“Don’t be foolish,” Priya said, shocked to hear her own voice—to feel her lips move. “Your men need you here. Light a torch, set a fire, draw their attention.”
Narayan shook his head. Rao said, “We can’t risk drawing attention from the enemies across the water if we haven’t yet.”
“But you have,” Priya said. The distant thud of feet. Dozens. Hundreds? They werewaiting. “Rao—Prince Rao—you have. Get them back here now.”
But it was too late. Priya was still speaking, mouth moving, when she raised her head and saw the arrows flying through the sky.
A hush. The arrows met the water with a crash.
She felt Rao grip her roughly by the arm, forcing her behind him as if he could protect her—as if she needed protecting—and shit, where was Sima? She’d told Sima to hide, but had she? Had she got far enough away?
In the water, she saw the figures of men and horses sink through a haze of arrows and blood, their screams cut short.
There was another volley of arrows, so thick the air was black with them. The water churned, frothy with blood. Around her, the Alorans and Saketans who’d grabbed shields on Narayan’s orders raised them to the sky. She heard a scream. She turned—and saw that it was Narayan, with an arrow through the thigh. She took Rao’s arm and pulled him down. “Stay low,” she said. “You know this, you must stop shielding me!”
“Priya!” Sima’s voice. Sima dropped to her knees beside them—and dropped a heavy shield with a clang. Rao muttered something that might have been a curse or might have been thanks, and dragged it up in front of the three of them. He braced it with his arm, and Sima did the same, the two of them holding it up between them.
Priya looked around as she heard a bitten-off noise of pain. An Aloran and a Saketan soldier were shielding Narayan between them, as a third hastily tore at Narayan’s trouser leg, seeking out the arrow shaft.
With some effort, Priya dragged her gaze away from the blood.
“I told you to hide,” Priya managed.
“I did,” Sima said. She was trembling but every inch of her coiled with tension, her arm flexed to keep the shield up. But she met Priya’s eyes steadily. “And then. I came back.”
There was a thud in the soil behind her—a clang as wood met metal, and Rao and Sima jerked back from the force of the arrow meeting the shield.
Malini had told her to use her gifts if the situation became hopeless. And this did seem—somewhat hopeless, didn’t it? Oh, they were in the shit.
“Prince Rao,” Priya said urgently. Next to her, Sima was breathing harshly through bared teeth. Priya pressed a hand to Sima’s spine. Reminding her she had a spine. Reminding her to breathe. “Prince Rao. Rao. Listen to me—”
“Don’t wade in after them,” yelled one of the Aloran men, so loud that it drew Rao’s attention away and made Priya’s own voice falter. There were Saketan soldiers who had still been on the bank desperately trying to go deeper into the water, to reach the bodies of their fellows.
One of the Saketan men, up to his knees in the river, turned back. “They’re not all dead! We can’t leave them! Please!” His voice cracked on the last word.
Concentrate, Priya told herself harshly.
“Prince Rao, listen to me. They don’t have mothers’ fire,” Priya said through gritted teeth; they didn’t havetimefor this. Loud enough for Rao to hear her, and turn his head again. “False fire, magic fire—whateverit was they used at the High Prince’s fort, they don’t have it here or they’d be using it against us now.”
“No doubt Chandra is saving the fire for the defense of Harsinghar itself,” Rao said. He was not panicked any longer. He was flushed with the knife-sharp focus of a body in danger. “He clearly doesn’t require it to murder us all here. We need to retreat.”
“But we must cross the water if we want any chance of success,” Narayan groaned out, as one of the soldiers clumsily bandaged up his leg. He tried to bat the man away. Sweat dripped from his hair. “If we do not cross, they will turn on the empress, massacre her forces—”
“We’ve lost any possibility of surprising them. The gambit’s failed,” Rao said.
“It hasnotfailed,” Priya said. Her words startled the men, who turned to stare at her with panicked, suspicious eyes. “They know we’re here. We can’t pincer them. But—but they believe we can’t cross,” she went on, not allowing her voice to waver or her confidence to falter. And why should it falter? She was about to hand them the key to their own success. She had to believe that. “They’ll soon turn all their might on the empress’s forces at the ford. They won’t expect an enemy at their back.”
“Because they have no enemy at their back,” Rao said. “Their enemy lies dead in the water.Welie dead in the water.”
“Ashutosh’s men lie dead,” Priya corrected, knowing she was brutal in her honesty. “Not all of us.” She swallowed. Soldiered on, despite the sounds of dying and screaming. “Draw back, my lords, as if you’re retreating. Draw back and let them think this crossing is lost to us. Let those men of Emperor Chandra’s turn all their attention on the empress and then—then I’ll get you across.”
“Priya,” Sima said in a low voice. Her face was gray.“Pri.”
“You said you don’t know everything I can do,” Priya told Rao. “ButIknow what I can do. And your empress knows, or she wouldn’t have summoned me. Let me do what I’m here for.”
A few warriors obeyed the summons to retreat, making their way back to the shore. Some stayed in the water. Bleeding, or unconscious, or unwilling to leave the wounded or dead behind.
Narayan had been carried away by a handful of men. But Priya waited, beneath the cover of the shield, Sima and Rao beside her. Rao held the shield steady, expression grim.
