“I came for the monastery,” said Bhumika. A half-truth would do, here. “I had heard the monastery holds a special magic. A way of reaching the nameless not just for moments in a pool of water—but deeply, powerfully. I hoped to find a wise person there who would listen to me.” Bhumika paused, then said carefully, “I fear that the world is in great danger. Insignificant though I am, I hope to do some good.”
“What could you hope to say to a wise priest that would make anything better?” Manjeet asked. “Well, you’ll find no listeners in that place, sister, and no lecturers either. Even when they welcomed visitors, they liked ones with more coin than you have. There are smaller, more welcoming monasteries that will take you and pray with you if you like. But that place is too grand for outsiders. Don’t bother trying.”
That warning was far too late, but there was no reason for the headwoman to know that. Bhumika nodded. “Thank you,” she said.
She could hear the children playing outside. The hiss and thud of an axe felling wood. She thought of Jeevan out there, callused hands on the axe, the way she knew—as she knew the sun would rise tomorrow and tomorrow—that when she emerged from thishouse he would look at her with that solemn face, those searching eyes again.The way he looks at you—
She tucked the thought away.
“Headwoman, your men are gone,” Bhumika said, quiet and even. “Many of you are likely widows like Gulnar, even if they do not know it. Why obey old traditions that no longer serve you?”
“Foolish of you to come here and judge us so,” the headwoman said. But there was no anger in her voice. She was listening.
“I mean no harm,” Bhumika said. “I want only to help. I don’t want to cause problems for you or your people. But I have been forced to change to survive. I gave up everything to flee my old home. I have changed so utterly my old self would call me a stranger. But my choices have allowed me to live, where others have died.
“Your old village is gone,” Bhumika continued. “But you are all here. Let my husband and me take Gulnar’s hut, and give her a safe bed close to your village’s heart. We are strangers, and she is one of your own. You will need to hold each other close to survive what is to come.” She gave Manjeet a smile. “I think your village’s children would support you. They’re fond of her.”
The headwoman’s look was piercing.
“I’ll consider it,” she said. “It would be better if we wait long enough for it to be my decision alone. I won’t have Bidisha harping at me.” She lifted her grinding stone again and turned to her grain in dismissal. “You and your man will want to leave when the flood ends, I expect.”
“Yes,” Bhumika said. Polite, but nonetheless a door closed. “Jeevan and I are grateful for your kindness. I promise when the waters fade and go, so will we.”
MALINI
“Malini. Don’t.”
Her hand froze on Priya’s arm. Under her fingertips, Priya’s dreamt skin was cold. There was dirt on her, and the veins under her dark brown flesh shone faintly, the iridescence of leaves under a spill of light.
Water roiled around them both. There was something exultant in Malini’s blood—a singing brightness. Priya was close. In flesh, in dreams. But the pain in Priya’s voice gave her pause.
“What do you fear, Priya?” Malini asked. She lowered her arm slowly, curling her fingertips to her palm, resisting the compulsion to touch. “Do you think I’ll show you the kindness you showed me?”
Priya turned to face her, water swirling.
“I know what you’re capable of,” Priya said. She smiled, but she was crying, face wet. Her lip wobbled. “I know what I’m capable of. Hurt me if you like, Malini. It doesn’t matter. I’ll dream you and I’ll dream you, and I’ll never see you in the flesh again in my whole life.”
“You cried when you stabbed me too,” Malini observed, unable to look away from Priya’s face. She wanted to brush those tears away with her fingertips. She wanted to murder that tender instinct inside her, that soft wanting. Her own eyes ached.
“I did,” Priya said. “I did, of course I did.”
Priya covered her face with her hands.
“You don’t understand,” Priya said, choked, “how alone I am.”
Alone. Malini on her throne, her heart sisters dead, her brother burned, and Rao shot with an arrow of grief, gone somewhere in Dwarali; Malini, with her empire, and the promise of a pyre ever at her feet, with allies aplenty and no one she could trust entirely.
“You would not be alone if you hadn’t betrayed me,” Malini said, angry again.I wouldn’t be alone.
“I did it to save you. I told you I don’t regret it. I did itforyou.” Priya dashed her own tears away and raised her face up, eyes bloodshot. “It’s awful, but it’s the truth, Malini. The only thing I have ever done with these hands is love you.”
“If you’d acted with love, you wouldn’t have taken my choices from me,” Malini said, voice shaking. “If you’d loved me, you wouldn’t have stolenyourselffrom me. You wouldn’t have hurt me.”
“I don’t regret it,” Priya said, as she’d said so many times before. But this time…
This time Malini took a step closer. Softened her voice.
“Why did you do it, Priya? Why did you betray me?”
