Faith was submission. Faith was obedience to a higher power, a baring of the neck to a knife, a step into absolute darkness with no light but the heart’s own foolishness. She had set in motion all that she could. It was time to take one final risk.
“Cut the horses free,” Malini forced out. The charioteer protested, and she said, “Do it. Now.”
He grasped his saber and sliced the reins. The chariot fell still.
“Go,” she said to the charioteer. “You. Go to—”
It was too late. Quicker than she could understand, someone swung onto the chariot, and in the next moment, a blade had sliced through the poor charioteer’s neck.
The man wielding the blade dropped his weapon. Turned to her.
“Princess Malini,” the stranger said; blood and ash matted to darkness on his forehead, his priestly hair loose at his shoulders. “You must come with me.”
In that moment, the obedience Kartik had asked of her demanded the same thing as her pride did: to not fight or scream or panic as Chandra’s soldiers closed in on her. The fire-swept wind ran over her skin, hot and cold all at once.
She removed her own saber and held it before herself.
“Take me to my brother, priest,” she said. Her own voice was a stranger’s in her ears. She thought, absurdly and achingly, of Rao kneeling before her on the road to Dwarali. Her voice sounded like his had, she thought. Like a hollow thing with a fate in it, a conch calling forth a war. “I’m ready.”
Malini was led to a horse; lifted and carried away before she knew it.
She was dragged from a horse to a gate, and from a gate to a doorway, and from a doorway though an underground tunnel, and from there into the walls of the mahal itself, and she thought of Priya.
If all else fails and I die, she will fight my brother. And she will see him dead.
Malini had not expected to survive this long and rise so far. The fact that she still wanted to rise—the fact that shedeservedto rise—meant nothing. If she fell, at least she would take her brother with her. At least she had found the kind of love that would break the world for her sake, and make it into something that would always wear her mark.
The corridor she was led through was dimly lit and flanked by soldiers dressed in imperial armor. They clearly recognized her—she saw contempt and respect warring on any number of faces. Some men sneered. Many lowered their eyes.
Malini looked straight ahead and went to her fate.
In the court of the imperial mahal, a fire was burning.
A pit had been prepared to contain it, lined in clay bricks. The clay was an ugly, squalid thing in comparison to the sandstone and marble of the court that surrounded it, but at first glance Malini thought someone had made an effort to beautify it. There were flowers clustered at the edges of the pit, spilling onto the floor. They were bright, marigold oranges and yellows, the flicker of the fire making them move strangely. Beyond it stood a line of priests. They were solemn faced. Waiting for her.
As she was led closer, she realized the flowers were not flowers at all, but flames. Blooming and growing and withering, with all the beauty of real blossoms.
“Sister.” Malini saw a shadow across the floor. Felt a soldier’s hand at her back, pressing her down.
She kneeled, and looked up, and faced her brother.
He had not been on the battlefield outside his city, she was sure of that. The armor he wore was unmarked, shining, more decorative than practical. He wore prayer stones at his throat, bound with elaborate gemstones and darts of silver-gold. Threads of pearls surrounded his neck. He looked every inch the emperor.
His boots made a heavy noise against the ground as he approached her. He stopped before her. He was close enough that she had to tilt her head to meet his eyes, which were just as she remembered. A mirror of her own.
“Sister,” he said. His voice was low, rumbling. “Welcome home.”
She had thought often of what she would say to him when they finally met again. So many eviscerating, clever words. But now that she was here, she could only laugh soundlessly and watch his expression darken in response.
“Brother,” she said. She let her gaze flicker pointedly from the soldiers behind her, to the fire, to his face. “Is this how youwelcomeyour sister, Chandra? By pushing her to the floor to crouch like a dog?”
He swallowed, visibly. Already trying to control his temper.
“You are kneeling,” he said, “because I am emperor. And you are my sister, my responsibility, and my subject. You kneel like a princess.”
“I am not a princess,” she said. “I am an empress.Theempress. You should be kneeling to me.”
To her surprise—and unease—he slowly lowered himself down to his knees, until they were almost level. She could feel the heat of his breath on her face. She forced herself not to flinch. Instead, she took him in: The exhausted circles around his eyes. The lines of tension bracketing his mouth.
