“Does that allay one of your fears?” Aditya asked.
Not the fears Rao truly needed allayed. Not the fear that Aditya wouldn’t survive this war. But the fear that everything of his old friend—his crown prince, who’d grown up beside him, who’d laughed with him, drunk wine with him—was gone?Thatfear had vanished.
“In a way,” he said.
Aditya held out his hand. Rao clasped it, letting Aditya guide him fully back onto his feet. Aditya took him by the shoulder. Held him where he was, so they were still close to one another, breathing hard, smiling.
“Protect the empress, Rao,” Aditya said. He did not saymy sister, as Rao had expected he would, and there was suddenly a guarded look in his eyes, folding the joy back.
“I will,” said Rao. “As I always have.”
They left the training ground together. Rao hesitated. Unsure of what to say, now that they had argued and fought, and found some tentative echo of their old, deep friendship. He murmured something to Aditya—some wish for good luck or good health, something approximating an acceptable goodbye—and began to walk away.
“Rao,” Aditya called out. “I dreamt of you.”
“What did you dream?” Rao asked.
“A dream from the nameless god, I think.”
“Surely you know, priest,” Rao said, but there was nothing cutting in his voice. Only curiosity.
Aditya hesitated.
“I saw your eyes, shining like stars.”
“Stars?”
Aditya nodded.
“What had happened, to make them shine?”
“I don’t know,” Aditya said. “But Rao—perhaps one day we’ll meet again, on the other side of this war, and you will be able to tell me.”
BHUMIKA
The yaksa loved being upon the Hirana. And the Hirana loved them in turn. Its walls shone, lustrous with leaves and flowers that grew in profusion through new fractures in the stone. The effigies of the yaksa gleamed with vines and soft blooms. Sendhil liked to tend to them. He took great satisfaction in gazing at them, as vegetation unfurled gently around them. Once, he said to Bhumika, “They’ll all return soon. All of them.”
She looked at the statues. Innumerable yaksa, she thought distantly. One for every village, family, tree, flower.
“I look forward to the day,” Bhumika said in return.
More than the Hirana, the yaksa loved worship. An endless stream of people rose up the Hirana with their offerings, and bowed their heads, weeping and awed before the yaksa. No guards stopped them, any longer, from milling at the Hirana’s base. No guards dared, and Bhumika would not ask them to do so. The worshippers begged for good fortune. They begged for a better Ahiranya. And so very many of them begged to have the rot on their bodies cured.
A woman bowed before Chandni now. She, Sendhil, Sanjana, and Nandi sat upon the triveni in a semicircle, expressions mild, curious. Bhumika stood behind them with Ashok at her side and a mask on her face. She watched.
“Please, ancient one,” the woman whispered, trembling. There were deep violet flowers rising from the knot of her bound hair, snaking their way down the exposed line of her neck. When she raised her face, Bhumika saw a cluster of buds at the corner of her mouth. “Please, I beg you. Cure me. I will give anything I have.Please.”
The yaksa were still. Then suddenly, Chandni leaned forward. She touched a hand to the woman’s cheek.
“What offering have you brought us?”
“Food,” the woman said tremulously. “All the food I have. I… I have nothing else.”
“Worship us, and I promise the greenness in you will grow no larger,” Chandni murmured, gazing at the woman. Beneath her fingers, the woman flinched, then went still. “See?” said Chandni. “You feel it. What you call rot won’t grow. You will live. Keep your food, small one, and live on.”
“Th-thank you,” the woman said. Teary. “Thank you.”
She prostrated again, and again. Rose to her feet, and bowed her head once more.
