“No. The empress was… distracted.”
He could hear the thread of worry in Lata’s voice. Malini did not miss things. But Aditya’s death, and the actions of Elder Priya, had changed her.She’s wounded, Lata had said to him once.Not just in the flesh. Somewhere deep within her, where no physician can heal her.
Rao had understood. He knew how that felt.
“Good,” he said. He thought about opening the next flask, but something like panic bubbled through him. His hands were shaking. “I should have come,” he said. “But I… Lata. I didn’t need to see Aditya burn. I already—”
“Rao,” she said. Her voice was thick. “I know.”
Suddenly he was tired of not seeing her face, of being alone on that roof with a vile drink he didn’t even like. He slid to the edge and jumped down. He tumbled, his elbows catching the stone, face pressed to the ground. He watched Lata hurry toward him,her sari skirt a blue shadow against the grass. She grasped him by the shoulder.
“Get up,” she said. “What did you drink?”
“Arrack,” he said.
Another sigh. “Can you get up on your own, or do I need to find guards to help me?”
He insisted he could get up, and between them they managed to haul him to his feet. He leaned a little of his weight on her shoulder, and the two of them stumbled through the lotus garden into the corridors of the mahal.
“You’re too heavy for this,” she said after a few minutes. “Use the wall for support instead.”
“Should have thrown me into the pond,” he muttered, as he let her go and grasped a lantern sconce. “That would have woken me up.”
“Or drowned you.”
That wouldn’t have been so bad, he thought. But thank the nameless, he had the sense not to say it.
Usually there were curtains covering the doors that led off the corridors of the mahal—expansive silk things in peacock green and lustrous blue, shot through with gemstones and silver thread. It took his dazed eyes a moment to register that all the curtains had been replaced with plain white cloth that hung heavy, too thick to billow with the soft night winds. He grasped one curtain in his hands. Felt its weight.
“Do you think,” he heard himself say, as if from a distance, “that anyone really mourns him?”
“Of course they do,” Lata said from somewhere behind him. “The empress does.”
He swallowed, his throat unaccountably aching. Grasped the cloth tighter.
“Yes,” he said. “She does.”
He felt her hand on his upper arm. A light touch. Then a man’s voice, from the gloom ahead of them.
“Prince Rao,” the voice said. Heavy footsteps followed it. “I…”
The voice trailed off as the man emerged into the lamplight. Romesh was one of Low Prince Ashutosh’s men—his high-collared, long-sleeved tunic, marked with Ashutosh’s liegemarks, hid the leaves of rot at his arms and his throat. His eyes darted from Lata to Rao—from the empress’s advisor to one of her generals—and then he bowed and said, “I’ll take my leave.”
“No,” Lata said. “Please, take him. I’m afraid he’s had too much to drink.” She stepped away from Rao, walking swiftly toward Romesh—and then beyond him. “Take him to his chambers,” she urged. “Prince Rao must rest. The empress will have need of him soon. There is much work to do.”
Work. War, he supposed, was indeed work.
Romesh nodded his head in acknowledgment, then deferentially took Rao by the arm. They walked together in silence for a long moment.
Rao’s head was not exactly beginning to clear, but the worst of his dizziness had shifted.
“You were looking for me,” he said eventually.
“Perhaps when you’re less in your cups, my lord,” Romesh said gruffly.
“You want to speak to me? You’ll find no better time. We’re alone, after all.” Silence—just their footsteps, the crackle and spit of the lanterns. “You’re nervous,” Rao said. “You sought me out. So speak. Tell me what you want.”
He turned his head, lights blurring around him. Romesh’s jaw was set, his expression conflicted. Then he said, “The Ahiranyi woman. The—good one. She’s your prisoner?”
