“Ashok,” Priya said deliberately, “was the last person to treat me like family.”
One beat. Two.
“Well,” Bhumika said in a controlled voice. “If that’s how you feel, then that’s how you feel.”
“Bhumika, I amliterallyyour servant.”
“And what else could you be? My long-lost sibling, perhaps? A distant cousin? I could hardly adopt you, could I? Being the general’s wife—using the general—requires certain sacrifices. It always has.”
Even in shadow—even in the sangam—Bhumika’s hand drifted without conscious thought to her waist. Priya felt oddly ashamed. She looked away.
Why are we always so ugly to one another?
“Anyway,” Priya said abruptly. “I want to end her poisoning and stop the needle-flower entirely. But I’m not the one who gives her the wine.”
Bhumika drummed her fingers lightly. “Could you make yourself that person?”
“Pramila doesn’t think much of servants.” Priya crossed her arms. “And she certainly doesn’t think much of me.”
“But she needs you,” said Bhumika.
“She needs much more than me. But yes.”
Bhumika nodded, as if she’d come to some decision.
“Keep the princess alive,” Bhumika said. “Just a little longer. That’s all I ask of you, Priya. What you do with Ashok…” She shook her head. “Just do this for me. That’s all.”
Then Bhumika reached out, both hands before her, and violently shoved Priya down under the water.
Priya woke with a gasp.
Malini lay deep asleep on the charpoy beside her. The sun was beginning to rise. And Priya would have almost—almost—believed it was just a dream, if not for the memory of the flint of Bhumika’s eyes. The magic singing and coiling in her blood.
The lines upon the floor, which had moved into a mimicry of stars.
MALINI
Malini knew she was growing sicker. It was becoming more difficult to make herself speak. Quiet was simpler, easier. The needle-flower was a dark pool, enfolding her, pressing down upon her tongue.
Days passed. She had asked Priya to stay near her, to lie down beside her if she liked, and Priya had taken the request to heart. Often Priya sat by her and told her stories: more about the yaksa, but also silly, frivolous tales that she’d clearly dredged up from her childhood. Once, she told Malini about an elephant who asked its mice friends to save it from a hunter by biting through the ropes binding it.
“Do mice and elephants speak the same language?” Malini asked, when Priya was halfway into the story.
“Don’t pick holes,” Priya scolded. “Does everything really have to make perfect sense, my lady? It’s a tale for children.”
“I think it’s a fair question,” Malini said. She knew her voice was thin, reedy with exhaustion, but she managed a laugh when Priya gave her a mock frown. “Now, imagine if you were the size of an elephant and I were the size of a mouse. Would we really be able to have a conversation?”
“Well, you’d be too frightened to tell me how foolish my stories are, at least,” Priya said.
But as Malini grew sicker, the stories petered out. More often than not, Malini woke from nightmares to find Priya dozing on the floor beside her charpoy, head pillowed on her arms and her body curled on its side.
One night, she felt the charpoy shift; heard the creak of the frame behind her curved back.
Malini’s breath stuttered out of her. “Priya?” she whispered.
“I’m here.”
Malini turned over.
