“You are very insightful,” Varsha once said to her. “Very clever indeed.”
Deepa blushed and said, “I was not my father’s favorite. Nor was I pretty. I had to notice things to survive.”
Perhaps Varsha’s life would have been better if she had been less pretty, less powerful, less loved. But she knew better than to say this. Instead she tried to learn by example. She listened, and began to understand the currents of power that flowed through the empire.
Then she heard it. Information like gold, or something more precious still.
She was feeding Vijay, tucked in a corner of Deepa’s study, when Lata entered. The sage did not even glance at her. She kneeled down by Deepa’s desk and began to speak hurriedly, her fingers tapping on the surface. Deepa’s eyes grew steadily more worried.
“… Dwarali land,” Lata was saying. “Lady Raziya will not accept it, Deepa, nor Lord Khalil. They will be at war with the empress before we know it.”
“Land—to the Jagatay?” Deepa frowned. “I can’t believe it. I—”
She stopped as Lata’s gaze fixed finally on Varsha. Varsha pretended not to notice. She brushed a hand gently over Vijay’s hair.
“She’s no trouble,” Deepa murmured.
Varsha did not wait to hear Lata’s response. She lifted Vijayfrom her breast, arranging her blouse as he fretted. Then she stood, and made her apologies, and left.
Ferment in Dwarali. Displeasure with the empress. Knowledge like gold.
She felt eyes on her back as she left, but she paid no attention to it. Her excitement was too big for such petty concerns.
The priest would want this knowledge from her, she knew.
But why, she thought,should I hand power to the priesthood? To another man in power?
She thought of the empress, and thought of what the empress had—power and allies of her own. In the cage of her life, Varsha clung to this new information, this small power she had… and then she exhaled and began to write.
She sent her letter—with a hefty bribe of jewelry for the courier—to Dwarali at dawn.
She would make her own allies. When the empress was gone, she would be her son’s regent. She would keep him safe.
PRIYA
It was first light, the blue-white of milk, when Priya drew near the lake.
She could feel the water—deep, stagnant, and still, with hundreds of lotus flowers blooming from silt-tangled stems.Utpala Lake. She’d seen it in the knowledge Mani Ara had gifted her of the sleeping yaksa and where to find them. It was the place she’d shown to Malini in a dream, so that Malini would know where to seek her out.
She could not feel Malini’s presence, no matter how she searched, all the tendrils of her magic seeking Malini out. Instead beyond the lake, far beyond, she felt dense forest. Beneath that forest, the yaksa Mani Ara had shown her was shifting restlessly—a consciousness awakening, uncoiling under soil, responding to her presence.
The yaksa would have to awaken alone. Priya could not help them now.
The lake was ringed by a caravanserai—a place for travelers to rest, and a market all at once. It should have been bustling, noisy. But it was silent.
No one was here.
It was not a trap. Traps were meant to be subtle. The silence of the caravanserai was an invitation. Malini had prepared the way. Malini was expecting her.
Priya walked through the gates of the caravanserai, which were open and unguarded. The caravanserai was a ring of empty tents and stalls.
At its center, the lake was a vast blue disc, rich with flowers the color of wrist veins. She walked toward it, stood by the water’s edge, and watched the lotuses.
She could sense no rot in them. She sat on the edge of the lake and placed her legs in the water. Her clothes grew wet—the end of her tunic billowed, white going blue-black in the murky dark.
Time passed. And passed. There was no sign of Malini. She breathed out, and in, and made flowers grow around the edges of the caravanserai’s walls. Jasmine flowers, mostly, darted with needle-flower.
Maybe she had lied to herself. Maybe the dream had just been a dream after all. Perhaps Malini hadn’t understood.
