The fortress was just as much of a maze as it was famed to be. Each passage was narrow, and opened to multiple other doorways, which led to corridor upon corridor in turn. But they moved forward with confidence—following the path Kunal had set out for them, and guided them on now.
They came to a large, columned room. Doors on each side. There were no windows, but the vast space was oddly bright, so well-lit by hung lanterns that its walls were a shimmering, liquid expanse of gold.
The fear punched its way through Rao’s body a second before the realization struck his conscious mind: Those lanterns did not contain normal fire. The flames were writhing, slow and unnatural, their movement making Rao’s limbs stiffen with instinctual, animal wariness.
Someone swore. And behind the weight of that whisper, Rao heard a distant sound. Booted footsteps.
There was a bark of laughter behind him.
“You’re trapped,” Kunal said, holding his head up at what would have been a brave and noble angle, if Rao hadn’t been viewing it through a haze of fury and panic. “There was a wire set in the ground at the entrance. When we unbalanced the weight upon it—my father knows. His men are coming. Either you leave here now, or you die.”
“You fool,” Rao said sharply. “You’re willing to die with us? On the ends of our blades?”
“For Saketa’s sake?” His breathing was ragged. “Y-yes.”
“Saketa’s sake? Saketa is burning. Riven with rot. Your low princes have turned from your father and serve Empress Malini. As they should.”
“She cannot beat the emperor,” Kunal said. There was something haunted in his eyes. “I’ve seen him. I know him.”
“Not as I know him. Not as I know her,” Rao said, anger in his voice.
Mahesh gestured at one of his loyal men, and in the blink of an eye the Parijati warrior had Kunal by the throat—was slamming him hard against the wall.
Mahesh looked around—one door, and the next, and the next, a full honeycomb of corridors.
“It’s even more of a maze in here than we ever expected, and the bastard’s made sure we’re entirely lost,” Mahesh said grimly. “All we can hope to do is find the High Prince by some miracle and cut the man’s throat. Put an end to this.”
And lose all their lives in the process. But what did their lives matter, now?
Aditya had a hand on one of the walls. He was gazing up at the stone—the way it curved toward the dome of a ceiling. Kunal, held against the wall, was still making choked, wet noises, hands flailing ineffectually.
Rao should have told the soldier to let Prince Kunal go. But he didn’t. He watched Aditya instead.
He saw it when Aditya’s mouth firmed. When he exhaled—pained, small. Then straightened, lowering his arms.
“The High Prince’s—and Chandra’s—false fire destroyed swathes of our army,” Aditya murmured. He sounded as if he were lost in thought, but his eyes were sharp. “Imagine…”
He paused. There was silence, apart from the crackle of torches, the pained wheeze of Kunal’s fading breath.
“I wonder,” he said finally, “what true fire could do.”
“True fire,” Rao repeated.
“You mean fire of the mothers?” Mahesh asked. Aditya nodded. “Prince Aditya,” Mahesh replied, voice heavy. “We have no such thing.”
“Sometimes you can hear the voice of the nameless even without a basin of water to open the way.” Aditya’s voice was steady. Sure. “Sometimes the nameless speaks clearly.”
“The fire is fading,” said Rao, staring at the flames in their sconces.
“A magic born from an imperfect sacrifice,” murmured Aditya, “will never be anything but a mimicry of what the mothers accomplished for us.”
In his voice—the cadence of it, the surety, the way the men hung on his every word—Rao saw a shadow of Malini in her brother.
“Sacrifice,” Aditya was saying. “A sacrifice not compelled. A sacrifice chosen.”
He closed his eyes. Opened them.
“The lanterns haven’t yet guttered,” said Aditya.
