She felt Ahiranya around her—felt the rolling expanse of it, all the green, every thorn she had raised from the earth, every trap she had set, every flowering thing that watched the roads and pathways through the city for her with her own eyes, waiting for imperial soldiers to dare darken Ahiranya’s borders again.Come, she thought,and my sister and I will deal with you again.
Come if you like. Ahiranya is waiting for you.
She walked to the Hirana with a handful of mask-keepers. The worshippers, waiting at the base, parted around her with a sigh. She held her masked face high and set her feet against the first steps. The stone knew her, welcomed her. As she walked, the Hirana carried her like a gentle wave. Up, up to the entrance. Into the corridors of the temple.
For many of the years the regent had ruled Ahiranya, the temple had been a ruin: fire-damaged, marked with the ash and flame that had killed so many of Bhumika’s temple siblings and her elders. The statues of the yaksa in the shrine rooms had been destroyed. The paintings and carvings on the walls had faded or been carefully obliterated. But Bhumika was High Elder now, and her regent husband was dead.
She entered one of the shrine rooms and was struck again, anew, by how much had changed. Now, the floor was swathed in a large mat of pale rose. There were lanterns hung upon the ceiling—delicate glass things that filled the room with soft, welcoming light. The walls were no longer stained and empty, but marked with dozens of alcoves, each filled with a statue of a yaksa.
The yaksa had once been innumerable. Once, every village, every family had their own shrine and their own effigies, their own tales of the Age of Flowers.
Artisans, carefully chosen by Bhumika herself, had tried to craft likenesses of as many of them as possible. Bhumika was surrounded by eyes of flowers and hands shaped like the fronds of drooping leaves; skin patterned like seeds or bark whorl; bodies, carved in frozen motion, that writhed like vines.
She reached for her mask, prying it from her face. The cool air touched her skin, and the scent of incense filled her nose, her throat. She breathed it in.
She heard the light motion of footsteps behind her.
“Are you ready to meet the worshippers, Elder Bhumika?” a mask-keeper asked.
Was she? She bowed in worship to the yaksa to give herself a moment’s reprieve. The effigies stared back at her—inhuman and beautiful, painted gold and green and blood-rich red, their eyes gleaming in the lantern light. The worshippers would bow at her feet, as she bowed now, and make offerings for the yaksa. They would weep, or smile, and ask her for miracles, or thank her for existing—as if her rise were miracle enough for them.
It filled her with disquiet. She could not help it.
All they want are the blessings of the yaksa, she reminded herself sternly.All they want is to see me, and believe that Ahiranya has a greater fate lying before it.
This desire—this dream—was part of the fragile weft keeping Ahiranya whole. Whatever Ahiranya had suffered, its people had gained this: their faith returned. Their mantras and myths given life. Temple elders, and deathless waters, andhope.
“I’m ready,” she said. “I’ll greet them in the triveni. Guide them there.”
There was a murmur of agreement, and the mask-keeper vanished.
Bhumika searched in her heart for the things she understood to be the bones of faith: the quiet, lingering hope of a tale of yaksa. The gleaming rush of power that her own magic filled her with. And memories, of kneeling with her temple siblings, and feeling like part of a greater whole. As if, in worship, there could be a future.
Her faith, like her temple siblings, was at best a ghost—a shadowy thing that fluttered in her head and heart, half-remembered. She held the wisps of it tightly, forcing herself to feel it.
If her brother were alive, he’d laugh at her. He’d always believed in great dreams, in an Ahiranya that could never be. Now Bhumika had no choice but to do the same.
In the mornings, Padma liked to attempt to toddle at top speed while screaming at the top of her lungs. Unfortunately, she could not yet walk without clinging on tightly to the nearest surface, so her efforts were in vain and often ended in tears and bruised knees.
Because she could not wreak the havoc she desired unaided on her chubby year-old legs, Bhumika often facilitated her efforts, holding Padma carefully beneath the arms, steadying her shaky steps on the ground. Bhumika didn’t run, of course—she didn’t need to. “My legs are much longer than your own,” she said to Padma, as her daughter careened on the spot in Bhumika’s arms. “But I am happy to help you run,” she went on with false solemnity, as Padma burbled and tried to fling herself headfirst onto the marble floor. “Practice hard enough, and I’m sure you’ll outrun us all one day.”
After leaving the Hirana, Bhumika had immediately changed into a more familiar, colorful sari and wrapped her mask away. Then she had gone to find her child.
That morning, Padma had been with one of the older maids, who handed her over gratefully. “She’s a handful, elder,” the woman had said.
“I know,” Bhumika had replied, trying not to sound too proud.
Bhumika had never thought she’d be the kind of woman who would play with a child like this. As the wife of the governor of Ahiranya, she had known she would be required to uphold a certain image. Holding children was all well and good, but running with them, chasing them like a maidservant? That would have been unacceptable for a woman of her status.
But she was not the governor’s wife any longer.
She was free.
Around them, light poured into the mahal: through the open windows, framed by flowers, and the cracks in the walls and the roof that had not yet been repaired, and perhaps never would be. Bhumika could feel every curling vine and trembling petal, a low-level awareness that hummed in her blood. But she ignored it for now, as she spoke to Padma, and laughed with her, and occasionally offered the mahal dwellers who walked by her a nod of acknowledgment.
Jeevan found her, eventually.
“My lady,” he said, bowing appropriately. His face was set in its usual forbidding lines: angular and tense, his mouth firm. Then he looked at Padma—who was flailing extremely enthusiastically—and his expression softened into a smile. “May I?” He asked.
