She folded her hands in prayer and touched the bangle to her forehead.
Parushi rapped on the door and stepped in. She gestured to Chaaya. “We need to go. I don’t enjoy the interruption any more than you do, but the truth is that the further you can ride in daylight, the better off you’ll be. There’s a town you can stop in for the night. You’ll get there before sunset if you start now.”
Chaaya nodded, “I’ll just put the rest of the rani’s bangles on.”
“No.” I pulled my hands away. “I’ll take care of that myself. I’ll need to do it often enough when you’re gone. You need to leave. Now. I command it.”
With a regretful nod, Chaaya bowed to me one last time and then left the room. Parushi shut the doors, leaving me behind.
Alone.
Two days after Chaaya left, the raja sent word: He was feeling better and wanted to meet at lunch.
Few people had disturbed us over the last two days, and we hoped that Chaaya’s absence had gone unnoticed. It was unmentioned, at the very least.
But now the raja was ready to meet, and it was important that I look as I would have if Chaaya had dressed me. Nallini chose a mauve sari, one that would exude royalty with its rich silver embellishments but also soften my features so I would look less like I was “going to war,” as she put it. She left it in my bedchamber and didn’t say a word when Parushi insisted that she could dress me without any help.
When Parushi’s pleats dropped to the ground for the fourth time, she threw her hands up. “Is there a sari that’s less persnickety than this one? It’s as if it was designed to be impossible to wear. Why would you agree to this?”
“Because Nallini chose well and you know it,” I said. “Nobody will listen to me if I don’t look the way that they expect?—the way they respect. I need to look the part they want me to play.”
“In my experience, people listen quite well when they’re staring down a blade.” Parushi smiled wickedly. “Maybe I should get yours out of your trunk, and you can finally put it to good use.”
The door creaked open, and Nallini cleared her throat. “If the rani requires any assistance...”
“Stop pretending you don’t know we need help,” Parushi snapped. “You probably just waited there to hear how many ways I could curse at this infernal cloth.”
“Six,” Nallini said as she passed Parushi and bent to pick up the fabric piled in a halo around my petticoat.
Parushi’s eyes bugged out like a toad, but it seemed she’d lost her tongue.
Without missing a beat, Nallini wrapped the sari around me and gathered it so the pleats fell to the ground in evenly spaced, perfectly straight lines. She folded the cloth at my shoulder and flipped the pallu over my back in a smooth motion before stepping back and nodding,
I put on my jewelry as Nallini and Parushi went to the door. “Before you go, I’m afraid I must impose upon you further, Nallini. Could you please check Parushi’s wound?”
Parushi spun to face me. Her hand went to her injury, and she twisted away from Nallini. “I’m fine.”
I didn’t bother to hide my exasperation. “You’ve been grabbing your side ever since you saw Chaaya off. You reopened your wound while you rode. Let Nallini bandage it.”
“There’s no need.” Parushi stepped farther away from Nallini.
“I’ll make you a deal.” I stepped toward my cousin and grabbed the hem of her tunic. “If I lift this and you don’t have some sort of half-shot, makeshift effort at a bandage that you tried to put on yourself, then Nallini doesn’t have to check it.”
Parushi jutted out her chin and glared at me as she held her tunic down on either side of my hand. Then she snatched her top away from me and said, “As you wish, Rani.”
She gave an exaggerated bow.
“May the Spirits bless your steps.” I treated my response with the same excessive formality.
“You’re impossible,” Parushi said, but at least she stopped arguing.
She and Nallini made their way to their room while I went to the sitting room and tried to review the stacks upon stacks of papers filled with figures about Ullal’s trade. I couldn’t focus, though. My eyes kept drifting to the letter that I’d already read more times than I could count. I picked it up, leaving behind the half-opened package underneath it.
Nikith’s message had taken me by surprise. It had come soon after Chaaya left?—too soon to be a reply to our plea for help?—but I’d ripped it open eagerly, certain that he had sensed that something was off and that he was coming.
I’d been half right. I reread his words:
My dear sister,
