Prisons were not naturally quiet, but the men housed here had done nothing but pray from the moment they were locked away. They were men used to internal and external discipline. Their shadow-shrouded bodies through their cell bars were all arranged in meditation, spines straight and heads upraised, legs crossed beneath them.
She stopped before one cell. And in the dim shine of filtered sunlight, the soft glow of a single oil lamp, she saw the deep blackness of a warrior priest’s eyes; they widened as they met her own.
“Empress,” he rasped.
Around her—from the other cells—she heard a rustle of movement. Murmuring voices.
“Priest,” she said. And Lata, with a voice sharp as a whip, said, “Bow to your empress.”
The man rose from his crouch and bowed. She caught another glimpse of his face as he did so, and his eyes were burning with feeling. Not hatred, exactly—but a directionless fervor, a faith without a path or a leash.
Malini could give him that path, if he allowed it.
“Priest,” she said. “Rise.”
He did.
“I did not expect to be blessed with the presence of the empress,” the man said. His expression was guarded. “I thought for a time you would die without passing judgment on my brothers and me.”
Loose lips, made looser by darkness and loneliness and the isolation of four walls. She remained silent, letting him pour out words like blood from a wound.
“Even here, we heard how grievously the Ahiranyi bitch injured you, Empress,” he said, his voice a vicious rumble. “The mahal has been under a pall, waiting for two imperial funerals, or three.”
“A servant of the yaksa could not kill me,” she said coolly. “The mothers intend a higher purpose for me. They always have.”
He inclined his head.
“What is your judgment?” he asked. “When will my warrior brothers and I die?”
“You will not die today, or tomorrow,” she said. “I have not deemed it your time. Not yet.”
She’d spoken of prices that had to be paid, and of justice, when she had condemned Sushant and what remained of Chandra’s council to death. As if she could afford to be even-handed. As if she could judge all her enemies equally and kill them with a swift and impersonal blade.
She could not. More than a simple knife to the heart had taught her that.
“Does the empress hope I will beg for my life? I will not. I regret nothing I did,” he said, with exhausted defiance.
“I understand,” Malini told him. “Certainly, you acted righteously. You believed my brother was meant to rule. You believed it was my fate and my duty to burn. You acted in the service of your faith. How could you do otherwise, when my brother wielded something that appeared to be mothers’ fire? I understand, and I cannot fault you,” Malini went on gently, even though she felt nothing for him but disgust—a coiling, oily feeling in her chest. “But still, you defied the will of the mothers. You acted in a way that could have condemned all of Parijatdvipa. The yaksa are here. I have heard reports from across the empire of rot worsening. And I, priest—I am the cure.”
A dry, bitter sound escaped him. It might have been a laugh.
“Let me die with dignity, Empress,” the man said. “I will not beg. But I ask.”
“There is no dignity in death,” she said bluntly. “Not for you, priest. Nor for your brothers. But there is dignity—and redemption—in using your strength to shape a Parijatdvipa worthy of the mothers of flame. A Parijatdvipa that will survive the yaksa and crush them beneath its great heel, its righteous fire.
“Live,” she said. “Vow to serve me, and fight the yaksa on my behalf. Vow it on the death of Prince Aditya,” she went on, her voice not even wavering over the candle-flicker of grief thatrefused to extinguish, that ever burned in her. “Vow it on your faith.”
His stare was unwavering.
“We still believe you will burn, Empress,” he said. “That youmustburn. No vow I make upon my faith, no promise of service, will change that truth. If you will not accept it, then let me die. Let us all die, so we will not see Parijatdvipa’s end.”
“Is it for you to decide when I burn? Arrogance,” she snapped. “I am Divyanshi’s scion. I am her chosen. It is not for you—or any priest—to decide when I shall die. I will know just as my brother Aditya knew.”
Her words were a knife. Now she took away the sharpness and left only the weight.
“I know my worth,” she continued, in a low voice that carried across the prison like a deep undertow—a thing with impossible gravity. “I know my fate and the journey that lies ahead of me. You have listened to false men, priest. Now listen to me. Hear me, and serve.”
She saw the words land—saw them like a hook in the mouth of a fish, catching him fast.
