“Yes.”
“Tell him to enter.”
As she waited, Bhumika brushed her fingers over the flowers; felt the deep, river rush of the deathless waters within her. She watched the small blossoms wither and fold in on themselves beneath her touch. There was no reason not to kill them, if they would not survive anyway.
“Lady Bhumika.”
A man’s voice. A man’s shadow on the marble, as he bowed behind her.
She turned.
In her years of marriage, Bhumika had made sure of one thing, at least: Vikram was master of his mahal, but the first loyalty of the majority of maids and children, the soldiers and serving men, those who cooked the food and set the fires, and held arrows and swords against the dark, was to her.
She—the regent’s kindly wife, his vapid dove—had saved them. She had given them work and a home. And she demanded nothing in return.
Not yet, anyway. Not until now.
She did not speak of the executions. She did not speak of Ashok. “You may be needed, soon enough,” she said. “And I am sorry for it, but I must ask for your loyalty. I must ask for your service. I must ask for what you promised me.”
There were resources you should use sparingly. Resources too precious to be wasted. There were resources you must test before the time truly comes when they will be needed.
This was his test. He raised his eyes. On his arm, the cuff of metal marking his status gleamed the faded silver of a scar.
“My lady,” he said. “You have it. Always.”
PRIYA
Now that she knew Malini dreamt of fire, Priya began to dream of water. Clear, cool, rippling. Rivers winding beneath her feet, hissing like snakes.
When Meena had strangled her, she’d had a hallucination a little like this: of water coiling about her ankles. Of her brother limned in red, liquid-shadowed, more water than skin. In the moments after, she’d been able to use gifts that had long been inaccessible to her.
Her time on the Hirana had already changed her, but now it was shifting and molding her dreams. She woke once in the night and saw that the ground had changed beneath her; the imprints of flowers were all over the stone. As she blinked, confused, they faded.
That night she woke again, as she so often did—pitch-dark around her, no sound of other maidservants at work to break the stillness—and realized something was different. She could hear a new noise. Not the rush of water that slithered through her dreams. Not Malini’s breath, slowed by her medicine and deepened by sleep.
Weeping.
She stood up. She crossed the dark room to the side of the princess’s bed. Malini was curled up on her side, face twisted into a rictus, her shoulders bent to a sharp angle behind her, raised like wings. She was still deep asleep—the drugged wine had seen to that—but a ferocious nightmare had its claws in her.
Priya kneeled down on the charpoy beside her. Lightly shook her shoulder, then a little harder, and harder still when Malini remained curled tight as a thing of shell.
“My lady,” she whispered. Then more firmly: “Princess Malini. Wake up. Wakeup, princess.”
Malini gave a jolt. Moved, with the sudden speed of a viper.
The grip that latched onto Priya’s wrist was vicious. Malini’s nails dug into her skin, all cruel points untempered by hesitation or fear. Her eyes snapped open, but they were unseeing, looking through Priya as if her flesh were glass.
Priya instinctually closed her left hand around Malini’s, trapping the vise of Malini’s hand in a vise of her own. She knew exactly what to do: how to tighten her grip just so, to make Malini’s hand spasm and release her, or twist the princess’s wrist until the bone gave way with a snap.
“Please, my lady,” she said instead, keeping her own breath steady to hold back the pain. She knew how to do this, too. “It’s only me.”
For a long moment the cruelty of Malini’s grip did not falter. Then, slowly, awareness returned to her eyes. She released Priya abruptly—but Priya was still holding her. Priya uncurled her own fingers calmly, carefully. When Malini remained frozen, Priya lowered her arm for her and said, “You were having a nightmare.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Malini said faintly, and turned to the side, covering her mouth.
Priya leapt up, looking for a basin, but Malini was not sick. She merely remained on her side for a long moment, head lowered, hand over her mouth. Then she raised her head and said, “Sometimes—my medicine…”
“There is no need to explain, my lady.”
