“You asked me here for a reason, Malini,” Priya said. “Aren’t you going to use me?”
A breathless feeling moved through Malini—a bloom that was all heat. Priya must have seen it in her face, because Priya’s breath hitched. She heard the rasp of cloth as Priya uncurled her fingers and pressed her hand flat to the bed, fingers outstretched.
Malini wondered if Priya’s skin was flushed. If she leaned forward and pressed her hand to Priya’s cheek, she would know. She wanted to reach out. Her own hands ached sweetly with the urge.
“You’re asking about the battle ahead,” Malini managed to say.
A pause. Then Priya exhaled. Almost another laugh, but not quite.
“Yes,” she said. “Why not.”
“Come and sit next to me, then, and we’ll talk.”
Malini moved to the side so that Priya could sit on the bedding beside her; so Malini could lean forward and reach in the dark for the supplies she always kept at her bedside: oil lantern, wick, flint for a flame. A ledger full of cramped writing.
“You have your flaws,” Malini said, trying to remember herself. “There are things you’re not… the best suited for. The politics. The games.” The very things that exhausted Malini too, for all that they were her strength—her version of war, that never seemed to cease. “I knew that when I asked you to come. But I thought it worth the risk. I needed an ally I could trust, and I needed an ally stronger than any other. I still do.”
“You have so many allies, Malini,” Priya said quietly. “I’m no better than any of them.”
You’re the only one who has everything. All my trust. Surely you know it.
“False modesty doesn’t suit you, Priya. And you must know my allies are…” She stopped. “I’ve always known that one ill wind could send them scattering. And what happened in Saketa—the fire—was very ill indeed. It will grow worse from here. We cannot avoid battle before reaching Harsinghar. And when we reach Harsinghar,ifwe reach Harsinghar…” Malini exhaled. “You’ve grown stronger, haven’t you? Magically?”
Priya said nothing.
“I saw what you could do in Ahiranya, before you had your full gifts,” Malini went on. “You don’t need to pretend.” She’d heard of what had happened to Chandra’s soldiers when they’d attempted forays into Ahiranya, too. The thorns gouging them open. The nooses of vine. “When Chandra sends his forces against us, my own army will suffer great losses. We’re not at full strength. He’s splintered us in two, cleaving us between Saketa and Parijat.” And how bitter that was: the knowledge that Chandra had done somethingright. “We’ll be further splintered when we cross the Veri. But, Priya, you are a weapon he cannot defend against. He will not expect you because no one who serves me—no matter what they claim—understands what you’re capable of. So I would like to keep you in reserve. To have you ready for Harsinghar. But if the worst happens upon the Veri—if our gambit fails—will you use all your strength to save my army? Will you do it as my ally?”
Ally. As if that encompassed even the half of it. But Malini could not ask for this on the basis of whatever lay between them: a handful of furious kisses, a knife against a heart, a broken flower around a throat, a yearning that never truly seemed to abate.
There was something unreadable in Priya’s face. Something guarded. After a moment, she inclined her head. Yes.
“I’m stronger in Ahiranya,” Priya said quietly. A confession. “I’m—all my power—is bound up in the land there. But yes. I’m still stronger than you remember. Even here, far from home.”
“Should you be telling me your weaknesses, Priya?”
“Don’t you know most of them? Haven’t you done your best to learn them?” Priya said immediately. When Malini stiffened—and surely Priya felt it, as close as they were sitting—Priya muttered a curse. “I’m sorry,” she said awkwardly. “That sounded harsher than I meant it to. Ah, spirits, Malini. I don’t know what to do anymore—”
“Don’t you know most of mine?”
Priya blinked at her.
“What?”
“My weaknesses, Priya. Don’t you know them, too? Just as I know yours?”
Priya looked at her and looked at her, and somehow the looking had drawn them closer together. Malini could feel Priya’s breath, a ghost of a kiss on her skin.
“Yes,” Priya said slowly. “I used to.”
“You still do.” Why did those words feel like a plea? Malini forced herself to lean back, straighten her spine. “Am I forgiven, Priya?”
“Forgiven for what?”
Malini said nothing. She was not sure what she wanted forgiveness for the most: for demanding that Priya come here, leaving behind the home she wished to defend. For not yet fulfilling her vow to set Ahiranya free. For everything that had happened since Priya’s arrival in Saketa. For things she had done, and things she was yet to do. There would be things, surely, that she would do that would hurt Priya. That was the nature of her.
“Malini,” said Priya.
She felt Priya’s knuckles brush her cheek. One hand, then the other. And Malini wanted to sink into it: the feel of Priya’s skin against her. Priya, unfurling her hands and pressing her palms to Malini’s jaw. But she could only hold herself tense, frozen in Priya’s hands, because if she yielded, she would do so entirely, and she didn’t know if she would cling to Priya and weep, or kiss her until they had no breath left between them. The uncertainty frightened her.
