The rice on the platter before her began to glisten, soften, its surface bursting. The fruit withered, puckering like flesh in cold rain. Before her eyes, the flesh split open, seeping liquid that looked and smelled entirely like blood. The scent grew stronger, and Ashok’s grip tightened punishingly.
The food was quite suddenly riven with rot.
For a moment, the room went utterly still. People froze, their mouths full and open, their fingers still pressed into bowls of what had once been food.
Then someone let out a noise—a choked, horrified scream—and the silence splintered.
Men and women wrenched themselves back from the tables, screaming. Bhumika yanked her hand free from Ashok’s and stood. Flower petals fell upon her hair, their skin like flesh, their smell rotten-sweet. She could do nothing, absolutely nothing.
This was not the gentle, awful arrival of the rot as Bhumika had known.
This was fast, a swift metamorphosis of flesh to flower. She saw skin rupture, plants flowering. Saw people change, twisting before her eyes as green sprouted through skin, through hair, reshaping them.
This, then, was the purpose of the feast.This.
At the edge of the room, she saw Jeevan watching. Terror in his face.Don’t move, she tried to say with her own face—with the stillness of her own body.Stay where you are. Do not try to help me, oh please, do not.
In front of him, a woman collapsed to the ground, knocking over bowls and plates as she went. They rolled across the floor as she crawled between them, branches of wood forcing their way through her skin. In front of Bhumika, a man clutched his own face, made an awful, broken noise as his fingers sank into mossy softness.
“We trusted, once,” Chandni was saying. Her voice was as clear and bright as a song. Her unblinking eyes looked over the room of screaming, writhing people with serene compassion. “That was our error. We do not trust so easily now. Still, we offer gifts.”
“Bow before us,” Sanjana said, smiling. “Show your worship and loyalty, and we will ease the burden of our magic a little, so that you may continue to live.”
“Or do not bow,” Sendhil said. “And do not worship. And our magic will consume and keep you. We will remember your faces and your skins, and carry them with us. But you will be dead.” His expression was remote. “Choose.”
Bhumika looked at the room full of people.Herpeople—the ones she’d sought to protect from the empire, and lead, and provide a future. She looked at the panic in their eyes. Her limbs did not want to obey her—were trembling without her say-so—but she made them do her bidding. She walked. One step. Another. Stood herself before the yaksa.
She saw Kritika, a hand to her mouth, shaking. The mask-keepers at her side were gray-faced. Ashok stared at her from his seat, his eyes wide and lost, as if he could not comprehend what was happening before him. She looked at the yaksa who wore her family’s faces. She knelt and bowed her head to the floor. Her jewelry clinked. The chains in her hair felt heavy enough to pin her skull down.
“What are you doing?” Nandi asked curiously.
“I am bowing to you,” she said evenly. “I am showing you my worship and my loyalty, as you asked.”
“You are already our temple daughter,” Sanjana said, amused. “Already hollowed. The rot cannot touch you, daughter. And we know you are ours.”
Bhumika raised her head.
“As your temple elder, it is my duty to lead by example,” she said levelly. “So I have. So I shall continue to do so.” She bowed again.
Behind her, other highborn finally began to understand. One stumbled forward. Then another. She heard the clink of fallen cutlery. The scrape and shuffle of bodies. Around her, shadows gathered. She bowed again, and all the highborn lords of Ahiranya followed suit.
“Good,” Chandni said, pearl-eyed, smiling. “Good, my dear ones. Good. You’ve chosen well.”
PRIYA
Priya had promised Malini,Later.
But some promises were older. Some things were more important. Somewhere, Bhumika was beyond Priya’s reach. Had been beyond Priya’s reach ever since Priya set foot outside of Ahiranya. Bhumika had not tried to seek her out. Bhumika had sent her no messages. And a yaksa had stolen her face.
Priya had to go home.
She realized now, as she quietly and carefully walked through the darkness of the camp, that she should have written a letter.I meant what I said. Everything that I am is yours.
But my family, my sister—
You understand, don’t you? Malini. I can’t stay. I’m sorry.
Spirits, she hated herself already for going. Hated thinking of what Malini would feel when she discovered that Priya was gone—had left her behind without a word.
