“Outsiders.” Kritika’s voice was furious. “Parijatdvipans. Why would you allow them in here? What led you to this madness?”
Priya released the papers.
“They asked,” Priya said simply. “They want to be here. They’ve got nowhere else to go. What other reason do I need?”
“They’re liars,” scoffed Kritika. Her gaze narrowed, reading Priya like a book. “Don’t you think this is a trick of your empress?” Kritika asked. “Apparent innocents, sent to destroy us from within?”
A memory bloomed in her skull. Malini, imprisoned, fragile—her eyes huge, her mind caught in a snare. She’d always admired Malini’s mind—its cleverness, its slow cunning. But this didn’t feel like something Malini would have planned.
Malini wanted to break Priya herself.
“Are you listening?” Kritika demanded.
“I’m trying,” Priya said. “But you know how I am, Kritika. If you look closely, you might see your words going into one ear and falling out of the other one.”
Kritika hissed something under her breath—definitely a swear of some kind.
“We are at war, Elder Priya,” she gritted out.
“Are we? Tell the yaksa to send me out with an army, then. That would be a proper war.”
“Don’t be a fool.”
“Fine,” Priya said, her patience finally snapping. “Let’s call this a war, then. Why not? If this is war, we maimed those people, Kritika. Our yaksa, our power—wechangedthem. Destroyed their homes, their crops, their chance of survival. They’re casualties of war. We should feel terrible for what they’ve suffered, and we should do everything in our power to help them.”
“They are our enemies,” Kritika said staunchly.
“No. They have the rot, Kritika. They were shaped by the yaksa. That makes them ours. They’re going to be fed our grain and given work, and I promise if they try to harm our own, I’ll kill them myself.”
Kritika’s mouth opened, but a skitter of noise in the hall and a series of hard knocks at the door silenced her. Priya was moving before she heard a familiar voice call her name.
Rukh was doubled over, panting. He’d clearly run, and Padma was still adhered to his hip, clinging on to him with a slightly alarmed and windswept look on her face.
“Rukh,” Priya said. “What’s wrong?”
“The yaksa,” he said, voice shaking. “They—the one with Ashok’s face. He—he brought children. Other children. I spoke to one—I heard—they’re going to be temple children.”
She stormed across the mahal.
She’d been avoiding the yaksa with Ashok’s face. But now she followed the echo of him in the sangam. She knew even as shestrode through the mahal, as vines brushed her face, as the corridors closed in on her in thick foliage and flowers as large as her fists, that seeing him would hurt.Go back, the green seemed to say.Your foolish heart leads you here, your grief leads you here. But you will not find what you seek in him.
Priya had always been too foolish and heart-driven for her own good. That wasn’t going to change now.
He wasn’t with the children he’d brought to the mahal. They were waiting at the base of the Hirana. She’d told Rukh to watch them for her while she dealt with him.
The room where Ashok’s ghost waited shone with light. The windows had broken under the weight of roots, letting the sunbeams and birdsong pour in between leaves of emerald and jade. There were large-winged moths in the high branches of the trees clasping the ceiling. She could see the colors of their wings: gold and umber, red and lustrous carnelian.
The yaksa was lying in a bower of his own making. His head was turned away from her, the dark leaves of his hair swathing his face. She could see the tilt of his shoulder. One leg hung from the bower, almost touching the ground, which was cracked beneath his toes. Small white flowers were worming through stone, trying to meet him.
He looked entirely inhuman and therefore nothing like her brother. And yet Priya couldn’t help but stop suddenly, grief clambering horrible and swift up in her throat. It was the thought of children that had done this to her.Ashok. Ashok.
She wished suddenly for that strange knowledge that had wormed through her on the edge of Ahiranya, when she’d suddenly known two of the yaksa’s names. But no other name came to her now.
“Why are you here?” the yaksa asked, without turning his head. The leaves of the bower rustled at his voice. They turned to her, as if she were light or rain—watching her for him.
“Children,” Priya blurted out. “Why would you bring children here?”
“You know why,” he replied. “To create more temple elders.”
