He stared at the vial of needle-flower. The blood was beating like a drum in his skull. He thought of running a saber through his sister’s stomach. He thought of her on the pyre burning and screaming in agony, begging for mercy, and felt a despair so encompassing it was like a wave, like drowning.
He would never see her die. He could not lie to himself. Hemanth had turned from him, tears in his eyes.With regret. With love, he’d said.
Chandra reached for the vial and grasped it. Raised it up.
He did not want to die.
The memory of a blade at his throat lanced through him. Humiliation made him grit his teeth, the taste of blood on his tongue.
Had Hemanth ever truly loved him? When the High Priest had told him he was destined for greatness—when he had given Chandra hope and purpose—had he known that one day he would betray him?
The world was flawed, decayed, rotten. And Chandra was the only noble man left. Betrayed by all the men who should have kneeled before him. Humiliated and condemned by the sister who should have died for him.
Chandra deserved to live. Heneededto live. Parijatdvipa would fall without him.
He clenched his hand tight around the vial. The urge to fling it against the wall and watch it shatter was a powerful thing. He wanted the paltry pleasure that destroying it would bring—the sight of glass and needle-flower smeared against the floor and walls.
His hand was shaking. His arm did not want to lift it. It felt as if he were looking at the vial from a great distance. He could not throw it. He could not drink it. He was frozen.
Wetness, miserable and weak, was streaming from his eyes. These were not his tears. This was not his heartbreak.
Hemanth, he thought.How could you betray me?
He thought of lowering the vial back to his bedside. He thought of trusting in the gloriousness of his own fate.
He thought again of Hemanth, and felt his own faith wither.
He thought of his sister’s threats: Of slowly administered doses of needle-flower. Of wasting away. Of being jeered at and mocked by Parijatdvipa’s highborn, as his mind betrayed him, and his body followed. The terror that thought instilled in him was vast. He could not breathe around it. He felt like a child again—trapped under a sea of dark emotion, entirely adrift. But now, there was no one to raise him up. No one to show him the way. There was only the fear. And the vial.
I will die as myself. I will die with my pride and my honor.
This was the brave path. The only path.
A swift death. A clean death.
Before he could dissuade himself, he quickly poured the needle-flower into his mouth with a hand that shook so wildly his grip on the vial almost slipped. Then he grasped the carafe of wine and drank deep from it, draining it too. The wine’s richness washed away the taste of the needle-flower, leaving nothing in Chandra’s mouth but the taste of overripe fruit and the bitterness of his own panic.
He flung the carafe hard at the wall. It collided with stone with a clang, then tumbled to the ground, rolling to the edge of his bed. He let out an awful sob, muffled by his own hand.
Mothers condemn his sister. Let her rot and writhe. He was meant to be emperor and die an old man in his bed, surrounded by his sons and heirs. She had condemned Parijatdvipa by condemning him. She had—
He.
His hands were growing numb.
His heart was pounding. Faster, and faster still. As the room began to waver, and his vision lurched, and his body slid from the bed, awkwardly hooked by the chains at his wrists, he thought,That was not needle-flower.
He vomited. Violently. Once, and again.
His stomach was still roiling when he heard the door open once more.
“Malini,” he rasped out. Retched, again.“Malini.”
She sat down on his bed and folded her hands on her lap.
He looked up at her. Her calm face. The light in her eyes.
Traitor, he thought.Whore. Monster.
