“To the bower of bones?”
“Anywhere,” he said.
Her heart ached.
“No debt you owe me demands this of you. And. My daughter…”
“I don’t do it for debt,” he said. Mouth firm. “I cannot protect her. Against them, I am powerless. But you. Perhaps.”
She wanted to refuse him. Wanted to spare him this. But if she was going to lose herself, she could not do this alone.
She did not want to do this alone.
“Perhaps,” she echoed. “Well, then. If you like, yes. You may.”
MALINI
The temple was so large it was visible even from quite a distance. The sight of it struck an old memory in her. She knew this place: its golden sandstones, its ivory inlaid domes. Something about it felt familiar. She didn’t know why.
Beneath the light of sunset, it would glow like burning embers, like the finest temples in the city of Harsinghar itself. But those temples were by necessity awe-inspiring: They served Parijat’s highborn and royalty, and reflected the grandeur of the empire, the importance of the faith.
There was no reason for a temple surrounded by swathes of barren land and sparse, bedraggled copses of trees to be so ornate. As the chariot jolted forward along the dirt track, Malini raised a hand to protect her eyes from the glare of the sun and surveyed the land around them. It was not farmland as she’d first assumed, but a wasteland. The soil was largely arid and strangely jagged. Rock formations roiled like waves, fossilized in the act of breaking on a shore. Holes pitted the ground.
“This was a battleground, once,” Lata murmured from her place beside her.
“I thought it a possibility. Or the site of some terrible natural disaster,” Malini agreed, looking down once more at the great gouges in the earth. She thought of Priya then—her gifts, the way she could reshape the earth—and wondered with a strange feeling in her chest if the temple elders had fought here during the Age of Flowers. “You can tell from the ground alone?”
“I am not reading the soil, my lady, although I wish I had the skill to do so,” Lata said, with a slightly embarrassed smile. “I recognize the temple’s architecture. Look between the domes. There.”
Lata raised a hand, pointing, and Malini followed her guidance. Between the domes of the temple stood a tower. It was no watchtower, no edifice made for practical use. It was thin as a blade, thin enough to cut only the faintest scar against the blue-white sky.
Ah.
Now that she had seen it, she remembered the tale. The battle that ended the Age of Flowers was preceded by a meeting of the highborn of the subcontinent’s city-states. Called together, they shared their sorrows and their angers—their great fear of the yaksa, and how their land had changed under the touch of those immortal spirits.
And then the yaksa had come.
It had been a massacre. All of the most venerable of kings and princes had been killed, including Divyanshi’s own highborn father. The land never recovered from the deaths, but a temple was erected there, marked with a “tower like a blade”—or so the Book of Mothers said.
Malini knew its words very, very well.
Only one priest awaited them at the entrance of the temple. He was a small figure—narrow shouldered with large eyes, sharp bones.
“My name is Mitul,” the slight man said, by way of greeting, when Malini alighted from her chariot. His eyes were oddly pale—the almost-green Malini had only ever seen in the faces of Dwarali soldiers who carried blood of the Jagatay and Babure tribes that harried Parijatdvipa’s borders. “You have been eagerly awaited, Empress.”
“And who awaits me?” Malini asked.
“You followed a message here,” Mitul replied, eyes politely lowered. “I am sure the empress knows.”
The words verged on insulting, but Malini allowed them to pass. But she could not hide her anger when Mitul shook his head and stood before the door, barring the way when Malini’s followers approached: her highborn, her guards. Her women. Priya.
“All of you cannot enter,” the priest said. Apparently unfazed by the armed men at Malini’s back, he said, “This is a holy place.”
“All temples are holy,” Malini said, watching the priest with intent eyes. “And all temples, surely, welcome the highborn of Parijatdvipa.”
“Only you, Empress,” he said.
“I would be a great fool to enter even a holy place unprotected,” Malini said evenly.
