“What was it like here, long ago?” Malini asked, voice strange. She was clearly trying to distract from whatever had just happened between them, and it was effective. Priya felt like she’d been doused in cold water. Malini had not saidbefore the temple burned. But that was what she had meant.
If Priya closed her eyes she could envision it: carvings painted in rich shades of green and blue, with red eyes and red mouths. Blue floors, and gold lacquer on the great pillars that held up the walls. Lanterns of colored glass in sconces. Children laughing. The elders in their fine, soft silks.
But she looked around her, and nothing remained. Just motes of dust on the air, and the charred, empty walls. Just Malini watching her.
“What was it like in the imperial mahal?” Priya asked in return.
Malini offered Priya a sly smile that made clear she understood what Priya was doing but was willing to be led.
“It was beautiful. Sprawling. There were gardens everywhere, Priya. Such beautiful gardens. My ladies-in-waiting and I used to play in them, when we were small girls.” She moved her fingers restlessly against Priya’s own.
“I wish you would tell me about yourself,” Malini added. Her voice was soft. “I want to know everything about you.”
Priya’s throat was suddenly dry.
“Me? I’m not very interesting.”
“I’m sure you are. Let me prove it to you. A game.” Her voice was almost teasing. “Tell me one thing you want right now, Priya.”
“Want?”
“Yes. What do you want? Come, I’m testing if you’re dull, after all.”
It felt like a dangerous question. Priya shook her head, and Malini cocked hers.
“Come now,” Malini cajoled. “Everyone wants something. Me, for example. I want the sweets my brother Aditya always brought me for my birthday when I was a girl. Ladoo, but like none you’ve ever eaten before, Priya. Soaked in rose syrup and sugared almonds, dusted in a filigree of gold. Oh, they were perfect. I haven’t had them in years. So. What do you want?”
“Right now, I think I want those sweets,” said Priya, half-serious. A ladoo soaked in rose syrup sounded decadent, and she suddenly wanted to be decadent. Craved something delicious.
“Don’t cheat,” Malini scolded. “You have to pick your own want. And no food. I’ve picked food.”
“You can’t pickallfood!”
“I can and I have.”
“Respectfully,” Priya said, in a tone that was anything but respectful, “that isn’t fair.”
“I’m the one testing you. It’s my right to decide the parameters of the testing. Now, go on: Tell me what you want most.”
Priya didn’t consider herself a complicated person. But she didn’t often think of her wants. What did she want, anyway? To remember herself, her past. To see Rukh alive a few more years. For Ashok to be well and… different. Able to love her. And Bhumika. She wanted Bhumika to respect her.
Those were bigger wants than Priya wanted to admit… or than Malini surely wanted to hear, even if Priya were free to confess them.
“Maybe I want to learn to walk the way you do,” said Priya, straightening her neck, tilting her chin just a little, in imitation of Malini’s regal posture.
“Do you really? I could teach you.”
“Spirits, no,” Priya said, and watched Malini’s lip twitch once more. “People would say I was pretending to be a princess. I’d be mocked, my lady. No.”
“Then I need a different answer, Priya.”
Priya considered for a moment. But it was hard to think, with Malini’s hands in her own, with Malini’s thumbs brushing the insides of her wrists, where her blood thrummed. There was a promise in this somewhere—in the touch and the smile and the joy written in Malini’s face, the teasing edge to her voice. She didn’t know what exactly to do with it, or with the way it made her own heart turn.
“There are coconuts that you can find growing in the forest,” she blurted out. “Sometimes foragers or woodcutters collect them and sell them at the bazaar. Only the richest can afford to buy them.”
“I said no food,” Malini said in a chiding tone. But she was listening.
“They’re not exactly edible. They’re—the forest, my lady, is entirely Ahiranyi, and sometimes you find strange things inside it. Unexpected things. When you split those particular coconuts, you find flowers inside. Dark purple, violet, black. The color of shadows. The rich place those blossoms in their shrines. Or they used to.” The wealthier pilgrims had brought those coconuts to the Hirana once, too. Priya had cracked one open herself, and nearly wept when the flowers had burst out, tumbling beautifully over her hands, a cascade of darkness. “I’d like one of those coconuts. I’d like to make that offering. It would be frivolous and stupid and… it wouldn’t help anyone I’ve lost. Or summon any kind of luck. But it would be like a cry against the void. And that would be what some of the people I’ve lost would have wanted…” Priya trailed off. “I’m not usually frivolous. But that’s why it’s a want,” Priya added. “Right now, in this place? That’s what I want.”
