His eyes widened.
“Bhumika,” he said. Only her name.
She took his hands. They were so much larger than her own, and scarred and callused, but they felt fragile all the same. They were a part of him, and that made them precious to her. She held them tenderly.
“You must trust that I mean it,” she said.
“I trust you,” he said. “I always have.”
He raised their joined hands to his mouth and kissed them. It felt reverent, like a promise. When he raised his head he said, “My lady. Bhumika.”
She did not tell him not to call hermy lady. It felt different now. Precious.
They escaped the tent and met Sima with her two horses, standing near the edge of the camp.
“You took so long,” she complained. “I’m not exactly able to hide, am I?”
“Apologies,” said Jeevan.
“Thank you,” Bhumika said to her. “Truly—thank you.”
“I’m going for me, too,” said Sima. “Even if you don’t remember—neither of us wants to see Priya hurt. We’ll make sure she’s safe.”
They wended their way to the border, dodging stray soldiers and warriors on horseback, until they reached the edge of the forest.
The trees were vast and forbidding. The ground treacherous with thorns. The horses were skittish, uncooperative, so Sima cursed and then slapped one of them on the rump, sending both running to safety.
“Can you carve us a safe path?” Jeevan asked, as the clatter of hooves faded.
Bhumika shook her head. “But I don’t believe I will need to,” she said. “The green knows me. It will let me in. And you with me.” She held out her palm. “Take my hands,” she said.
Sima took her left, as Jeevan took her right. Before them the forest rustled. She took a step forward, and another… and slowly, surely, the trees began to part.
The three of them walked into Ahiranya.
RAO
The remaining army waited in an arc around the border of Parijatdvipa.
The generals were arranged at the back of the army. Rao stood with Khalil, Prakash, and Narayan and watched the sway and bend of the trees. Beneath the usual noises of an army, there was an eerie hush—an absence of birdsong and wind that made his blood run cold.
He touched his fingertips to the heart’s-shell dagger at his waist, then turned as Lord Khalil called his name. Khalil’s eyes were narrowed against the sunlight. He gestured Rao over.
“No need to stay on guard,” Khalil said, mild humor in his voice. “Everything rests in the hands of the brave soldiers and priests who walked into Ahiranya. We will live and die by their doing.”
“How can I calm myself, knowing that? How can anyone?”
“Try,” Khalil suggested. “Surely by now you know that war requires patience. The wait before victory or defeat would be interminable without it. Pray to the nameless if it will help.”
It would not. It would only remind Rao that if he were following the bidding of the nameless, he would be in Ahiranya with Malini. He would be embracing his own death. But he nodded and said, “That’s a good suggestion. Thank you.”
“My wife,” Khalil said, after a moment, “is wroth with you forbringing that Jagatay tribe into Dwarali. But I am not. I know you acted at the empress’s bidding, and I can see the benefit of it.”
“I am glad of that,” Rao said, and found that he was.
“The heart’s shell, of course, is useful,” Khalil said, touching a light hand to his own brace of stone-tipped arrows. “But when I am sultan I will make allies of them. Marry together our lines.”
“And then the heart’s shell will belong to your family,” Rao said slowly.
