“If I truly feared that battle could kill you, I would never have held back my army until you drowned Chandra’s at their flank,” she said. “If I truly feared that you could die, I wouldn’t have trusted you to rise from the water and destroy them. But I trusted you. I would trust you again. As I trust you now, to find your way back to your human skin.
“You may think you break yourself on loving me,” Malini whispered. “That it makes you bow and makes you—you serve.” A hitch, a stumble. She pressed on, still curved, her head against Priya’s throat. “But you cannot be broken by my demands. You cannot even be broken by your own. I could try and break you a thousand times, with all my weapons, with knowledge of your every weakness, and still I—”
A hand tightened on Malini’s jaw.
“Try,” said Priya.
Malini raised her head and looked into Priya’s eyes.
“Try and break me,” Priya said. “If I’m—I’m so much, if you think I’m so much more than any other person, then—then bring me back down to just skin. Make me human. Try and break me.Try.”
Malini did not need to be asked again. She tangled her fingers in Priya’s hair, dragging her head further back, kissing her way down Priya’s throat. Her pulse, her tendons, the salt of sweat; the dip and swell of her collarbone, as Malini peeled aside the river-stained collar of her tunic so that she could set her mouth on skin unmarked by the sun, skin still water cold. Priya’s arms came around her—and then Priya was brushing her mouth over Malini’s forehead, her hairline, her own curling hair, achingly sweet.
There was a crash of noise somewhere beyond the tent and Malini thought distantly of her responsibilities: her generals, waiting to meet her. Lata, no doubt standing stiffly outside, waiting impatiently for Malini to emerge. Her body froze.
“I guess there’s no time to try right now,” Priya said after a moment. “Is there?”
Malini closed her eyes. Opened them. Straightened up.
Priya was flushed, warm blood darkening her face, the petals gone, but the strangeness still lingered in her hair and her eyes. There was still a wildness about her.
“I’ll remain with you until you’re yourself again,” Malini said. “Entirely of your own flesh, and then I’ll leave you to rest. But you will have to do so without me—breaking you.”
Priya laughed, the same want and embarrassment and twisting hunger that Malini felt in her own body flickering across her face. Then Priya closed her eyes and breathed, and breathed, and Malini held her steady. Waited.
She watched the leaves wither from Priya’s hair. The flowers curl to dust.
In the place of flowers lay nothing but skin—lacerated and bruised from the battle, but all Priya’s own. Warm brown and alive.
Priya opened her eyes. Brown, framed by lashes more gold than dark.
“Oh, Priya,” Malini whispered, tracing the shadow of a bruise beneath Priya’s left eye with her thumb. “Oh. Look at you.”
“You’re looking,” Priya agreed, with nonsensical tenderness.
“You’re back. You’re here.”
“I’m here.” There was relief in her voice. As if she really hadn’t known what she was capable of. “I’m here.”
Malini had generals to meet, and an army to move—but there were flower petals scattered all over the ground, and Priya in her arms.
This yearning, this want, was a force like a rising tide. It couldn’t be stopped. And Malini did not want to.
“Later,” Malini said, a tentative hope unfurling in her chest. “We can try again.”
“Later,” Priya echoed. “Yes.”
BHUMIKA
Jeevan found her in her own chambers, where she was pinning her earrings into place. They were weighty things and couldn’t just be worn through the lobe. Strands of gold had to be affixed in her hair to keep them in place and balance out the weight of them.
Usually, she would have had a maid to help her, but today everyone in the household was preparing for the feast, and Bhumika had not wanted to rope a girl into the pointless task of getting her into her finery. So when she heard a rap at the door, she said, “Enter,” and had the pleasure of watching Jeevan jerk to a stop, embarrassment flitting over his face as he caught sight of her kneeling before her mirror, her sari a spill of dark wine silk around her.
“My lady,” he said, turning his face away.
“There’s no need for that,” she told him. “I’m almost done. What news?”
“We have Lord Chetan,” Jeevan told her. “He was—difficult.”
