The chariot jolted as it wheeled over a dip in the road.
“No,” Bhumika said. “I asked Jeevan not to speak of it to me. I fear…” She shook her head.
“What?” Priya pressed.
“He told me I do not want to know what I left behind,” Bhumika said finally. “And what I do know…” She paused, struggling. “I believe him.”
Silence.
“He’s doing well,” Sima offered eventually. “He’s, uh. More chained than we are. But Prince Rao and Sahar, they won’t let him be hurt.”
Bhumika nodded wordlessly and closed her eyes.
Priya watched her for a long time after that, her heart hurting. Sima leaned against her shoulder and tucked her own feet under her.
“I know,” Sima said under her breath. “I know.”
They clasped hands. The chariot kept on moving.
The sage Lata was the one who came to see them to their night’s accommodation. The chariot had stopped—the army in its entirety had stopped—ready to make camp for the night.
“Come,” she said to Priya when Sima and Bhumika were settled. Sima turned to look, a question on her face. But Priya couldn’t answer it. She nodded at Lata, then followed her.
“I do not think the empress is acting wisely,” Lata said, unprompted. She wasn’t looking at Priya—only leading the way. “But she wants you with her.”
Priya thought it would be wise to say nothing to that.
In Malini’s tent, alone, she found herself restless. Found herself touching the silken bedding, feeling the softness of the rug between her toes. She touched the items spilling from Malini’s trunk, left accessible by Swati: silk saris and boxes of jewels; books wrapped in cloth and boxes of attar.
She should not have looked at Malini’s jewelry box, but she did.
Should not have found the gap at the base, where a little paper peeked out, but she did—and pried it out gently with her fingertips. And read.
And read.
“Priya.”
Malini wore white, great chains of silver at her throat and moonstones at her ears, white jasmine a corona in her braided hair. She was every inch the empress, and she looked luminous in the darkness of the tent, bright as moonlight as she crossed the tent to where Priya sat on the bed.
“Every time I’m here, alone or with you, I find I can’t stop searching. Looking, touching…” Priya’s voice trailed off, a wisp of smoke, as she turned the letters over in her hands.
“Those are private,” Malini said, after a beat.
“They’re addressed to me.”
“You tore the lining of my jewelry box to get them,” Malini said, in a dry tone that did nothing to hide her feelings from Priya—her nervousness. The sharpness of her. “You know they weren’t for you.”
“You wrote me letters,” Priya said softly. She couldn’t defend herself, so she didn’t try. Her fingers traced over them—the spidering ink was like dust under her hovering fingers, an imprint of lost time that could be destroyed with a brush of breath, a touch. “You wanted to reach for me. Over and over again, you thought of me.”
“I did,” Malini said. She sat beside Priya back on the bed. The silk of her sari rasped.
“You loved me,” Priya said, voice thick.
A pause.
“I did,” Malini said finally.
Priya nodded, slowly. Looked back down at the letters.
