Something flickered, a dark fish, in Mani Ara’s eyes. For a moment, Priya did not know if Mani Ara would laugh sweetly or tear her soul to strips.
Priya did not look away.
“You are my priestess,” Mani Ara said. There were echoes ofwaters in her voice. “My hands. My power is yours. Wield it, if you like.”
Can I? Can I truly?
She didn’t ask. She didn’t want this power snatched away from her. But somehow Mani Ara knew. Her face softened. She pressed one wood-whorled thumb beneath Priya’s left eye socket, caressing the shape of it, close enough to gouge.
“If you cannot wield my power, then who else?”
She leaned down.
“Wake, sapling,” Mani Ara whispered, the almost-kiss of her mouth tracing Priya’s hairline. “Wake now. And grow strong and empty. For me.”
Priya’s eyes snapped open. She turned onto her side and heaved onto the ground beneath her.
She’d woken in a sickroom—made private by curtains, with one of the mask-keepers hovering anxiously over her. But there was nothing that any physician could do for her, never mind any once- or twice-born mask-keeper, so she waved away their questions and slipped out of the room. There were other bodies behind curtains—figures groaning in pain, and others utterly silent.
Hiranaprastha smelled of smoke. Underneath it was the sensation of the green, andthatfelt and smelled like charnel and decay to Priya’s overwhelmed senses.
The yaksa had been busy after her collapse, and they’d beenangry. The borders of Ahiranya were newly rich with rot. She could feel new trees, which were blood-heavy—feel the weight of the Parijatdvipan bodies speared violently on their branches. The power that had been poured into those trees was a rageful lash of magic—splintered and rotten to the core. It was only luck and an empty stomach that stopped her from being sick again when the sensation of it washed over her.
She dragged her body across the mahal to the armory and found Ganam outside it, nursing a pipe, crouched on the ground with his back to the wall. He lowered his pipe when he saw her.Inclined his head. His expression was serious, tired.
“You’re better?”
“I’m standing,” Priya said, which she knew meant nothing. “I’m sorry, Ganam.”
“For what?”
“For not defending you all. You were relying on me.”
“We were,” he said. “But you didn’t choose what happened to you. There were enough pilgrims who saw the state of you to prove that.”
“The fire did something to me,” Priya blurted out. “That was why my magic wasn’t there, fighting alongside you. How many people did we lose?”
He shook his head.
“We haven’t counted all of the dead yet.”
“Then I should help,” she said. It was something to do, at least. Something better than remembering Malini’s hands at her throat, or Mani Ara’s lips on her forehead.
“There’s nothing urgent about it, Priya. We’ll bury the bodies later. Maybe we’ll mourn them. Come and sit down. Smoke with me.”
She didn’t want to smoke, but sitting down did sound good. She joined him, pressing her back to cool stone as she slid to the floor. It felt nice to not move—to sit in silence. She closed her eyes.
But Priya had never been good at long silences. She was soon restless, words clawing at her throat. She opened her mouth and let some of them tumble out.
“I saw Mani Ara.” She didn’t open her eyes, but she sensed Ganam’s stillness. Felt it, as his body turned toward her, attentive. “I’ve been seeking her all this time. It’s what the yaksa wanted me to do. And I finally saw her again, and spoke to her, and now I know the yaksa don’t care if any of you live or die. They don’t care at all.”
A beat of silence.
“I knew that,” Ganam said heavily. “And I think you knew it too.”
“Mani Ara said I am her hands. That her power belongs to me. That I can use it. So it doesn’t matter if the yaksa don’t care, becauseIcare if any of you live or die, Ganam. And I have her power.” She opened her eyes and turned to look at him, seeing the skepticism on his face—and the tentative hope. “The yaksa need me,” she said. “Mani Ara needs me. I don’t know why, but they do. So they’ll care about what I care about, or they’ll get nothing from me.”
He swallowed. Nodded.
