“Don’t pretend you wouldn’t,” Priya said finally.
“I didn’t say a word,” Malini replied. Her voice was terrible in its calm—in the anger rising under that apparent serenity, a darkfist, a clenched thing. “You dreamt with me. You know what I want. What I feel.”
Priya thought of Malini’s hands on her mouth, and her knife parting Priya’s ribs, blood and flowers blooming in its wake. She thought of the gentleness of Malini’s mouth, the demand of her hands on Priya’s waist, her thighs.
“I’ve read what I can of your Birch Bark Mantras,” Malini said. “Are there any tales beyond the Birch Bark Mantras, Priya, of the cruelty of your yaksa? The evil of them?” Malini was leaning forward, all the tension in her face sharpening her gaze, her voice, to a blade. “So many soft, tender tales of love, and none of them true.”
“Tender? Soft? I thought you of all people would understand the tales better than that,” Priya said. “You can love something knowing it can destroy you. Maybe you love it more for it.”
Malini’s mouth tightened.
“Once, I read those tales to better know you. And now—”
“Now you still don’t know me,” Priya cut in.
Malini stared back at her. “Thenletme know you. Why did you let me take you?”
Maybe that was why Malini had given her the liquor. Not out of kindness—Priya had never truly believed it was out of kindness—nor out of a desire to poison Priya. Maybe Malini had just wanted to unspool her, untether her—to leave her light and open and more likely to speak foolishly. To let something slip that she couldn’t afford for Malini to know.
Something likeI let you take me. I let you. I’m using you too, Malini, my love, biding my time—
“I learned firsthand in Srugna that you finally have a weapon that will kill us without killing you,” Priya said. “Congratulations.” She drank again. Courage. Leaned forward. “Your heart’s shell might be enough to kill the yaksa. I want to help you use it.”
“You want to help me,” Malini said flatly. “You.I know how the yaksa are written into you. In your magic, your nature, your faith, and your history.” Her hand curled around one of the bars. “Don’t lie to me, Priya. You’re no good at it.”
“I’m not lying,” said Priya.
“You betrayed me for your yaksa. Rot spreads across Parijatdvipa, and my people are dying. You should be happy. Why would you help me now?”
“Because the rot infects Ahiranyi people too,” said Priya. “Our fields. Our flesh. I’ve learned… I understand…” A deep breath, mind swimming. “If the yaksa succeed, everyone will be rot-riven. Everything and everyone that matters to you and to me will be lost. I can’t allow that. So I’m here.”
“When I win, Priya,” Malini said slowly, “there will be no Ahiranya. My people want to obliterate your land, and I see little reason not to allow it.”
“When,” Priya repeated, mockery curling her mouth. “There’s nowhen, Malini. You’ve lost your war. The yaksa already have the world, don’t they? You told me yourself. The rot is all over the empire. If you want to destroy the yaksa, you need my knowledge. No one in the world knows the yaksa like I do. You need me. And in return, you’ll need to ensure that the Ahiranyi people survive. How can you reject a bargain like that?”
Malini’s mouth thinned.
“Fine,” Malini said. “Let’s play at negotiating. Let’s pretend there is a way through this, where I do more than leave you to molder here in the dark, forgotten.”
Priya grinned at her and watched Malini stare at the shape of her mouth—the gleam of her teeth in the half dark.
“Thank you, Malini,” she said. “That’s all I want.”
GANAM
Ever since Priya had vanished, the yaksa had turned into monsters.
“They were always monsters,” Khalida whispered when he told her. She was sorting through the temple children’s laundry. She’d roped one of the youngest into the task of scrubbing, and Pallavi was doing a great job ofnotwashing anything and simply swimming in the bucket.
“They can hear you even if you whisper,” he told her, and she glared at him and vowed not to speak to him again. She broke that vow seconds later, of course.
But the yaksa had become worse. Crueler. When Ganam and the others returned from Alor without Priya, Ganam had groveled.We couldn’t find the yaksa in Alor without her, ancient ones. We looked for her, searched, but she was gone. Please, forgive us. I fought her, I begged her to come home, but she broke my arm, fled from me. I don’t have the strength of a thrice-born; there was nothing I could do.
Please.
And still, the youngest yaksa, dragged free from Srugna’s soil by Priya’s own hands, had taken one of Ganam’s men and torn him apart like an insect. Ganam could still smell the blood, hear the screaming.
He pushed the thought away, and the dark nausea that came with it. He wasn’t much for wallowing, but it was hard to avoid it.
