Thefirewas stopping her magic. Something about the fire was obliterating it—
“Sima,” she gasped out. Tried to look around, wild. But her vision was wavering.
She could see the gates being closed on the fort again. Clever: one ferocious attack, cutting a bloody swathe through Malini’s army, then a retreat to where they couldn’t be reached. Devastating.
“Sima,” she gasped out again. And Sima was there, reaching for her. Dragging her to her feet—
She woke in the sangam.
Bhumika was before her—had heard Priya, perhaps, crying out as the fire hit her. Bhumika’s eyes were molten.
“You fainted,” she said.
Priya sat up.
“I don’t faint.”
“That isn’t true. You did. You’re here.”
“I was in—a battle. An unexpected battle and…” Priya scrambled, touching her fingertips to her side. She hissed.
There was a wound. Sap poured from it, strange and unreal in the sangam.
Bhumika tutted.
“That’s not good,” she said.
“I would have thought you’d be more worried about me,” said Priya.
“I am worried,” said Bhumika. But her face remained eerily calm, her voice devoid of feeling.
Something wasn’t right.
Priya was in the sangam but her body was not shadow, and neither was Bhumika’s. And that was—different. Wrong, perhaps.
She bit her tongue and looked down at her side again.
“The fire caught me,” she whispered. “Fire of the mothers, they called it. Should I—am I hurt?”
A sigh from Bhumika. The water rippled. As it rippled, it sang.
“I can’t fix everything for you,” said Bhumika. “Not when you’re so far. Not always. But this I can put right.”
“You… can’t,” said Priya. “You can’t do that. We don’t have the gift for that.”
Bhumika frowned. “You should talk to me with more respect.”
Her sister grabbed her arm.
Flowers clambered up her side: small, virulently white and pink and red, the colors of viscera. They curled around the wound. Began to burrow into it.
There was no pain. Perhaps there should have been pain.
“Still,” Bhumika said, when Priya tried to flinch away. “Stay still.”
“Bhumika,” she said helplessly. “Bhumika, what’s wrong with you?”
“Oh, Priya,” she said in response. Her eyes gleamed. Marigold bright. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
