“She will suffer enough in her life,” Malini said, equally quiet and thoughtful. “I don’t need to see her at her most vulnerable. It seems a cruelty too far.”
There was a thud of footsteps from the hallway. Sahar opened the doors and stepped inside.
“Empress,” she said. There was a hint of a smile at her mouth, despite the tired shadows under her eyes. “The baby’s born safely.”
“And Lady Varsha?” Malini asked.
“Healthy,” said Sahar. “If you want to speak to the physician, Empress…”
“Later.” Malini stood. “The baby,” she prompted.
“A son,” Sahar said, understanding the question implied in Malini’s voice.
A son. A prince.
She didn’t know if she felt relief.
An heir was a future—and a tool that would allow her to avoid marriage and childbirth. A son would be more readily accepted as her heir by the court than a daughter. There was some benefit in that.
But he was also a tool that could be used against her. He was a promise that even if Malini died, her family line—and the promises bound to it, that stitched the empire together—would outlive her.
He was all the more reason to let Malini burn.
Her instincts warred in her.
“I wish to see him,” she said.
The birthing room was bustling. Maids swept in and out. A physician stood by the bed. The attendants bowed when Malini entered.
Varsha watched Malini from the bed. Her skin had a grayish pallor. Her hair was lank. Her eyes were dull, but she gripped the squirming bundle in her arms as if those blankets of silk and cotton held the world inside them. Malini could only see one small hand—wrinkled, shockingly small, spasmodically grasping at nothing.
“A boy, Empress,” the physician said proudly, not waiting for Varsha to speak. “A healthy prince.”
Was she meant to value a prince more than a princess?
Malini took a step closer. Now she saw a little more. Black hair. A scrunched face. He appeared to be sleeping. He did not look like her brother, or like Varsha, or in fact like anyone. He was too new to the world to carry echoes and debts, perhaps.
“Congratulations, sister,” Malini murmured, meeting Varsha’s eyes. “I wish you a swift recovery, and health for your son.”
“Will there be celebrations, Empress?” Varsha’s voice was a thin and wavering reed.
There were always celebrations on the birth of an imperial scion. Sweets and coin handed out across the city. And gifts carved for the infant: beaded bracelets to ward off evil, bangles of silver to commemorate the shape of small wrists, a feather to be placed in the child’s swinging cot for sweet dreams. Varsha knew that. She was asking, in her own way, if her son would be acknowledged.
“He is a royal prince,” Malini said. “An imperial prince of Parijat. All the correct rites will be held. Prayers will be made, and offerings. Of course I will do everything I must, and everything I should.”
The baby made a hiccupping noise.
When Malini leaned closer, Varsha flinched. Her eyes closed. All her defenses had been ripped away, and the look on her face was a raw thing, weary and frightened and horribly resigned.
A hush fell over the room.
Malini did not sayI will not take your child from you, even though the words rose unbidden in her throat. It should have horrified her that they all expected it, and yet—it did not.
It would have been the sensible thing to do. To take the only heir and make him her own; to mold him in her image, to make him love her, to place him beyond his mother’s power. She was clear-eyed and coldhearted enough to know that it would be a wise path.
But she wanted to make something better than Chandra had. She did not want to simply enact his old cruelties.
Malini touched her fingertips lightly to the baby’s forehead.
