She trailed off. Malini’s fingertips were light against her mouth. Silencing her.
“I don’t want to talk about battle anymore,” said Malini.
“Don’t you?” A smile. “Aren’t you always thinking about how you’ll win?”
“Priya,” Malini said. Laughter in her voice. “You’re here, aren’t you? I’ve already won.”
BHUMIKA
Nowhere in the mahal was safe from the eyes of the yaksa. Bhumika crossed the corridors, following the light of the moon where it broke into the halls, between the thick foliage that wound over the windows; the creepers that hung from the ceiling, as graceful as curtains of silk. She could feel every inch of them, every bit of the life within them, like an extension of herself. And the life—the pulsing, breathing force of it—watched her in turn.
In this corridor, if she was still and silent, she could hear the distant noises of the nursery. Sometimes, she stood there by the window with her eyes closed and strained to hear a single noise—a laugh or a cry, the sound of her daughter’s voice. Anything at all. Sometimes, like a cruel joke, one of the yaksa deigned to allow her a glimpse of Padma through a half-open door, or down the end of the corridor, held in their arms.
Tonight, she heard footsteps. But no yaksa emerged, and no Padma. Just Kritika, dressed in white, her expression stiff. When she caught sight of Bhumika, she paused, and her expression only grew stiffer.
“Elder Bhumika,” she said. “Good evening.”
“Kritika,” Bhumika said in return. “Are you… better now?”
“I was never not well,” Kritika said.
“The banquet—”
“I am going to the Hirana,” Kritika cut in. There was something hunted and defiant in her face. She raised her head, chin up, and said, “I am going to pray alongside the yaksa. Whom I worship. Andtrust.”
Bhumika stared into her face.
“Kritika,” she said. “Please.”
Kritika began to walk again. Quickly, as if she could outrun the banquet. The look on Bhumika’s face.
“I fought for a better world, Elder Bhumika,” she said determinedly. “I will not reject it. I have faith.”
Bhumika said nothing to that. What could she say? She let Kritika go.
Silence fell again. She swallowed hard, against the aching lump of grief and anger in her throat, and walked onward.
She crossed the corridor and slipped from one to the next, making her way into the narrow servants’ passages that adjoined the once grand hallways reserved for the nobility. She did not see Sanjana’s vibrant face, or Chandni’s gentle one, or the gleam of Nandi’s silvery eyes. She was glad of that.
Her people were waiting for her in the kitchens. Billu was carefully stoking the fire in one of the ovens. When he saw her, he bowed his head in greeting.
“They don’t care much for flame,” Billu said, adding some fuel to the embers burning low in the oven. “So I thought, I’ll get some work done and keep them away while I’m at it. My lady.”
She nodded.
“How is Rukh?” This, she addressed to Ganam. He was standing on the edge of the circle of servants, the only mask-keeper present. The only one, frankly, that Bhumika had felt safe inviting. Khalida was sitting cross-legged on the ground behind him, her head bent as though too heavy for her neck.
“Well enough,” he said, expression grim. “Doesn’t remember his mother’s name, sometimes. And sometimes he looks at me like he can see right through me. But he’s more himself again.”
She felt helpless relief run through her. Whatever her brother had done to the boy, he had not deserved it, and she was deeply glad that it was a wound he was capable of healing from.
“I tried to see Padma again,” Khalida said. She sounded subdued. Haunted and tired, in a way that years of service to the regent and the tumult that had followed his death had never managed to make her be. “They wouldn’t let me.”
“Ah, Khalida,” Bhumika breathed. Foolish tears began to build behind her eyes. “Thank you for trying,” she said.
Every time Bhumika had attempted to go near her daughter, the yaksa wearing Chandni’s face had found her and taken Bhumika’s arm lightly, so lightly. Would her dear temple daughter show her the mahal again? Let her touch the fruit trees in the orchard—feel their strength and change them? Would Bhumika take her to the worshippers once more, so they could meet a yaksa and touch Chandni’s feet, and pray to her as they so desired to? And Bhumika had said yes and yes, obediently yes, and had not seen her daughter.
“The feast,” she began. Then stopped.
