“Empress,” Lata said, in a quieter voice. “You have a golden tale surrounding you. Do not allow it to weather so soon.”
Malini thought again of the men kneeling before her. The sun beating overhead. Their voices chanting. Empress Malini. Mother Malini.
“It will tarnish one way or another,” said Malini. “And I need to start telling new stories to replace it. Make sure the letter is given to Rao’s rider when I am done. And give him coin enough to encourage his discretion.”
Lata argued no more.
Malini should not write it, she knew.
But she wanted to.
I have looked upon the ocean, she wrote.And it made me recall the tale of a river. And of a fish, searching for a new world on its bank.
And I remember a tale of garlands. And ill stars. And two people who found their way to one another.
Tell me, do you remember it too?
PRIYA
Every root and every inch of green in Ahiranya’s soil sang to her. She heard the song all the time—sleeping, waking. Felt its weight as if she were the limb of a much larger beast, a giant thing slumbering in Ahiranya’s trees, its earth.
She closed her eyes, the sun touching warm fingertips against her face through the thick canopies of the trees. Slivers of cool shadow broke the heat into fragments. She didn’t need to open her eyes to find her way. The song guided her. The soil yielded to her footsteps, rippling like water.This way, it hummed.This is where you will find what you’re searching for.
“If you don’t look where you’re going, you’re going to walk straight into a tree,” said Sima.
Priya opened her eyes and turned to give Sima a glare.
“Iwon’t,” she said. “I would never.”
“Oh, maybe not, but it’d be very funny if you did,” Sima replied. “Aren’t you meant to be exuding holiness and authority? It’ll be very hard to do that if you’re felled by a branch.”
“Sima.”
Sima grinned at her.
“It might be best to keep your eyes open just in case.”
Priya was, in fact, meant to be maintaining a certain image. Even though she’d known today would be messy work, she had dressed in the plain whites of a temple elder. For practicality she had donned a salwar kameez rather than the traditional long tunic, but the loose cloth was bleached white as bone, and her hair was bound back in a high braided knot with beads of sacred wood darted through its length, here and there, in the same style the temple elders had once worn.
It was Kritika, of all people, who had encouraged her to take up the style. Soon after pilgrims began to arrive in waves at the Hirana’s base, pleading for guidance from their new elders, Kritika had taken Priya aside and advised her to dress as the elders had once dressed.There will be worshippers who remember the elders, as I do, she’d said.And for the rest… you must serve as a symbol, Elder Priya. And you must guide them.
Priya was uneasy with the idea of being a symbol. She was uneasy with Kritika too, and with all the ex-rebels who had once served her brother. But she’d chosen this path: chosen the rebels who now called themselves mask-keepers, and the title of elder. She was far too stubborn to do anything but embrace this life with her arms flung wide. And if the right clothes made worshippers weep tears of reverence, and feelhopeagain, and trust that Priya and Bhumika would rule them wisely? Well, then. Priya would wear white. And she would do her very best to act like the person she was meant to be.
Priya offered Sima only the subtlest and most ladylike of the extensive collection of rude gestures she knew—which made Sima laugh under her breath—then straightened up and squared her shoulders, and kept her eyes open as she strode forward with what she hoped was a confident kind of grace.
Around Priya and Sima, other figures walked between the trees: a few once-born ex-rebels, with traces of magic coiling through their blood and scythes in their hands; a handful of soldiers, carrying sabers; and six of the men and women who had once been servants in the regent’s mahal, but now served the two temple elders of Ahiranya in a different capacity. For months, they had been training with Jeevan in the mahal’s practice yard, heaving around maces and beating fake soldiers made of wood and straw with hand sickles. Sima had even been given some training in archery, and she carried a bow and a quiver of arrows with her now. She only looked mildly nervous, but some of the other servants were nearly gray with fear. That was understandable.
They were hunting imperial soldiers, after all.
Ganam, one of the ex-rebels, made his way toward her. He wore the same mask he’d worn when he had been a fighter against Parijatdvipan rule: a wooden oval, large enough to conceal his entire face, with crude holes for eyes and a hollow for the mouth. She shouldn’t have been able to see the questioning look he was giving her, but she could read the tilt of his head well enough.
Priya shook her head. Not here. Not yet.
Then she turned her attention back to the soil. She felt through it—felt the imperial soldiers ahead of her.
Some were already impaled on stakes of thorn. Bhumika had set up that trap. She had a gift for things grown slow and strange.
And Priya, well—
