“Will you raise a sword to me, priest?” Malini asked. She did not allow herself to feel fear or even anger. She had faced worse. And if Chandra had given holy men sabers, and sent them to war with her—well, what did that matter? They would be either poor at faith and politics, or poor at war, and either suited her well enough.
“I am here to serve the High Prince on Emperor Chandra’s behalf,” the priest said. “I have come, as have my brethren, for the sake of Parijatdvipa. Because I understand sacrifice. But you do not, Princess Malini.” There was a sudden, strange urgency in his voice. Distantly, she heard the low wail of a conch being sounded. One of the commanders had seen something.
Another wail.
Something was glinting on the walls of the fort. Archers.
Warning. Danger.Danger.
The priest’s voice rose higher as the highborn lords muttered and turned their heads, slow to mark the danger; as soldiers drew their shields; as Malini straightened, tense in her carriage, unwilling to show weakness, forcing herself to trust in the defenses surrounding. Next to her, Raziya calmly reached for her bow, nocking an arrow as if she was contemplating shooting the priest square through the eye.
“The mothers of flame blessed their sons,” he cried out, words tumbling over themselves. “When the mothers chose to die by fire, their deaths—their sacrifice—were a blessing, an act that summoned magical flame to the swords of their followers.”
“We have all read the Book of Mothers,” Mahesh said impatiently. He was gripping his saber hard. “Men, restrain the priest—carefully.”
“If you understood the nature of sacrifice, Princess Malini,” the priest said swiftly, as soldiers surrounded him, “you would do your part, as so many other women have. Willingly and gladly. For your emperor brother’s sake.”
“Other women,” she repeated flatly, as her heart thudded, as a sickening jolt of understanding ran through her.
He stared back at her. The fervent light of his smile had faded, leaching from his mouth to fill his eyes, which were painfully wide and fixed upon her.
“The weapons that shall be turned upon you and all the emperor’s enemies are carried in their ashes,” he announced with pride. “They burned to save the world. As the mothers burned. You can do no less. Know your place, Princess Malini. And see what women braver than you have wrought.”
He raised a hand.
Malini looked up as the gate of the fort opened once more—flung wide to release riders on horseback holding blades that glowed, tendrils of smoke rising around them.
Looked up, and saw the fire begin to rain from the sky.
Her army had faced fire arrows before. They were a weapon of war, and the commander of each branch of the army sprawled across the field before her—horse cavalry, elephant, foot soldier—knew how to respond to such tactics. Even staffs or swords covered in flame could be fought.
But this fire was—wrong.
It bloomed. Winged like birds. Soaring. Jumping from one body to the next, sentient and graceful. As one body fell, it shifted to the next, seeking fuel.
Alive. It wasalive.
The air filled with the smell of smoke, of burning bodies.
She could see only the barest glimpse of Mahesh, still upright in his chariot, gripping on tightly as his horse careened forward, trampling through the press of foot soldiers ahead of her. Before her and around her, men ran back and forth without direction, some of them burning, the air filled with an awful char and screaming. Malini thought of a line from the Book of Mothers, a line that spoke of holy fire, sentient and twisting and writhing,its many forked tongues, its wings of flame, did turn hands upon the yaksa, and reduce them to ash, and did not rest, until everything lay dead in its path—
Malini looked sharply back at the camp. She heard distant cries. Half her army remained behind.Someonein the camp would surely have noticed by now what was happening. They would send more men, and swiftly.
She could not allow that. Not against this. They needed to retreat. They needed tothink.
The chariot jolted. The horse was panicking, rearing up no matter how her charioteer tried to soothe it, his own hands trembling. It jolted again, and once more. Malini was thrown roughly from her feet and against the side of the chariot. She looked at Raziya and saw the woman on her knees, clutching her own skull. Her hand was bloodied.
“Raziya,” she yelled, alarmed.
The woman’s head shot up. Eyes sharp, still.
“It’s no more than a cut,” she said crisply. “Get up.”
She grasped Raziya hard by the arm. “Down,” she ordered, as loud and sharp as she could. “We’ll be safer on foot.”
Raziya hooked her bow at her back and nodded grimly, grasping Malini in return. The two of them leapt.
Overhead, fire shot through the air. A Dwarali woman’s horse was struck by it—Malini heard the awful noise of a dying animal, and the crash as another distant chariot overturned. Raziya stumbled back, dragged aside by one of her women’s hands, swearing as a soldier ran past her, racing away from the battle in utter panic. And then Malini saw the horse leashed to her chariot fall, and the charioteer slump, an arrow through his throat. She saw her own chariot tip toward her, with all its wood and metal, its great spoked wheels, the sheer weight of it. Raziya was out of range, Malini was almost sure. But Malini was not.
