She picked Priya up in her arms and made hushed apologies as Priya cried out.
How far were they from the Hirana? Too far, surely. Malini could not outrun the fire. The fire was seeking her out.
But she needed to take Priya to the deathless waters. Those waters could heal Priya. That feverish thought caught her and held her. If anything could save Priya, it was the waters that had made her strong.
Malini tried to stand. The movement jolted Priya awake. She made an awful noise. Her eyes, unfocused at first, fixed on Malini’s face. Malini froze in the process of lifting her, and lay her carefully back down.
“M-Malini?”
“I’m here, my love.”
“I… need to—get to the Hirana.” She was panting hard, her breath breaking her words into shards. The whites of her eyes were vast—the wild whiteness of a spooked horse. “Need to…”
“Shh,” Malini soothed. “I know.”
She knew now that she had made a terrible mistake coming here, and believing that what she had put into place would be enough to leash the priesthood. She had used their faith against them over and over, but faith was a flame that could not be grasped forever. Eventually it would turn on its wielder. It had.
No turning back. The priests would have what they wished. Her death, one way or another.
She felt oddly calm. It was one thing to be dragged to a pyre. To be afraid, and used. But it was different to kneel on burnt soil with your love dying in your arms, pondering a choice.
“I will take you into the Hirana myself,” she said.
Priya made a groan of protest.
“I’ll go—myself.”
“You cannot go on your own. Surely you recognize it,” Malinisaid softly. “You and your yaksa are bound. And you and I are bound. Your magic…” She breathed, and exhaled, a deliberate parting of her mouth—and knew Priya felt it all through the green, a susurration, a song. “I’ll take you.”
“You shouldn’t have come with me,” Priya said, voice small. “You were meant to—to rule. To hold on to power first.”
“What does it matter,” Malini said, her voice splintering. “If I don’t have you? If you are gone where I cannot see you or feel you or dream you again, then what is any of it worth to me?”
She cupped Priya’s face tenderly between her hands. Tilted Priya’s face up.
“I have escaped death so many times,” Malini said, in a voice that trembled but was fierce, fierce. “I am done. Priya.” A kiss to each closed eyelid. “Show me the way to Mani Ara.”
Priya exhaled a rattling breath.
No seeker’s path opened before them. Instead, a line of flowers—jasmine and ashoka, needle-flower and oleander—bloomed in a line before them, marking the way to the Hirana. A wall of rock shuddered out of the ground behind them.
A way forward and a shield at her back. Priya was so good to her.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and heaved Priya up into her arms. Priya made one sound of agony then went silent.
Malini did not know how she would carry her all the way. Her arms already ached. Her lungs burned from smoke. But she clenched her jaw and began to walk.
It went on forever, hot and awful, the fire screaming at her back. She felt the green magic shiver around them. Priya’s magic.
“I cannot carry her alone,” she said to it, and felt the green respond to her. Vines crawled their way up her body, twining over her arms, until they cradled Priya with her, carrying her along with Malini. It was easier after that.
She landed heavily on her knees on the ground at the base of the Hirana. It was her hand that she placed against the Hirana’s stone, and her borrowed magic that somehow opened a tunnel into the Hirana. Blue light glowed at the end of it, beckoning.
She lifted Priya up once more and walked in. She closed the stone behind her.
There were no more vines to help her. She carried Priya’s weight alone.
She walked until she was deep into the heart of the Hirana. Until there was blue light around her, and blue water before her.
