He was, he explained, the one who trained the priestly warriors who now served in the mahal and had also been sent trooping to Saketa with casks of mothers’ fire. Fire harvested from the deaths that filled the mahal constantly with the ugliest perfume of smoke. Charred flesh.
“Any priest you’ve met who can wield a weapon is under my purview,” he added. “You need only tell them you are a friend of Kartik, and they will treat you with respect.”
The priest even honored them with a meal from home—bursting with spice and flavor, pleasantly sour—that they devoured more swiftly than was probably sensible. The next day he departed.
And Varsha prepared for her marriage.
The wedding was inevitable. It had been inevitable for a long time: long before Kunal’s father had called him into his chambers and served them both cold sherbet and said, “The emperor seeks a closer alliance. You will accompany your sister to Parijat.” A pause. “Keep her safe, Kunal.”
A queen, but not Emperor Chandra’sonlyqueen, for all that his father and his father before him had only taken a single wife. It had been explained to Kunal, by his father and by the priests that served in the High Prince’s private temple to the mothers, that the emperor needed a Parijati bride.
But the emperor also needed an alliance, now that so many highborn had turned traitor and allied with his sister. And Saketa… Well.
Saketa needed food.
“I never thought I would marry the emperor himself,” Varsha said in a small voice. Gifts were arranged around her. Gold-embroidered saris. Jewels. Vases of flowers. Silk ribbons, and parasols, and slippers bejeweled with diamonds. “Will I be happy, do you think?”
Kunal thought of the day he had first met the emperor. The way the emperor had taken him to a private garden. A place so beautifully manicured it should be a haven; and at its heart, the remains of a woman still burned. The way the emperor had smiled, ever so casually, and said, “This is what will save your country and my own. A sacrifice taken by a true emperor. Is anything more righteous?”
He remembered his father’s eyes, more tired by the day, as his low princes defected to the service of the false empress.
“Our country is dying,” his father had told him. “We need Emperor Chandra’s support if we wish to survive. I will pay any price. Even her.”
“Yes,” Kunal said. He tried to smile at her. “I think you will be.”
On the morning of the wedding, Kunal was summoned to the emperor’s chambers.
He bowed low as the emperor dressed. As the emperor told his servants what food to be arranged, and how guests should be seated, and what traditional games would be allowed. In the same offhand manner, he told Kunal that no more men could be sent to Saketa, and no more weapons. But Saketa would be required to stand against the false empress with its full force of power.
“Either my sister and the traitors who support her will be destroyed, or their forces will be depleted,” Chandra said genially. “She will not be able to turn on Parijat with your father burning her people alive.”
The tailor laid more cloth across the bed: a white jacket embroidered in seed pearls so closely sewn together that they resembled armor. A long, red achkan for luck.
“And my father?” Kunal managed. “And his men? The people in the fort?”
“Your father has my assurance that I will support your rise to High Prince,” said the emperor. “Your sister will be the mother of my children.”
Not, a voice of cold reason whispered in Kunal’s mind,the mother of his heir. Note what he does not say.
“Your people,” the emperor went on, holding out his wrist so that his servant could adjust the heavy torcs of gold adorning them, “will not starve. The rot will be handled. Your food supplies will be secure.” He gave Kunal an indifferent smile. “Remember that, and be glad of my benevolence.”
Kunal bowed his head and proclaimed he was glad indeed.
He watched his sister walk around the ceremonial wedding fire, garbed in resplendent red, and thought,My country is dying.
He watched her bow for the garland, and thought,Our father is dying.
He watched her as she lowered her head for the wedding garland, and thought,My sister will die.
And there is nothing I can do.
PRIYA
Priya read the letter three times. She could feel Bhumika’s gaze on her. But she didn’t look up. Even after she had stopped reading, Priya traced the words with her eyes—each loop and each whorl, the steady boldness of writing in Malini’s own hand.
“What do you make of it?” Bhumika asked, when Priya was silent for another second too long.
“I think she’s in some danger,” Priya said finally. “Enough that she risked—this.”
