She gave him a look. “You don’t protect people,” she said, “you don’t tell them not to go somewhere, unless they’re at risk of getting hurt if theydogo. So you knew, Rukh. Don’t lie to yourself. You know what these rebels do.”
He turned his head away.
“They’re trying to do something important,” he insisted. But his voice was thin.
Priya sighed. She could not help it. “Are people you fear so much truly worth your loyalty?”
“They’re worth my loyaltybecauseI’m afraid of them,” he said. “They are here to fight the empire. I’ve seen General Vikram. I’ve seen his soldiers. If they’re not stronger than that…” Rukh’s words trailed away.
“Being able to frighten children isn’t strength, Rukh.”
“They don’t just frightenme,” he scoffed. “You saw the streets. They frighten the regent. He wouldn’t send all of his men out otherwise. That’s what real power is.”
If only she had Bhumika’s eloquence, or her keen, instinctual understanding of Parijatdvipa’s thorny games of power.
“Power doesn’t have to be the way the regent and your rebels make it be,” Priya said eventually, making do with her own artless words, her own simple knowledge of the way the world worked. “Power can be looking after people. Keeping them safe, instead of putting them into danger.”
He gave her a suspicious look. “Are you saying you’re powerful?”
She laughed reflexively. “No, Rukh.”
What power did she have? What had she really done to change anything at all in Ahiranya? She’d been thinking of Bhumika, not herself.
The idea of her having any power…
For a moment on the Hirana, she’d had it. She’d learned the limits of that quickly, in the cell and in Bhumika’s chambers. And in the moment she’d killed Meena, it had felt like weakness too; a quicksand of rage inside her.
“Don’t be stupid,” she added, after a moment. “I’m not strong, Rukh.”
“You tried to protect me and the other kids,” he said. “Tried to make sure we wouldn’t die of rot, at least. You gave me a home. That sounds like what you just said.”
It was a child’s logic, a child’s conviction. Still, Priya turned her face away from him. The way he saw her was far, far from the way she saw herself, and she didn’t know how to respond.
The wind rasped through the bones once more.
“Did you really kill Meena?” Rukh asked hesitantly, lowering his arms.
“I told you I did.”
“Did you… Did you mean to?”
Priya began to speak. Stopped, the words settling upon her tongue. She held her breath, momentarily. Listening.
The silence around them was no longer empty. It was watchful. Priya felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She turned.
A man stood on the graves. The bower threw shadows across him. But his face…
He wore a mask. Not a crown mask, wrought of sacred wood, but one made of normal mahogany, carved with a ferocious curl to the mouth and eye sockets wide enough to reveal thick eyebrows and eyes the deep brown of turned soil.
Rukh stepped forward, coming to stand at her side. He moved as if to speak, and the man raised his hand, quelling him to silence.
“Please,” said the man courteously. “Tell me. Why did you kill her?” His voice was gentle, his mask mocking.
“Will you harm Rukh, to make me speak?”
“No,” he said. “Rukh is one of mine.”
“Will you harm me?”
