But Varsha had spared Malini from the task of ensuring that Parijatdvipa would have an heir. The very thought of begetting a child made Malini’s skin hot and cold all at once with horror. She could not, would not, say so. Not to a woman she did not trust, with the eyes and ears of maids and guards on them both. But she could give Varsha some small assurance of safety and power.
“This is not my brother Chandra’s court any longer,” said Malini. “This is mine. Things will not be as they were.”
A heartbeat of time passed, and another, and Varsha exhaled a shaky breath that sounded like a sob.
“Thank you,” Varsha said. “Thank you, Empress. Sister.” She looked away, as if overwhelmed or abashed, turning back to the lattice.
Malini waited a long moment. But there were no more words from Varsha.
She nodded in farewell and departed, leaving nothing but Varsha’s silence and the faint rustle of hungry songbirds behind her.
Her retinue was ready to depart.
The war against Chandra had been only recently won, and she could see the lingering scars in the absences in her army: the Saketan warriors lost at the Veri river. The Dwarali cavalry that died in fire at the walls of Harsinghar, before the imperial mahal fell finally into Malini’s hands. Hundreds of men, dead or wounded. There should have been a respite from war, now that she had her throne.
Still, her army was a formidable force.
If only we were facing an army of men, instead of myths and ghosts and monsters, Malini thought, bitter amusement coursing through her.
She went to her chariot, surrounded by the wall of guards thataccompanied her everywhere now, with Sahar at the lead. Sahar had been the head of Lady Raziya’s guard, but Raziya had insisted on placing her in Malini’s service when Malini had been recovering from her knife wound. “She will protect you as I would, if I had half her arm strength or skill with killing,” Raziya had said, eyes gleaming with tears, a smile on her mouth as she’d sat at Malini’s bedside and clutched Malini’s hand in her own. “Please. Take her.”
Malini was glad of Sahar’s steady presence at her side. Sahar barked orders, forcing back the warriors and highborn thronged near her chariot, until Malini was nearly alone.
Nearly.
Hemanth waited by her chariot. He no longer wore the benevolent, calm-eyed look he’d worn at the dawn blessing. His face was hard, his chin raised. His hands were clasped around a black chest.
“Empress,” he greeted her, bowing his head. His eyes never left her own. “A cart has been packed with all the fire that remains.” He held the box forward, like an offering.
“Thank you, High Priest,” Malini replied, offering him a smile. She took the box from his hands. The surface was warm under her palms.
His unsmiling face said,This fire will not win your war. You fool.
“You have released the imprisoned priests,” he said. “You take them with you to war.”
His words were not questions, but Malini nodded regardless.
“The priests erred, but I know the priesthood are my natural allies,” Malini replied. “We all love the mothers, after all. I must trust in their wisdom.”
If anything, his jaw grew tighter.
Malini climbed into her chariot. Sahar, acting as her temporary charioteer, took the reins of the horse and led them away from Hemanth and into the heart of Malini’s army.
The beast of her army lumbered along, across the rot-scarred expanse of Parijat.
Lady Raziya and Lata both shared her chariot with her.
Her generals rode alongside on horseback or in chariots, at their own preference. Lord Prakash from Srugna and Lord Narayan of Saketa largely remained seated under the cover of canopies, jolting with the movement of their chariots’ wheels as they sweated in the heat. Lord Khalil preferred to ride.
Rao was unpredictable. Uncharitably, Malini thought it depended on how much he’d drunk the night before, andthatseemed as changeable as the wind.
On a horseback day, he drew his mount within shouting distance of her chariot, signaling at her and calling out over the clatter of horses’ hooves and churning wheels, “If we need to travel faster—we can exchange horses at a coming estate of a lord—”
“No need,” Malini interrupted, calling back. “We are not racing to Ahiranya.”
There was a rustle of attention from her generals: a turning of heads, a hunching of shoulders.
She knew that her generals, like Lata, believed she was rushing headlong into combat without enough preparation. That this was reckless. But she had meant what she said to Lata: The fire was the only weapon she knew could work against the magic of Ahiranya.
