There was a lantern lit in the study. He could see the light through the door, which was open a sliver. But there were noises from inside, muffled, and if she was talking to some highborn he didn’t want to interfere.
He peered in.
At first, he thought he was seeing something he really didn’t want to see. Jeevan kneeling, and Bhumika bent forward, like they were about to embrace—or kiss. But then he saw that Bhumika’s hand was tight on Jeevan’s arm, and her shoulders were shaking. She was shaking so hard, so hard, and Jeevan was whispering to her, “My lady, Lady Bhumika. Breathe with me. Breathe…”
She gave a hitched sob.
“I can’t,” she said. The heartbreak in her voice made the hairs on Ganam’s neck rise. “I can’t. Jeevan. My baby. My girl. My little girl…”
Jeevan was pressing a hand to Bhumika’s hair as she sagged forward; as sadness racked her.
He couldn’t be here for this. This wasn’t his to see.
But—fuck. Padma. What had had happened to her?
He stumbled back, cold wrapping itself around his body. Quietly. As quiet as he could be. Went numbly down the corridors, searching until he finally found Khalida weeping in the kitchens with Billu, saying her mistress had sent her away. She told him all she knew.
Mothers torn from their children. Love being used like a weapon. Ganam had joined a rebellion to save his country from this. And here it was.
So it went. That was life. More of the same, in an endless, grinding cycle. But he felt the same anger hardening inside him that he’d felt years ago, when he’d vowed to risk his life for a better world.
He wasn’t going to allow this.
“We’ll get her back, Khalida,” he promised her. “We’ll get the little one safe. You wait and see. That’s my promise. No matter how long it takes, we’ll see it done.”
ASHOK
Only Kritika was seated with Ashok on the Hirana today. There were no yaksa. Simply the two of them, to act as temple elders and wait for worshippers to heave themselves up the steps of the mountain.
When the final pilgrim left, Kritika departed, and Ashok slowly moved to his feet. He breathed in the cold air around him—the night’s chill had already begun to settle in around the Hirana—and turned.
Ganam stood near the dangerous edge of the triveni, where it was open to the sky and the sheer cliff face surrounding the Hirana. But he didn’t look afraid. Ostensibly he was Ashok’s guard, but his hands were clasped behind him, weaponless. His expression was grave.
“There are going to be more tomorrow,” he said. “And more worshippers the day after that. The rot’s growing worse. Spreading faster than fire.” His gaze flickered over Ashok, in a way that was somehow both dismissive and respectful. “Something’s changed for the worse in Ahiranya,” Ganam went on, as if he couldn’t help himself. “And no one knows what. Strange, isn’t it.”
The rot growing worse. The yaksa returned, and the rot spreading great, creeping fingers across Ahiranya. And Ashok himself returning to life. All of it was a sign of—something. He didn’t want to examine it. Didn’t want to consider what it meant.
But instead of playing at the business of rest—of lying awake in a bed, listening to distant waters and the creaking slumber of something or someone else inside him—he walked through the mahal. Listened to the leaves whisper to him, the flowers turn to him.
There was a woman walking along the corridor ahead of him. She froze when she saw him. Then she moved out of his path murmuring a worshipful word or two. But her pause had given her guilt away, and as he drew nearer to her, he realized how close she was to rooms marked by Chandni’s silver night-blooming flowers. A forbidding mark.
She’d been to see the child. Bhumika’s child. He was sure of it.
The maid was trembling, her head lowered, but her pallu, drawn respectfully over her face, did not conceal the turn of her mouth. The anger. She loathed him for who he served. Loathed him for what the yaksa had already done.
“Go,” he said. She was still there. Frozen, like a hare under a hawk’s eyes. “I saw nothing,” he told her, stressing the “nothing,” giving her a hard look. “Woman, use your good sense and go before I change my mind. You will not enjoy it if I do.”
She made a noise that was part squeak, part assent. She managed to scramble a brief bow, then ran away as quickly as her legs could carry her.
He watched her shadow on the marble. The flicker and fade of it, in the lantern light from the sconces on the walls.
Ashok made his way to the orchard. It was no longer peaceful. One by one, each tree had turned to rot.
Nothing and no one would be born here, he knew. It wasn’t yet time.
But he watched the trees and thought of waters, deep and old. Waters that hollowed children out and gave them power. Cosmic waters where universes met, and the roots that held all things bound to both of them. The rot was fed by magical waters. The yaksa came from those waters. And Ashok…
He could feel every plant surrounding them. He knew—and did not know how he knew—that they were an extension of him as they were an extension of… others. Through them and through his own skin he reached for Bhumika. Felt for her. Considering.
