“It sounds as if you have all the pieces of your answer,” Bhumika said quietly. “But it is simple. Mani Ara must be destroyed, and PriyaisMani Ara.”
“She is not,” Malini said sharply.
“She is not,” Bhumika agreed. “And she is.”
Malini forced herself not to falter or show weakness.
“So must Priya die,” she said, “for the deathless waters to be destroyed? Is her life the price?”
“You can ask and ask again, Empress,” Bhumika said. “It willnot change the truth.” A pause. “I am sorry.”
That, more than anything, confirmed to her that Lady Bhumika had truly become a ghost of herself. The woman she had known would have grieved Priya. It made Malini suddenly furious. Strange, how the fury made her want more than anything to weep as if her heart were broken.
Unbidden, her mind conjured up images of her heart sisters. Alori, Narina. Gone. Aditya. Gone. She had loved them and lost them, and nothing could return them to her. And Priya—shehadloved Priya. But now what she felt for Priya was something beyond love. It was the tether of magic between them. It was hatred, and it was the most joyous and sacred thing she’d ever felt.You are life, she’d told Priya, and it was true. Priya was her life.
She would not let Priya enter Ahiranya. She would keep her in the camp. She would bind her. She would not care what Priya said, she would—she would—
No. Those thoughts were foolish. She could not yield to them, no matter how much her heart wanted to.
There was no one else who could allow the priests safe passage, and no one else who could carve the way to the deathless waters. Priya had to go to Ahiranya, and Malini could not stop her.
“As long as Priya lives, the yaksa will never be truly gone from the world,” Bhumika said, into Malini’s silence. “But if you will let me go with her. If I can do anything to spare her pain…”
“No.” She spoke before thinking. “Iwill go with her.”
And I will bring her back alive.
The sacrifices made in this war would have to be enough. Malini was monstrous enough to seize a throne and murder a brother. She was monstrous enough to continue the glorious, bloody cruelty of empire. She hadmadeherself so.
She would choose now to be monstrous enough to let an enemy live, for the sake of keeping what was hers. She would choose love over goodness.
Let future generations face the yaksa once more. Let the rot continue. Only, let me have her.
Rao and Lata were the first to hear her decision, and the first to beg her to change her mind.
They both met with Malini alone, without the interference of courtiers or administrators. In the predawn dark, in the privacy of Lata’s own tent, Malini told them what she would do. Lata looked as if she wanted to weep, and Rao refused to look at her at all. He bowed his head as Lata kneeled down beside Malini. Lata’s eyes were shadow-rimmed.
“You can’t go into Ahiranya,” she said, her voice hoarse. “My lady. Please. Youknowwhat will happen. If the yaksa or the Ahiranyi don’t land a lucky blow—if the rot does not touch you—your own priests will turn on you eventually. There are still many who want you to burn, you know this!”
“Sahar will be with me, and she is trustworthy,” Malini said. “Rao has vouched for the priests of the nameless. I won’t be harmed.”
“I vouched for their faith,” Rao said roughly. “But I don’t trust them with your life.”
“Empress—Malini. You’re far too clever to truly believe that. If you leave now, Empress, you will destroy your own legacy,” Lata said slowly. Her voice was bleak. “The priests will make your brother’s son into a puppet emperor. They will erase any memory of you—or make a mother of flame of you. You will not be remembered as Empress Malini, ruler of all Parijatdvipa. You will be forgotten.”
That cut deeper than the rest. She had done what no daughter of Divyanshi had ever done. To imagine her legacy erased and discarded was infuriating.
But ah—what did she truly care about the tales that would be spun after her death? It was the tales toldnowthat mattered. It was the life she lived inside them. And if her life, this life she had fought tooth and nail for, had to be empty of Priya, had to leave her with nothing but her grief, a knife scar—no. She could not bear it.
“Come now,” said Malini lightly. “I will be a gold statue, at least. Perhaps the priests will place me next to Divyanshi, wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Don’t make a joke of this,” Rao snapped. “You can’t choose to die. Not now.”
“I’m not choosing death. I promise you, I’ll return.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Rao.
“We both will,” Lata said.
