Perhaps the only future that truly lay ahead of her was as a hollow gourd—a perfectly formed vessel for Mani Ara. Herself, and not herself. There would be no escape from those shining thorn teeth, that voice that called herbelovedandsapling, and asked her to break and break and break.
“Thank you for announcing yourself so clearly,” a voice said. In the quiet of the empty caravanserai it carried—a dark, winged bird, settling in Priya’s ears, Priya’s heart. “I wasn’t sure when you would come.”
Priya lifted her feet out of the water, stood, and turned. And there she was. Malini.
The same, always the same as Priya had dreamt her: slim and tall, with that braid of curling black hair, those gray eyes that could pin you and hold you. She was unsmiling. She wore white—a white sari, pleated to a knife edge—and armor over her torso.
Priya reached for her power. There was no need to make the earth tremor or force thorns through the soil, not yet—but she held them ready. Malini’s gaze was unwavering, but there was something in her eyes—something that said sheknew.
“There’s no need for that, Priya,” she said softly, confirming it. “Come out of the water.”
Priya stepped from the water. In the green, she could feel nothing and no one.
“Where are your guards?” Priya asked. “Your warriors? I can’t feel them. I can’t feel you.” A step closer. “Why can’t I feel you?”
“I’m alone.”
“You wouldn’t have come here alone. Not to face me.”
“I faced Chandra without my guards or warriors,” Malini said calmly, her face lovely and empty. “I faced him on faith alone.”
“You took a risk facing him, but you knew it gave you the best chance against him. You had… allies…” Priya’s voice trailed off. Malini was walking toward her, alive and real and in the flesh before her.
“I think perhaps you are my ally against yourself,” Malini said, drawing closer. Priya heard the clink of the saber at her hip. The gold at her throat and wrists shone. “Why did you tell me where to find you?”
So Mani Ara could not use me. So I could be taken beyond her reach. So I could carve a third path.
“Maybe I want to see what you’ll do, Malini,” she said. “Now that you have me.”
“Ah, Priya,” she said. “I do not have you yet.”
“You think I’ll fight?”
Malini exhaled and smiled. She reached up, carelessly touching the gold at her throat. “Will you?”
“Will you try to kill me?”
Malini’s eyes were black as pitch, her expression soft in a way that told Priya her hatred ran deep, as deep as the deathless waters beneath the Hirana itself.
“I will treat you with exactly the same courtesy you extended to me, of course,” said Malini. “What else?”
Priya clenched and unclenched her hands. Preparing. Not her body, perhaps. But her heart.
“You have more right to my death than almost anyone,”Priya said. “If anyone could kill me… But I won’t die yet. I don’t want to.”
Malini’s body moved, swiftly, and Priya didn’t wait to see what she’d do with their closeness—what saber Malini would set through her stomach, what needle she’d jab into her throat. The ground erupted around them both. A wall of earth and rock to keep Malini at bay, and more thorns erupting from the ground to push her back, back, back. Priya was a fool, she knew it, but even now she didn’t want to hurt her. Even now…
Malini leapt forward and looped the necklace of gold that had been around her own throat over Priya’s neck with all the reverence of a wedding garland.
Then she tightened her fist, turning the necklace into a noose.
The second it touched her skin, Priya felt what lay under that gold. Something cold and dark that grasped her power and strangled it. The weapon that had hurt Ganam. The stone on the knife.
The ground went still. She gave a choked breath, and another, and the necklace loosened but did not leave her throat.
Figures appeared out of the darkness. Soldiers.
“You’re right,” Malini said. “I lied. I didn’t come alone. Will you yield, Priya?”
