“To save it,” Malini corrected.
“You think little of me, Empress, to believe I would save myself before Parijatdvipa.”
“If you turn against my will,” Malini said, looking down at him, as cold as he was cold, “I will ensure that everyone knows of your betrayal. I know it will cost me support of the priesthood. But I am no longer afraid as I once may have been. I have something greater than you. I have an answer to our war.” The secret of sacrifice. The priests of the nameless who would follow Rao and Bhumika with light fervent in their eyes. “I have thetruth.”
She stood. “Mitul will be executed,” she said. “Any priest of the mothers who wishes to join me may do so. But your journey is at an end, High Priest.”
She stood before a court of priests. Priests of the mothers. Priests of the nameless.
Hemanth stood at the edge of the court, silent.
He could, she knew, have chosen to take the priesthood downwith him in disgrace. But she had made a catalog of his weaknesses. Weighed him up. He loved the priesthood and the mothers above all else. What made him a dangerous ally and a dangerous foe was that he believed utterly in his own righteousness.
But this he valued more than his own ideals: the order of priests, garbed in their simple robes, their foreheads ash-marked, who arrived as a group into her court. Who bowed as she looked down upon them, Divyanshi’s scion on her throne.
As she told them what the nameless god had taught his followers in Alor. And what now they must do for all of Parijatdvipa.
Five willing deaths were enough to save the subcontinent in the Age of Flowers. Now they faced the yaksa reborn, greater, powerful. Would they face the threat? Would they die to defy it?
Slowly, surely, one by one men came forward and bowed and offered themselves. And Malini watched them, banked fire and hope growing in her heart.
Of course you saved yourself, she thought, looking at Hemanth, who stood at the edge of the court, his eyes fierce. Hemanth, who would give up his title at first light. Who would be High Priest no more.
We are alike, you and I. We’ve tasted true power.
There is nothing worthwhile for us after death.
SANVI
Sanvi walked down to the depths of the cells beneath the mahal. The air smelled fetid, of rain turned to damp, sour bodies and piss. One of the guards at the gate to the final corridor nodded to her as she approached the doors.
“Are you here for the priest?”
“She wants it finished,” Sanvi said lightly.
He shrugged and let her by. He had no other questions. She was one of the empress’s guards, and she was welcome and known here.
The farthest cell was locked tight, with only the smallest light within from a sickly clay lamp. She took the key from a chain at her own throat and unlocked it.
She stepped inside and shut the door behind her.
It smelled of blood, here. Sickness.
The guard at the end of the corridor was too far to hear noise from here. A torture cell needed thick walls. She kneeled down.
“Priest,” she said in a low voice. “Mitul. I am here.”
In the corner of the cell, a pile of rags shuddered and gave a low moan. He unfolded himself laboriously, painfully: bruised, broken limbs. A swollen face. One eye gazed at her, bloodshot.
“Sanvi,” he rasped. “By the mothers. I am glad it is you.”
She gave a choked sob and scrambled to him, lifting his upper body to her lap. He cried out in pain. She made a soothing noise.
“I volunteered,” she said. “Does it hurt?”
“She wanted everything from me,” he said.
“Did you say…?”
