There was a terrible sense, within her, of things slotting into place—as what she had seen in Ahiranya, and what she had seen since, reworked into new shapes in her head and heart. Rot flowering across the empire, and Priya’s great magic. Rivers upended, and vines working their way through skin. Alone these things were horrors and miracles; wound together, in one garland, they were a warning. A harbinger.
“You can’t be sure,” she said, reflexive, unwilling to believe it. But she already knew it was true. The dread had flooded through her body and settled coldly within her.
“I am sure,” he said. “If you seek Prince Aditya, he will assure you of the same. His nameless god has spoken to him as I have been spoken to. I do not doubt it. The yaksa are coming, and they will attempt to seize all of Parijatdvipa as their own once more.”
Had Aditya truly known this was coming? Why hadn’t he told her,warnedher? Had he tried, all those times he has spoken of his faith and its power—and had she simply failed to heed him? She could not consider it further now; couldn’t allow the memory of her priest brother to distract her from the priest who stood before her.
“You would have me lead that war,” she said, even as her heart turned, even as she knew. She knew.
“I would have youwinthat war,” he said. “For Parijatdvipa. For your people. I would have you win it with all the merciful strength of your great ancestor.”
“You want me to agree to burn,” she said. It did not shock her as much as it should have. Even as she felt numb horror work its way through her—even as her body went colder still, and the memory of smoke filled her throat—
She had known, in her heart of hearts, that fire would come for her again.
“You want me to rise to the pyre,” she said.
“With willingness and with joy,” he agreed. Leaned forward, a softness in his mien that soothed her when it should not have. “You have the look of Divyanshi, you know,” he said.
“I have been told so,” Malini said. “Many times.”
“The High Priest seeks to make a world that is stronger and better—more true to the hopes and dreams of the mothers who burned for us. In Chandra, he saw the means to create that world. But he saw it in you too when you were a girl. You were good,” Kartik said with absolute certainty. An intimacy in his voice that he had no right to. “Good and dutiful. The High Priest and all the venerable priests of the imperial temple impressed upon Chandra the importance of maintaining your purity of spirit, and Chandra sought to do so. He sought to make you into what you must be. A worthy symbol of Parijatdvipa’s glory. Divyanshi’s scion, your brother, wished for you to burn to make your purity everlasting, and Parijatdvipa’s along with it. When you refused, it hurt him sorely.”
“It was my right,” Malini said, instead of replying with the truth in its entirety—that there had been nothing pure about the fury that had led him to see her heart sisters burned; that framing a violent hatred in the flesh of faith did not make it any less brutal or monstrous. That her hurt had been far greater, and of far more worth than whatever paltry excuse for a heart lived inside him. “If Chandra had been a true faithful of the mothers, he would have accepted my choice. He did not.”
Kartik inclined his head in acknowledgment.
“He did not,” he agreed. “Emperor Chandra is a man of… focus. His vision is like an arrow. Now, he has begun to understand that the war for a better Parijatdvipa will not be fought against princes and kings. Or a sister in revolt. He understands this is the return of an ancient struggle. But years of belief that he will face a mortal war have… led him astray. And his mind will not be easily moved.
“You must burn,” Kartik went on. “Your willing death would be an incomparable weapon against the yaksa. But your brother believes that if you will refuse him and defy him, then there are other sacrifices that will do well enough in your place.”
The women he had murdered in their droves to make his weapons. The fire that burned Malini’s men in turn, when it flew on strange wings from the maze fort’s walls. The fire on her saber, gifted to her by Kartik’s people, flickering and fading away. “He would kill you, or allow you to perish, now that he has made his false fire. But his false fire will not save us. Just as your death unwilling and stolen from you will not save us.”
“You understand, then,” Malini said, in a voice that was far calmer than she felt. “That I will never be willing, so long as Chandra lives and holds the throne.”
“No priest has ever desired your unwilling death,” he said, with tenderness that galled. “We have always respected your worth. Always sought your glad sacrifice. If this is the gift you demand for your willing service, then tell me so. That is all I ask.”
“If the High Priest and the inner circle who serve Chandra do not support me wholeheartedly, then I will not burn,” Malini said, into the silence that fell as his words faded, feeling her own horror only distantly. Her determination to win was stronger.
“But you would be willing,” he said, “if we served you, lovingly and loyally? Divyanshi’s scion, tell me: If you wear the crown and sit upon the throne—will you die for it?”
“It is the will of the mothers that brought me to war against Chandra,” Malini said. “It is the priests of the mothers that brought me here. For Parijatdvipa, and for faith, I will take the throne. And I will burn to save us. That is my vow.”
He smiled at her, and nodded.
“Then I will send a message to my allies in Harsinghar,” he said. “And when you reach the city—when you are at the doors of the mahal—my allies will find you.”
“How will you send a message swiftly enough?” Malini demanded.
“I will outpace you to Harsinghar,” he said, amused. “You have an army to move. I am one man, and the lanterns in the temple spires will light my message for me, if I do not.”
“What assurance…” Malini paused. Shook her head. “Faith,” she said. “You will tell me my only assurance is faith.”
“Just so, Divyanshi’s scion,” he said. “There will still be a battle ahead of you. Your men will still die. But when you are captured—and you shall be—the tide will turn in your favor. And I will tell you how.”
He told her what was to come. And when he was done, she thought of the battle that awaited her. Thought of men dead, and bloodied soil, and Rao’s tired eyes. Thought of Aditya, in Saketa, fighting to keep the enemy at her back at bay.
She knew that Chandra had wasted swathes of men at the battle on the Veri. But he still had his fire—and false though it was, it would still devastate her army before it died. It would still cost her the bulk of her forces—those allies she had brought along with her using nothing but the fraying promise of the myth that surrounded her, all its gilt and glory.
