A smile flitted across his face—lit his mouth and his eyes—then faded away as swiftly as it had come.
“We were very young then. And I left him soon enough, for my own training and my own lessons.”
“I remember,” Rao said. He’d arrived at the imperial mahal himself as a boy; been raised alongside Aditya as his companion, to foster ties between Alor and Parijat. He remembered how relieved he had been, to become Crown Prince Aditya’s companion, not Prince Chandra’s. Aditya had welcomed him with a smile; had spent days showing him around the imperial mahal, and had let Rao borrow his favorite horse, his favorite books.We’re going to be friends all our lives, he’d said, when Rao had expressed reluctance to take what was rightfully Aditya’s from him.Surely friends should share everything?
Chandra had not even looked at him when he arrived. Had refused to talk with him or eat with him for months, and curled his lip in disdain at any effort on Rao’s part to make friends. Once, during a practice battle under the watching eyes of their sages, Chandra had beaten Rao around the skull with his training saber. One blow so vicious it left him unconscious. He was trapped in the sickroom for a week before he recovered.
It was only then that Rao learned Chandra disdained him for being a follower of the nameless.My brother spends too much time with the High Priest, Aditya had said absently, fussing with Rao’s bandages like a mother.But don’t worry. He’ll calm as he grows older. All the sages tell Father so.
“No matter what anyone says—no matter what my sister may believe, Rao—Chandra is not inherently evil,” Aditya said now. There was something raw in his voice—almost an entreaty. “He’s been misled. He’s chosen to walk a terrible path. I left my apparent fate once, and embraced another. Maybe Chandra can one day do the same.”
Aditya’s hand was still against his chest—a light, meaningless weight. Rao shifted away from him, and the hand lowered.
Rao thought of Alori. Her hair caught in the wind. Her eyes fixed on distant birds. The way her cheek had dimpled when she smiled. He thought of her and all the anger he had refused to feel rushed through him, alchemized into grief.
He squeezed his eyes shut, holding back tears. He wasn’t going to cry.
“Malini isn’t alone in believing he’s beyond saving,” said Rao, voice tight. “He murdered my sister. Alori never had a choice to walk a different path. I don’t see why Chandra should be allowed to, when he stole that from her.”
“Men do terrible things,” Aditya replied. That plea again in his voice. “That does not mean they have no capacity for good.”
“Our men areburningbecause of him,” Rao said.
“They are not my men,” said Aditya. “They’re Malini’s. The burden of that must lie on her, just as it lies on Chandra. And if I look in my heart every day and forgive my sister…” Rao opened his eyes, just in time to see the expression of quiet anguish that crossed Aditya’s face, before it settled into calm once more. “Rao. I must forgive my brother too.”
They could have been Aditya’s men. They could have been. If Aditya had not refused his birthright over and over again.
If Rao had not kneeled before Malini and prophesied her rise and Aditya’s fall.
If Aditya had found a way to forgive Malini and Chandra, had he found a way to forgive himself too? Had he forgiven Rao for his part in Malini’s rise?
“Why are you here?” Aditya asked, finally. With a start, Rao realized he had been silent for some time, staring blankly at Aditya, wanting to do—something. Wring Aditya by the throat, perhaps, or shake him. Or hold his face and sayI wish you could be more than this. I wish you would grieve as I grieve, and hate as I hate, and be the person you were when you and Prem and I were boys. I wish, I wish.
“If you’ve come for comfort,” Aditya said, “or prayer, then I’ve failed you utterly, Rao. I’m sorry.”
There were many things Rao could have said.
I came to tell you what happened.
I came to ask for your help.
I came to tell you that Malini is fighting to make those men obey her, and I fear this will break her control of them, and you… Aditya, I don’t know why she allows you to live, when you’re a threat to her, and I hate myself for even thinking it, but as long as you’re here—
A tumult of thought. Too much, and none of it useful.
He told a truth instead, if notthetruth.
“I came to see you,” Rao said. “Because you’re my friend. And I needed to see that you are well. And. Now I have.”
“I’m unchanged,” Aditya said gently. “As always.”
Low murmurs sounded beyond the tent. This time a guard peered in, announcing the presence of a military official, who entered and bowed low.
“Prince Aditya. Prince Rao.” He lifted his head and said, “Prince Aditya, Lord Mahesh has requested your presence.”
“For what purpose?” Aditya asked.
The official’s gaze darted to Rao, then away.
