“Come forward,” another official announced, repeating his words in both court Dvipan and common-tongue Zaban. “And pay your respects.”
You’re Ahiranya’s representative, Priya told herself.Think of what Bhumika would do and try to do it. Do not make a mess of this.
She walked forward. Bowed low. Lower even than she had before.I am a servant of Parijatdvipa, every inch of her body said.I am loyal. I am here for your sake, and I will obey.
“Welcome, Elder,” Malini said. “I welcome you to Saketa.”
With the light of the sun behind her, Malini looked like a stranger. And that was, Priya supposed, exactly how things were meant to be.
“Empress,” she said. “It’s my honor.”
MALINI
“Stop,” said Malini. “There is no need—or time—for us to argue about this, Mahesh.”
“Empress,” he said, gruff and disapproving as Swati laid out breakfast—paper-thin, crisp dosas and vibrant green and orange chutneys and painfully hot tea—and bustled swiftly away. “There is ample reason to discuss this. The highborn are all talking to one another and if you do not act—”
“Argue with me about the allocation of supplies and weaponry,” Malini cut in. “Tell me what reconnaissance you’ve gained about the fort. But this—there is no need for this. I summoned her here. She has value to me and to our siege. That should be enough.”
“It isn’t the value of one woman in war that concerns me,” Mahesh said. “It is the place of Ahiranya in this campaign and in your empire. We recognize that you have made peace with Ahiranya’s new leaders. But no man of Parijatdvipa views the Ahiranyi without suspicion. My men call them witches. Monsters. There is not a single lord who will view that woman as his equal. Her blood, the history of her country, the magic she wields…” He exhaled, shaking his head. “You are traveling through dangerous waters,” Mahesh warned her. As if she did not know that already. “There are men who will say you are being used.”
And Malini had met Priya alone. Met her without highborn to watch them—with no one to judge what passed between them, and measure who held the true power: The Ahiranyi witch, or the Parijatdvipan empress with no throne.
“The Ahiranyi were instrumental to my escape from the prison my brother Chandra arranged for me,” Malini said. “That does not make me their creature.”
“I was not suggesting it did,” Mahesh said, sounding aggravated.
Oh, you were, thought Malini.
As much as his words galled her, he was not wrong. Priya’s presence had sent ripples through the camp, whispers of discontent in its wake. There would never be any trust for the Ahiranyi in Parijatdvipa. History was too weighty. Malini had known it, even when she wrote the letter to Bhumika and Priya; even as she had placed it in Yogesh’s hands.
But some risks were worth taking.
Malini sipped her tea and let her gaze wander the room. Swati was still hovering obediently in the background. Four military officials sat at a remove, writing, the scratch of ink on paper a low susurration in the air as they recorded the meeting and prepared answers to those far more pressing questions of supply allocation and weaponry, as needed. Deepa sat beside them, looking through their papers with a slight frown. She had come with her father, head bowed, trying to make herself small in the face of her father’s anger.
But Malini was glad for his ire. It afforded her an opportunity.
“I will make sure Elder Priya demonstrates her loyalty to Parijatdvipa and to my rule, as you have advised,” Malini said. “As, clearly, her bow to me before everyone was not enough.”
“Everyone bows to you, Empress.”
“Indeed,” Malini agreed. “But no temple elder of the Ahiranyi has ever bowed in worship to the mothers of flame.”
There was a beat of silence. Mahesh gave her a shrewd look.
“Ah—Empress. If I may, no temple of the mothers of flame will allow an Ahiranyi priest to walk through its doors,” one official said tentatively, gaze lowered. He looked uncomfortable, and was visibly forcing himself to continue. “For the—ah, elder—to affirm her loyalty to Parijatdvipa in a temple will not be possible.”
“Do you not consider temples of the faceless mother to be proper temples?” Malini asked, eyebrow raised.
“They are…” The official trailed off and said helplessly, “I defer to the empress, of course.”
“There is a temple of the faceless mother on Low Prince Kunal’s lands, is there not?”
Another rustle of paper.
“Yes, Empress.”
“Then we will go there.”
