“I will take this victory,” she said softly. “I will accept thepossibility that future generations will face the yaksa again. So be it. But we are going to destroy the deathless waters together, and then we are both going to walk away, alive and free.”
Priya shook her head. Her head felt like it was full of fire. She couldn’t listen to this. She couldn’thope. It was so cruel.
“We’ve paid enough, you and I,” Malini said.
“Why should we live if those priests die?” Priya asked hotly. What worth did her life have, compared to anyone else’s?
“Because they are willing and we are not.” A hard smile curved Malini’s mouth, reflecting the cold determination in her eyes. “Because I am selfish and hungry, and I make no apologies for it. Iwantus to live, Priya.
“I have won an empire, and we will kill your gods,” she said. “If we want a future together—alifetogether—where we no longer need to wear masks, or shape ourselves into monsters, then we will have one.”
Priya did not know if she walked to Malini, or if Malini walked to her, but Malini was drawing her close. Her head was against Malini’s shoulder, against warm skin, cold metal.
“I still don’t want you to do this,” Priya said quietly. “I want you to be safe.”
“I know,” Malini replied. Her arms around Priya were gentle. “I know, my love.”
They left Lata in the war camp. She exchanged quiet words with Malini, her eyes red, then watched them all go.
The army followed. Arrayed itself at the border. Malini and Priya—and their retinue of soldiers and priests—walked to the forest’s edge.
Priya raised a hand. Before her, the thick wall of trees parted at her command.
MALINI
Malini walked through Ahiranya with Priya by her side. Above them, the trees threw vast shadows. When she looked at Priya she could only see her face in angles of darkness and light. The furrow of Priya’s brow. Her closed eyes. Her steady feet, barefoot and confident on the soil.
But she could feel Priya: her magic, twining and twisting outward from her body, stretching tendrils of awareness out to the very edges of the retinue behind them. Priya was guarding every single warrior and priest, and Malini could feel her doing it.
Her chest ached at her scar, but it wasn’t an ugly pain. It was an ache like hunger, an ache like desire. She was aware of every thrum of her own heartbeat and breath. There was magic in her, just as there was in Priya. She was going to see the deathless waters. She was going to witness the death of the yaksa.
Priya’s eyes fluttered open.
“Malini,” she whispered.
“Yes?” Malini whispered in return.
“Look behind you,” said Priya. “And tell me what you see.”
Malini did not stop walking as she craned her neck. Their entire procession was not visible to her—it couldn’t be, with the thickness of the trees—but she could see her personal guard behind her, their heart’s-shell weapons ready. Sahar, Shri, Sanvi. The first warriors from Parijat, helmed in white and gold. Andpriests behind them—priests of the nameless, garbed in blue, their eyes wide as they took in the forest around them. And priests, too, of the mothers—ash-marked, gray-faced with trepidation.
“Nothing unusual,” Malini said.
“Look closer,” said Priya. Her voice sounded strained. “I can feel them coming but there’s something—something I can’t see—”
Malini saw it. A flicker of shadow. Moving leaves. Her eyes saw what the magic within her could not.
“There is someone in the trees,” Malini hissed.
Priya’s hand whipped into the air, one sharp and cutting motion. The trees gave a crack and a groan, a rain of leaves falling as they splintered and opened a jagged path.
“Now,” Sahar yelled at the people behind them. “Prepare to fight!”
Malini heard weapons unsheathe as her own guards drew closer to her, attempting to form a shield around her.
A figure leapt down from the trees, landing in front of Priya. It straightened. A man, no armor on him, holding a single small weapon. Priya gave a sharp inhale.
“Shyam,” she said.
