for Parijatdvipa’s glory,” Santosh said proudly, as if he’d had a hand in it.
Smiling at such a pronouncement was difficult. Vikram wore prayer stones and prayed to the mothers, lighting candles for them morning and evening in the family shrine. He did not know how to find any common ground between Emperor Chandra’s version of faith and his own. But smile he did.
“Fascinating,” said Prem, sounding suitably awed. “And how will they fit that many statues in the court? Is it being expanded?”
A beat of silence. Vikram reached for his own wine and drank.
“The statues will be for the mothers Narina and Alori alone,” Santosh said. “The other women were given a gift—were purified—but they lacked the qualities to be true mothers of flame.”
