“You have striven valiantly to save Parijatdvipa from itself,” he said. “From foolish men, led by greed and pride. From your brother, who turned his face away from his blood-given faith. From the collapse and decay that comes to all nations that forget their vows and their purity. But I fear that your quest demands a price you do not wish to pay.”
“Speak,” Chandra said.
“Princess Malini,” said Hemanth. “She must burn.”
“I promise you she’ll die,” Chandra replied, feeling that pang of fury again—that desperate hunger to see his sister dead.
If there is anything of you that hears me, mothers,he prayed with love and fury,then let her die. Let her die in pain and suffering, knowing she is a disgrace to her name. Let her die by my hand. I will push her into the flames myself. I will watch the skin shrivel from her bones, and I will dedicate the flower that blooms from that death to your names.
“She mustburn,” Hemanth said, with careful emphasis that pressed upon Chandra’s anger like a finger to a bruise. “And she must do so as the mothers of flame did: for all our sakes, willingly and selflessly.”
“Not all my women burn willingly,” Chandra said. And even the ones who had risen to his pyres with glad hearts, sure in their faith, happy to follow in the footsteps of the mothers, had regretted it when the fire began to eat through their flesh. “And still, their deaths bless us all.”
“A willing death of a daughter of Divyanshi’s line would be a different magic entirely,” Hemanth said. “I know you recognize this, Emperor.”
The chiding note in his voice galled. If anyone else had spoken to Chandra that way—as if Chandra were a mere child—they would have died seconds later, gutted on the end of his sword.
But Hemanth was different. Hemanth had always been different.
“You believed once that her burning would cleanse her,” Hemanth said, pressing onward. “Free her. That it would, in turn, give you the strength to change Parijatdvipa for the better. Has that belief altered?”
He thought of Malini’s bare neck, bloodied under his hands. His sister baring her teeth at him like an animal. Ruined beyond repair by her own will, her own choices, even though he had offered her a path to immortality, a meaningful death.
I will never burn for you, his sister had vowed.
“I have my weapons,” he said. “I have my marital alliance. I have pyres that will give me gifts,mother-blessed gifts, no matter how the women who die for them may scream and claim to refuse me. I have my soldiers, and priestly warriors, and I have you.” He looked at Hemanth, suddenly clutched by a desperate fear. “I will not beg her to burn,” he said raggedly. “I cannot do it. She cannot—I cannotthinkof her without wanting the world to wither to dust, you understand? I will not give her the satisfaction of my pleading, when I know she will refuse to do what is right. I will save Parijatdvipa by my methods. By my own glory and strength.” His hands stung from the bite of his own nails against his palms. He stretched them open and said, “You told me yourself, many years ago. The mothers destinedmefor greatness. The crown fell intomyhands, because Parijatdvipa is rightfully mine. To rule,andto save. Will you stand with me? Will you guide me, priest, as you always have?”
The High Priest’s gaze had softened. He touched a hand to Chandra’s cheek, and Chandra’s shoulders finally released their tension. He sagged. Small with relief.
The High Priest had always been more father to him than his own. Always. At least this, he could rely on.
“Chandra,” Hemanth said quietly. “Emperor. You are more than a son to me. If this is the path you wish to take, I will follow you upon it. And I will be glad to be beside you, and proud indeed, when you change the world for the better. When you save us all.”
MALINI
Priya,
Of course I sought out grand tales.
I do not like my own ignorance. And those tales were the ones that made you. Surely, you learned them as a child. Surely they were as much the milk that shaped you, as tales of the mothers were for me.
Don’t you realize I want to know everything about you? That even now, when I should have forgotten you, all I desire is to know your heart better than my own?
Malini’s army made it all the way to the edge of Saketa before the monsoon rains barred their path. No one with any sense battled when the deluge of rainfall swept across the empire and churned the soil to a sea of mud, so her army made camp and waited for the skies to clear.
In the respite from battle, Malini listened to the rain beating against the walls of her tent and wrote letters to Priya that she would never send.
If she were wise, she would burn her own words. If she were wiser still, she would not have written them at all.
But this was her indulgence. She wrote and wrote and preserved the letters carefully in the lining of a jewelry box, unpicking the lining at night so she could read them all over again.
And surely there were worse indulgences than wanting to love someone. To beknown.
Sometimes I think of my army as a wave. I never placed my feet in the sea when I had the chance, but now I think of my army as the waters that carry me. And my throne—my throne is the inevitable shore.
We have fought Chandra across the empire. In Dwarali. In Alor. He has no gift for keeping allies. He wants people to bow and scrape and beg for his scraps, but why would they, when I have offered them so much more? So his armies crumble, and I stride onward, and bind myself to allies with vows and deals and promises.
I have so many debts, Priya. Debts to my men. Debts to you.
