“I have always done what was right for Parijatdvipa,” he said. “I did what I was taught. What—what is this?”
The High Priest exhaled. Closed his eyes.
“Release your sister, Emperor,” he said. “With regret. With love. Release her.”
Chandra did.
Malini remained where she was. Hands still chained before her. Watching the look in her brother’s eyes—watched the horror rupture him as his world was upended. All his life, he had worshipped staunchly. Followed the High Priest with the loyalty of a slavering dog, rabid to anyone save his master.
Now his faith had turned on him.
His own saber was taken from him. He stood, suddenly powerless despite his priestly soldiers, his men. His throne.
The High Priest was weeping.
He stepped back. Kartik stepped forward.
Kartik smiled at her, the faintest upraising of the corners of his mouth. For a moment he did not move. Only looked down at her.
One command. That was all it would take, to see Malini’s life ended, or Malini locked up once more, and the priesthood in power. It was more, perhaps, than Kartik had even imagined he could achieve for himself. It was enough power to compel a sensible, cunning man to act upon his ambitions, his hungers.
She was entirely powerless. The cold knowledge of that washed over her. She allowed it to show on her face. The faintest weakness—a trembling of her hands as she looked up at him. So he needed to believe he had power over her? Well then, let him. It was not untrue.
That wouldn’t be the case forever. She’d make sure of it.
She either had the measure of him, or she did not.
I will only give you what you want if I have my throne, she thought, keeping her eyes on his.Even if I fear you—if you wish to see me burn, and the yaksa die by my fire, you must raise me up.
His gaze flickered.
Then he bowed low to the ground. All the priests and soldiers around him followed suit.
“Empress,” he said. “We welcome you to Parijatdvipa. May you lead us always to unity and greatness.”
“Priest,” Malini said, holding her hands before her. Smiling, as if she had known fate would carry her here all along. “Free me, and I promise greatness is exactly what you will have.”
PRIYA
Water all around them. Above, below.
“Here again, sapling,” the yaksa whispered, smiling, her teeth more pearl than thorn. This time the yaksa was not wearing Bhumika’s face. Instead, she gazed at Priya with a mirror of her own face wrought beautiful and strange, lustrous wooden bones pressing against fragile skin, leaf-thin and glowing from within. “Here at last.”
Priya gazed at it. Her thorn-and-pearl mouth, her flowering eyes.
“What do I owe you, yaksa,” she said, “that I haven’t given?”
“Oh my darling one,” the yaksa crooned, as if Priya had delighted her. “What else? Your heart.”
“I… I hollowed my heart.” Priya remembered it, now that she was here. The pain. The wood of her ribs, the flowers within her. “You have it.”
“Not all of it.” The yaksa’s mouth parted. A needle-flower bloomed between her teeth, then withered. Faded. Then she smiled. “Not all of it,” she repeated.
Malini.
It was with Malini.
“I will give you a knife to carve it,” the yaksa murmured. “A knife to hollow it. A knife to make you ours.”
