“Priya,” a voice said. It was young. Hesitant.
She opened her eyes. It was day, hot, light. She saw a figure, and knew it, knew him, even before he stepped from the shadows into the spill of light from the window.
“Rukh,” she said. There was a bundle in his arms, a small face with dark curls turned against his shoulder. Priya straightened in her bed, suddenly awake. “Is that…?”
“You can’t hold her,” he said warily.
Was it because she wasn’t quite human anymore? Did he fear she was a yaksa?
“I won’t,” she said. She sat up properly, tucking her feet under her.
For all her fears of being not quite human, her heart was racing. She felt shaky with the intensity of seeing him, of seeing Padma, safe and whole in his arms. Perhaps a little sleep had been enough to restore all the soft, terrified parts of her.
“Look at her,” Priya said, voice a little choked. “She’s so big now. How—how is she?”
Rukh was silent for a long moment, his eyes large, watchful. There was so much feeling in them that she couldn’t read or understand.
“She… she’s not loud like she used to be,” Rukh said eventually, a telltale wobble to his voice as he looked at Priya and held Padma tight, so tight. “But I guess that’s—normal. Considering. Everything.”
How could Bhumika have left Padma behind? Priya couldn’t fathom any of this. The question was an ache.
Bhumika had to be dead.
“I won’t touch her,” Priya said. “I promise. But you can come and sit beside me, if you like. She must be heavy.”
Hesitation, again. She saw him swallow. He shifted on his feet, like he didn’t know if he wanted to stay or flee.
“I don’t know if you’re… you,” he said.
“That makes sense,” Priya said, thinking of the teary horror in Khalida’s eyes, and the determined, forceful hope in Kritika’s. “But why did you come to me, Rukh? If you think I’m something the yaksa made, or if you think I’m one of them…” She exhaled and felt the rustle of flowers growing through the bedding beneath her. She forced them away.Wither.“I know you’d risk yourself out of curiosity,” she went on. “That’s your way. It doesn’t surprise me. But her—ah, Rukh, that’s not like you.”
“I couldn’t leave her,” he burst out. “And I wanted to know if you—I hoped. I had to know if hoping was stupid. And if you’re one of them, if you’re a yaksa that looks like Priya, then nowhere’s safe from you. And if you’re Priya, then nowhere’s safer than with you. So.” He swallowed again, and she saw the tears streaking his face, miserable. “It’s all hope. That’s why.”
“I’m me,” she said softly, swallowing back her own tears. “You’re going to have to decide for yourself if you can believe that or not, Rukh. But as far as I know, I’m still me. Priya, and a temple elder, and human enough. So come sit. Or don’t. I’ll understand.”
“Will you?”
“Of course,” she said. “There’s always tomorrow. Maybe you’ll trust me then. Or maybe the day after that. I’m not going anywhere again.”
He stood still for a long, long moment. But Padma was heavy for him. She could tell. And he wanted to believe her.
He walked over to the bed and sat down. She didn’t close the distance between them but felt herself relax—some unknowable tension unspooling from her shoulders, her spine.
“How are you, Rukh?” Priya asked gently.
“Oh, everything’s awful here,” he said, trying to sound casual.
“I’m asking about you. About how awful it’s been for you,specifically. Go on. You can tell me.”
“I forgot you for a while,” Rukh said, voice hushed. He was rocking Padma back and forth in his arms, resting her cheek against his knee. It didn’t look like a comfortable position, but Padma was still half-asleep regardless, her face blotchy from crying, her eyes hooded. She was gnawing softly on her own fist. “I… the yaksa. The one that looks like Ashok. He did something to me, and it was like… like the memory of you was water, andIwas taken away from the water, and so I didn’t have the memory anymore.”
He swallowed and lowered his head. Padma made a chuffing noise and tried to grab at the leaves in his hair, then settled again when he hushed her.
“But you remember me now,” Priya said.
“I do,” Rukh agreed. “It came back slowly. After he let me go. I just. I just wanted you to understand if I’m not the same…”
Priya huffed out a laugh. She waved her arm in front of herself, letting the light shine on her—on her green-dusted veins, the sap pearling at her fingertips.
