A black stone box was set at her bedside. A guard was on watch beside it. She departed at Malini’s word.
Malini placed her hand on the box’s stone surface.
One box of fire. One for her; a dozen for her army. What a paltry number. That was all that remained, from the hundreds if not thousands of women who had died on Chandra’s pyres.
Soon she would see Ahiranya. She would set her army against its woods. Let them hack the trees, if nothing else. There’d be absurd satisfaction in that.
If she could, she would gut Ahiranya. She would kill Priya herself.
And if she could not… at least she could test the last of the fire she had. Women had burned unwilling for this at Chandra’s hands. She’d find out if it had any use. Whatever she could destroy, she would. Shewould.
With a deep, steadying breath, Malini unlatched the lid.
PRIYA
Dawn light was threatening beyond the lattice windows. Khalida hovered as Priya dressed and hastily knotted her hair into a low bun. “Let the children keep on resting,” Priya murmured to Khalida’s anxious face. “They don’t need to see what’s coming.”
Khalida’s eyes darted to Rukh and Padma.
“They’ll wake when they hear the noise,” Khalida replied. As if in response, there was a rhythmic thud of a dozen footsteps outside. The noise swelled, then vanished.
Priya shook her head.
“Don’t worry about that.”
They wouldn’t wake. All three of them had slept badly. Rukh and Padma often shared a bed with her now, the two of them curled up together like kittens. Rukh was still adamant that only he could care for Padma—but when Padma had woken earlier that night, crying and fractious as she so often was in the darkest hours, he hadn’t fought too hard when Priya pressed a hand to his hair and hushed him. “I’ll get her back to sleep,” Priya had said. And he’d protested once, only once, then fallen into a dead slumber.
There were deep shadows under his eyes. He was too young for the burden he carried.
Priya had told Padma a nonsense story to soothe her—something about birds wearing boots. Padma was too young to give a shit if the story didn’t make sense, surely? Priya had hoped so.
When that had failed, Priya had distracted Padma by growing flowers on her own palms and letting Padma examine them, her clumsy little fingers seeking the shape of petal and root. Padma had frowned seriously over them, comically studious under her mop of sleep-mussed curls. Then she’d started ripping them up, stubbornly pressing what was left into pulp.
“Destructive,” Priya had murmured fondly, and felt an echo of Bhumika’s love for her child in her own voice.
The wave of grief that had crashed over Priya had kept her awake long after Padma had fallen back to sleep on her lap.
The Parijatdvipans were coming. And for all that she and Ganam had built patrols and rationed out weapons, drained the mahal’s stores for anything with a sharp end and anything that could be thrown, Ahiranya was not prepared for the might of an empire.
They needed power only Mani Ara could give them.
The thought of fire and arrows touching her people made her sick.
She plucked the crown mask from the high shelf where she’d concealed it.
“If any of the fighters come looking for me, tell them to go to Ganam or Kritika,” said Priya, as waves of the mask’s power lapped at her fingertips. “I need to go to the Hirana.”
While the stone of the Hirana yawned open at her bidding, Priya put on the crown mask. She stretched her awareness into the green, feeling every inch of her home: each root and swaying branch, the worming and scuttle of insects under the dirt, steadily churning it into new shapes.
The deathless waters lay ahead of her. Priya stepped onto her own dark road and walked toward them.
On the soft soil that edged the deathless waters, Priya kneeled and prayed. She did so silently, hands clasped. Breathing slowly, she sank into the sangam in her mind. She reached through rivers of green and red gold for Mani Ara, always for Mani Ara.
She didn’t know how long she remained there.
Pain rustled through her skin. She bit her own tongue reflexively at the sharpness of it—the way it erupted over her in a wave, radiating from her skull outward.
She wrenched the crown mask from her face and watched a spill of flowers tumble to the floor. She touched her face and felt new blooms threatening to rise under her skin.
