“You would admit such vulnerability?” His voice was soft, almost kind. “I am a stranger to you, even if you are not one to me.”
“No priest of the mothers is truly a stranger to me,” Malini said in return. “I share blood with Divyanshi, the first mother of flame. I felt her voice in me when I took up the mantle of empress. If the priests of the mothers are the hands and eyes of the mothers and serve their will, then we are almost kin, you and I.”
“Generous words,” he said. “But you are willing to kill your kin. And kill priests, also.”
“Priests of the nameless, who died willingly. Surely you will not denigrate their sacrifice by calling it murder at my hands.”
He inclined his head, accepting her words.
“I am an orphan, Divyanshi’s scion,” he said—she noted, neatly sidestepping the question of whether to call her empress or princess in the process. “I had no one, before a temple of the faceless mother claimed me. But it was the High Priest who raised me to the position I now occupy, and he is perhaps the closest thing to a father I possess. And he supports your brother Chandra wholeheartedly.”
“And yet,” Malini said, “Here I stand.”
“Perhaps this is a trap for you,” he replied, speaking her own suspicions. “To return you to your brother’s care.”
She shook her head.
“I was given a gift,” said Malini. “A box of stone, with a bloom of magical fire inside it.”
“A good lure,” he said. “One small gift of mother-blessed fire? An easy way to lull you into trust. Did you not consider that? Surely you did.”
“I did.”
“And you brought no guards with you? No soldiers? Such unpreparedness suggests a mind ill-suited to the throne.”
“The fire itself was not the gift,” Malini said, ignoring his taunt. She would not be lured into revealing what defenses—and weapons—she had easily to hand. “It was its death that was your gift to me. Priest, I held the flame on my own saber. Felt its strength and heat. And I watched it wither and fade. That is not how the fire the mothers died for—the fire that saved us from the yaksa—behaves. I know every line of the Book of Mothers. I know this with utter certainty.
“The fire of the mothers could not be quenched,” she quoted. “It burned as the sun burns. It burned with blessed strength.”
“It carried in it the hearts of the mothers,” he continued, taking up the cadence of her words. There was—she was fairly sure—a light of approval in his eyes. “It ate and ate, burned with fury, until it swallowed all the yaksa whole, and left the people of Parijatdvipa unharmed. And with the yaksa dead, the mothers’ fire departed.”
“You gave me the fire as a message,” Malini said, as his words died into silence. “You know, priest, that the fire my brother has created is not the fire of the mothers. You know he is not the worthy heir to Parijatdvipa that he believes he is. That the priests of the mothers have, perhaps, long believed he is. I can only assume that you want something from me that Chandra cannot give you.”
His expression remained approving. He inclined his head.
“You are wise in your scripture,” he murmured.
“As all Parijatdvipans should be,” Malini replied. She filled her voice with conviction. “I want to serve Parijatdvipa. I want to lead Parijatdvipa, as I know the mothers desire from me. You know what I want from you and your fellows, priest. I know you want to help me. Ifeelit. But we are creatures that live in the world, flawed though it may be, and we seek to protect our own. The Parijati priesthood has gained a great deal of power under my brother’s rule. Military power. Political. I understand that remaining loyal to him may be—compelling. So I must ask: What do you need from me that he cannot provide?”
He was silent. Malini took a step closer still.
“All I have done, I have done for faith,” she said. “Now place your faith in me, priest. It is only fair. Only just.”
He inclined his head in agreement.
“There is a war coming,” the priest said.
“You don’t speak of my war with Chandra,” Malini murmured.
“No. Not that. Though it is the priests I have trained who serve in Chandra’s battles.”
Ah. That explained his rise in the ranks of royal priestly service, then, despite his Saketan heritage.
“Once, the priests who stand above me—the High Priest among them—believed that the fight for a better Ahiranya would be fought by its emperor, against disloyal highborn. Men who had forgotten their vows to the mothers. But I always knew that was not so.” A pause. Then he said, “You perhaps saw things unnatural and strange in Ahiranya. Or Prince Aditya showed you visions of the nameless. Or you have seen what comes in the presence of the rot.” His voice had a steady cadence, even and sure. “You know what I know. You know our ancient enemy comes.Thatis the war that lies upon the horizon. The nameless, the mothers, the faceless mother herself—they speak with the same voice. The yaksa will return. The rot heralded them. They will come, and there will be war again.”
The hair on the back of her neck rose.
The yaksa.
