“I was dreaming again.” Priya watched Malini twist the fabric of her sari into knots in her hands. “I am… not myself.”
Priya wished then that she could go and speak to a healer, or even to Gautam. They would be able to tell her exactly what dangers to watch for as exposure to needle-flower became full-blown poisoning: the cadence of breath, the significance of sleep paralysis and venomous dreams, the dangers that could be read in the pulse or the near translucence of Malini’s flesh.
But she had no one to speak to. She could only watch as Malini deteriorated.
She thought of how she would comfort Sima, or even Rukh, and could not imagine giving Malini the kind of casual, easy intimacy she’d give either of them. She considered placing a hand against Malini’s back, but—no. She couldn’t.
“Do you wish to bathe, my lady?” Priya asked abruptly.
“It’s not remotely near morning,” Malini said in a flat voice. “I can’t leave this room.”
“You can,” Priya said. “Leave, that is. If you’d like to. My lady.”
She had the key to the room bound to her waist chain. She unhooked it, holding it to the faint light.
Malini looked at it. Looked away, her face in profile.
“I do not want to bathe,” said Malini. But she didn’t lie back on her bedding once more, or demand water or food. She did nothing but sit hunched over, her hands curled like claws. Staring at nothing.
“A walk, then,” Priya offered. “A little exercise would perhaps do you good.”
“Do me good—would it really?” Malini’s hands curled a little tighter. “I do not think walking will cure what ails me.”
There was no bitterness in Malini’s voice. Only resignation.
“Walk with me regardless,” Priya said, “and I will tell you a tale of the yaksa.”
Malini finally raised her eyes. Deep, dark. Considering.
She rose to her feet.
“Pramila will be angry,” said Malini, once they had left the room and begun walking down the corridor.
“We can return to your room if you wish, my lady,” Priya said.
She wasn’t surprised when Malini shook her head. Malini was leaning upon Priya’s arm, clinging on as if Priya were the spine holding her frail body up. But her expression was clearer—more focused than it had been since the moment they were formally introduced to one another, lady to maidservant.
The wind was blowing across the triveni—one hard, buffeting wind that raced down the three open, empty corridors of the Hirana with the hollow roar of a beast. Priya, dressed in her new sari with no shawl to draw over her shoulders, was beginning to regret her decision to coax Malini from the dark, sick quiet of her jail. She’d have actually preferred the sticky heat of a monsoon-laden night to this strange, unseasonable weather.
“We’ll walk around,” Priya said. “Once or twice. And then we’ll return to your room, if you like.”Before the guard patrol next passes through the triveni, ideally.
“Did I hurt you?” Malini asked abruptly.
“What?”
“Your arm. Did I hurt it?”
“A little, my lady,” Priya admitted.
Malini took hold of Priya’s right wrist, raising it to the spill of moonlight. Her mouth thinned.
“I don’t bruise easily,” Priya told her. But Malini did not let go. She looked at Priya’s hand as if she could read it—read every callus and whorl, every line upon Priya’s palm—like language.
And Priya watched Malini in turn because—well, she could admit it toherself, at least—because she simply wanted to look at her. Looking at Malini felt like a forbidden thrill, but somehow less frightening than meeting her eyes, which was too… equalizing. Intimate.
Oh, Priya knew an infatuation when she was in the middle of one.
“You’re strong,” Malini observed. “I felt the grip of your hand on me. But you didn’t even try to stop me.”
