“I gave you my heart. I need to take it back,” said Priya. “I need to hollow it, like everything else. Like the rest of me.”
“Whatever you gave me doesn’t live in that insipid flower,” Malini gasped, furious that she was crying, furious at the salt on her face, the way her heart hammered as she edged back, back, fighting Priya’s magical grip on her, as Priya circled her, the mothers’ fire flickering palely strange in the lamps, in the pit.
“Don’t say it,” said Priya. “Don’t.”
But it was too late.
“It lives in me,” Malini said. Furious. “It lives in me, and you cannot take it.”
Priya shuddered. The knife moved in her hand, sharpening as if of its own volition.
“I love you,” Priya choked out. “I really do. I don’t want to do this.”
“That doesn’t make it better,” Malini rasped. “Do you really think I haven’t been hurt by people who love me, who claimed I gave them no choice?”
“I know you have,” said Priya. “I know.”
“Don’t you know how I love you?” Malini asked. Those were not soft words. She threw them out like a lash. “Don’t you know that I hold everyone at bay, that I cannot stand to love anyone and yet I love you utterly? Don’t you understand?”
Priya took a step forward. Took hold of her. It was almost an embrace; almost like being held tenderly, and it was so cruel that Malini could not stand it. She flinched back, and Priya’s grip tightened.
Malini snarled—a sound she had never, ever made—and twisted. Wrenched. Priya refused to let go of her, and they were both stumbling. Both falling. Both on the marble, the coldness of it jarring Malini’s back, her skull. Priya was above her, fierce and breathing fast, eyes wet. She was beautiful and Malini wanted nothing more than to fling her away, to be free of her. She bucked, pushing at Priya with her fists, her nails. But Priya was immovable. Speaking, her voice too close, too familiar, toomuch.
“If you hold still, I—”
“No,” Malini snapped, clawing at Priya’s arm, yanking her braid. Grasping that soft hair in her hands, wishing she could wrench it right out. “No, no, I won’t make this easy for you. Priya you fool, you fool, how dare you—”
The thorn blade met the marble at her side and Malini rolled. Grasped the edge of the pit.
“Don’t,” she said again. Pleaded. “Don’t, Priya, don’t.”
“I have to,” Priya snapped, in a voice that was wild. “Malini,I have to.”
There was wood, laid at its side, ready to be thrown on the flames. Malini grabbed a piece—unseeing, almost unthinking through the haze of her own fury and fear—and shoved it into the fire. And lifted it. And turned.
She thrust the fire at Priya, watching it arc from the blade, lash and bind itself against Priya’s skin.
Priya made a noise. Clutched her neck, as light flared in the room, as the ground shook, all those strange flowers bursting and dying. Malini gritted her teeth and held the fire steady, steady. Let it burn her. Let it burn her, then. All Priya had to do was run away, and it would stop. All Priya had to do was stop trying to kill her.
And Priya leaned forward, leaned into it, said tightly, “Malini.”
And there—ah. Ever so gentle. Sliding in easily through flesh, through muscle, raw against bone.
Priya had stabbed her through.
She’s missed my heart, Malini thought distantly.I hope she has missed my heart.
The torch rolled from her nerveless hands.
“I had no choice,” Priya said again.
“You did,” Malini managed. She was afraid to move. The pain was finally registering: moving through her, setting new knives into her blood. “You—you did.”
Her body crumpled. Priya caught her, lowering her down gently. What a mockery it was, that gentleness.
“You won’t die,” Priya sobbed, miserable tears falling down her cheeks. “You won’t die. I didn’t cut out your heart. I didn’t. I only, I only…”
Her words dissolved. There was a white-edged silence, as Malini bled, and Priya scrubbed tears from her own eyes.
