Priya in contrast stood calm as anything, between the low prince’s liegemen. The cuffs on her wrists looked weighty, but overlarge, which was no surprise. They had, no doubt, been designed to hold a grown man captive. And Priya, for all the strength of her, was slight. When Malini met her eyes, Priya’s mouth quirked up, ever so slightly. Not enough to be called a smile.
They both knew she could have broken those manacles if she had wanted to. But here she was, awaiting Malini’s judgment, respecting Malini’s authority. Malini supposed that was generous of her.
“Are any of your men dead?” Malini asked Prince Ashutosh.
“No, Empress.”
“Injured?”
“Some cuts,” Ashutosh said grudgingly. “Some bruising.”
Interesting. If Priya had wanted them dead, they would have been dead.
“Do you deny attacking the prince’s men, Elder Priya?”
“No, Empress.”
“What offense did they commit to attract your ire?”
“Disrespect,” Priya replied crisply. She inclined her head. “Empress.”
“Disrespect can take many forms,” Malini said. “Tell me more.”
“They did nothing to warrant the treatment she inflicted,” Ashutosh cut in before Priya’s mouth could even part. “Empress, it is not the wounds she inflicted that make me demand justice. It is themannerin which they were inflicted. By magic. Unnatural witchcraft. You have made an alliance with a monster.”
There was an intake of breath from one of the officials. The faintest rustle of movement, as they shifted uneasily and went still.
“The Ahiranyi leadership have professed and demonstrated their loyalty to me,” Malini said calmly. “All their gifts and their magic are wielded in the empire’s service. The Ahiranyi elders serve me.”
“We do not forget the Age of Flowers, Empress. We know what they are.” His voice was sharp. “We Saketans remember, as all Parijatdvipans do, what the Ahiranyi did to our people. Will you allow the Ahiranyi to crush us now, as they did before? Do you forget it was your ancestor who sacrificed herself to save us all?”
“Your men are not dead,” Malini said.What foolishness.Was she witnessing anger, impetuous and unvarnished, or had this Saketan prince chosen this moment, of all moments, to test her political loyalties? “Your men are barely harmed. You will have justice, Prince Ashutosh, I assure you.”
“I will take any punishment without complaint,” Priya said, head held high. Ashutosh and Malini had been speaking court Dvipan, the shared language of the highest of highborn, but Priya spoke now in common-tongue Zaban, in the lilting accent of the Ahiranyi, deliberately and clearly. With her braid unraveling, and her feet squarely planted against the tent’s scuffed fabric base, she did not look like a highborn—did not look like the men around her, or their wives or their daughters. She did not look like a maidservant either.
“Her life,” Prince Ashutosh said. “I want her life. She used witchcraft, Empress. Her kind have no place in the empire.”
Malini nearly laughed. Who was he to request the death of a ruler of another land? He would never have asked it if the ruler in question had been of Dwarali or Alor. But he had asked it of Ahiranya.
And it was because of the very history between Ahiranya and the empire that she could not throw his request aside entirely. How irritating.
“Elder Priya is an ally of Parijatdvipa,” Malini said, with implacable calm; with the iron will that was her right, as empress, throne or no throne. “I will not waste the lives of my allies, when they may yet be the death of my enemies.” And no one, surely, could deny Priya’s value. Priya was, as she had always been, unfathomably valuable, a thing full of possibility.Useful.“But you are correct,” Malini acknowledged. “There must be redress from Ahiranya. There must, after all, be justice among equals.”
A look flickered across Ashutosh’s face. He had not expected Priya to be called his equal.
There was a flurry of movement from the military officials who surrounded her; the rising shuffle of pages, and mingled voices rising. An array of punishments was suggested. Beating. Exposure to the elements. Forfeiture of lands.
Deepa entered the tent. Head bowed, she looked at no one as she bowed and then made her way to Malini’s side. Her message was a whisper, quickly murmured—and then she was bowing and slipping away again.
“Public caning would be acceptable,” Ashutosh said grudgingly, when it became clear no one would allow him to have the execution he desired. There was a ripple of agreement from his attendant liegemen.
Priya said nothing. Her expression was the kind of calm that settles on waters before a storm.
By the mothers, Malini would not give a woman to these men and have her caned before them. Her mouth was full of a bitterness that was like poison. She would not givePriyato these men. She would sacrifice a great deal, do a great deal, but not this.
“It is my understanding, from the tracts that govern justice in wartime, that a highborn lord would first, as a courtesy, have his punishment decided by a superior from his own country. Elder Priya,” Malini said. “Who has the right, in your entourage?”
“No one, Empress,” said Priya. “I am the most powerful representative of Ahiranya here. The only person who stands higher than me is the High Elder Bhumika, and she remains in Ahiranya.”
