“You think I can’t fight them?”
“I think if they have their magic fire, none of us can. Your empress will come running when she knows you’re here.”
The woman closed her eyes.
“If anyone must die,” Aravind’s commander said heavily, “let it be me. Let the boy go.”
“Stand, boy,” the woman said to Aravind. He rose unsteadily to his feet. He looked down into her eyes. The look she gave him could have cut his soul. “Run,” she said.
“Listen to them, son,” his commander said softly.
Aravind hated himself for his own cowardice. He turned and fled.
Aravind ran. He didn’t look back. He heard a noise—a sharp, terrible noise. The snick of metal. The spill of blood. He ran. And ran, and ran, and ran.
PRIYA
In the aftermath, with blood drying clammy cold on her skin, its metallic stench filling her nose, she went to a woman who’d drunk the deathless waters.
She hadn’t seen her do it, but that didn’t matter. Priya could feel the writhing power in her, a green and living thing severed from its source. She took the woman’s hands.
“Ruchi,” she said. “How do you feel?”
There was a fleck of blood on Ruchi’s cheek. Her pupils were huge discs of black. She laughed, a little hiccupping thing, and said, “Amazing. I’ve never felt so strong before. I see why the mask-keepers tried it.” Her mouth was shiny with water still. Gleaming. “It feels like it’s worth risking death for.”
Her grip on Priya was strong. Priya gripped back just as hard. Grounding.
“The feeling is going to pass,” Priya said. “When you begin to feel weak, or ill, speak to me, all right? I’ll make sure you have the waters broken from the source as long as you need. But even then—the waters will only make you powerful for so long. Do you understand?”
“When will I go into the deathless waters?” Ruchi asked eagerly. “When can I prove myself?”
Priya swallowed. “When the yaksa will it,” she said.
Ruchi barely seemed aware of what Priya was saying—andnot saying. Her death loomed over her, but she only nodded frantically, and smiled, then whirled around to face the other warriors. They were watching her with fear and a little awe and drew her into their circle swiftly. Some of them were shaking; one was retching noisily into a bush.
Ganam wasn’t in their circle. So Priya took a firm breath, squared her own shoulders like a woman going to war, and turned in his direction.
She walked over and put her hand on Ganam’s back, and rubbed circles. He was crouched by the body of the man he’d killed, head lowered.
“Get up,” she said, low. “The rest are scared. We need to look strong for them.”
He looked up at her.
“We used children in war,” he said, low. “Ashok. The rebels. We did what we needed to do. I never minded it then. I’ve gotten soft.”
“No,” she said.
A shudder of breath out of him.
“Those temple children. Rukh. Little Padma.” His hands clenched. “I’ve accepted that we don’t get a better world,” he said. “But this. I won’t go back to this.”
One day, she would have to take those temple children through the deathless waters. One day, some of them wouldn’t survive and she would have to bury them in soil, knowing a yaksa could rise wearing any of their faces. One day, and another day, and another.
She felt a wave of nausea pass through her.
“I agree,” she said, just as low. She raised her eyes—saw the people around her. “Get up,” she said again, gently. “We have a long way to go.”
The Srugani knew they were here now. They would need to move swiftly.
