“Ganam,” she called out, letting the smoke-filled air carry her voice to him. She craned her neck. He was below the children, but she saw him look up. “Can you feel it?”
He winced, a ripple of pain crossing his face. “I can,” he said grimly.
Rukh, near him, yelled, “The stone’s cracking!”
There was an ominous groan of stone, so deep it was like the bellowing of a beast. Fire-flecked wind brushed Bhumika’s cheek.
“Keep moving steadily,” she said, not letting her panic show in her voice. Panic would make them careless. Panic would make them fall.
There was another roar—this time of water in her skull. She swayed, and so did Ganam.
“Bhumika,” Jeevan called.
“I’m fine. Someone hold Ganam steady,” she ordered. Khalida clutched him obediently, pinning him to the wall. “Don’t let him fall.” She hooked her own feet into crevices, and looped her arm around a carving. They had precious little time; they needed to keep moving. But if she moved now, she wouldn’t make it. She was dizzy.
She felt a firm hand on her arm.
“I’m not letting you fall,” Jeevan gritted out. His arm trembled where he held her. “I would never let you fall.”
Hold me, she begged the Hirana, shaping the words silently on her lips. She was thrice-born. The Hirana knew her. It had always welcomed her, always shaped itself to her body. But now the stone fractured and shook, dust under her fingers.
Jeevan knew her better.
“I will,” said Jeevan, as Bhumika’s daughter cried. “I will.”
“We need to keep going,” she said, her body shivering as if she’d risen from cold water. There was no time left to worry about inducing panic; panic was now reasonable. She blinked awful tears from her eyes, locked the searing arrow to her heart away, away.
They made it to the ground. Bhumika braced herself for fire. Her feet met soil—
And the fire faded.
Whatever the flames had come for, they had it now. Ahiranya was burned and splintered, the forest shorn to ash, but the Ahiranyi—at least some of them, at least this crowd of people who surrounded her, shaking and weeping with relief—had survived.
RAO
“Wake up,” said Aditya. “Rao.”
Rao groaned and opened his eyes. It was dark around him. Formless darkness. He rolled onto his side and saw Aditya sitting cross-legged on the ground, watching him.
“Do you remember what stars are, Rao?”
“Am I dead?” Rao asked.
“Sunata, then,” Aditya said patiently. “You remember his teachings. The kai spoke to you of him.”
Rao stared at him.
“I am dead,” he whispered. Aditya was here, at last. Serene, dark-eyed Aditya. They were together again.
“The tale he told you was wrong,” Aditya said. “No great king died to make that stone. It was born from the earth’s own strength, which is no magic. It is the strength of time and heat and cold; the strength of lifetimes upon lifetimes. Thenotmagic that makes mountains.” His mouth shaped a smile. “I’ve had time to learn, you see.
“Heart’s shell is empty, Rao,” he said. Rao reached for him, and Aditya came. He held Rao in arms of light, his hands, callused and beloved, cradling Rao’s face. “It is a promise that there is more strength in our world than in anything from the void.”
Firelight shone on Aditya’s skin. He shifted like candlelight.
“Do you understand what emptiness is, Rao? It’s a gift. It is a promise. You need no god. Only your own fate, carved by yourown hand.” He kneeled over Rao. His gaze was gentle, and vast—a world of soft starlight. “I am nothing,” the wavering image of Aditya said, smiling at him. “What you see here is nothing. Forget me.”
“Don’t leave me again,” Rao said. He was weeping.
