The memory of needle-flower on her tongue rose in her, nauseating. With it mingled the image of Priya crouching over her, a burn blooming on her neck, her face miserable.
I had no choice, Priya had said.
There was always a choice.
She tried to move. Tried to crawl.
Hours or seconds passed.
Footsteps.
They were a steady rhythm against the ground. A slow heartbeat. Thump. Thump.
And there was the priest again. Kartik. Barefoot. His gaze was clear, unmarked by fear or worry. He looked at her as if he looked upon bleeding empresses every day, and there was nothing about her or her predicament that impressed or concerned him.
“You are dying, Divyanshi’s scion,” he said gravely. He kneeled before her, on the cold marble, blood-splattered and fractured by flowers. It was almost a bow, the way he kneeled: head gracefully lowered, one knee beneath him. “The yaksa have tried to take their due.”
Memories flickered through her. His temple. His reach. The way he had spoken of the nameless. Prophecies and certainties—the price of power, and the unquestioning necessity of faith.
“You knew,” she forced out.
“The nameless grants visions,” he said. “Gather enough together with care, weave them with the knowledge we gained from the mothers, and you can build an image of what lies ahead, and be prepared, if you are brave, and you have faith.” He raised his head and met her eyes. “You, like everyone, are but a single light dancing at the whim of cosmic forces,” Kartik said pitilessly. “The yaksa were always meant to return. Your life was always forfeit. You were always walking toward the pyre. And here we are. The fire awaits you, Empress.
“You must choose to burn before you die,” he said. He stroked her hair back from her forehead. “Decide it. I’ll make sure it is done. I will make sure there is no pain.”
She closed her eyes and let out a sob.
If you are told your whole life that your greatest worth is as a sacrifice, inevitably there must come a day when you believe it. Perhaps this was finally Malini’s day. She had fought so long and so hard for power and even now—even beyond the point of success—it had been taken from her.
“Yes,” she forced out. “For—for Parijatdvipa. If I must die…” Hitched breath, wet with blood. There were tears coursing down her face. “I will die for the good. I will die for my people.”
“Good,” he said gently. “Good. You will be remembered with love and reverence for it, Empress. I promise it.”
“Help me up,” she begged.
He did.
“Here,” he said kindly. “I will guide you to the fire. Call my men—” His voice cut off abruptly, into a wet gurgle. His eyes widened.
She felt heat against her own face. Wet. Her own chest no longer even throbbed. It had been easy, so easy, to draw the thorn knife free, and place it in Kartik’s neck.
“I have never,” she said, “been a woman of faith. And you forgot one truth about me, faceless son: I have never been afraid of killing priests.”
He was still staring at her in glassy-eyed shock as she dug the thorn knife deeper and finished slitting his throat.
Then she let him fall, and dropped the thorn knife beside him.
It was his faith and the faith of his priests—faith in her blood and her purpose—that had helped her claw her way to power.
She had not expected power to be like this: her body curved over the gout of a wound, her sari wet with blood. But this time, there was enough anger in her to allow her to crawl toward the court doors. To claw her way to standing.
I will survive this, she told herself. Pressed her palm against the wound. It burned unnaturally. Whatever it had done to her—whatever Priya had done to her—she would heal from it.
Then she closed her eyes and forced herself to scream.
“Help! Help! Ah, help me!Murder!”
There were footsteps. Running, running—and then Lord Khalil was before her, his face grim as he gathered her up. She saw Prakash approaching and Narayan, and a handful of warriors and highborn, and priests who looked upon the bloodied court and the unconscious bodies of the guards at the door in horror.
