He met her gaze. No downturned, modest eyes from this one. The meek, quiet girl, easily given to tears, that Rao had expected her to be—had always known her to be—had fallen away. The princess who sat before him was stern and calm, her gaze pinning him as neatly as a dagger to the throat.
“That would put you and I, and everyone we value, in danger,” said Rao.
“I have letters from Aditya,” she said. “I know where he resides, and I will convince him to return. Fate or not, he knows his duty.”
That made Rao’s breath catch.
“You know where he is? Truly?”
“I have my own spies and my own women,” she said. “And my brother did not have the heart, or the sense, to leave me without a word.”
“How is he?” Rao asked. “Is he…”
Malini shook her head. She would not give him this. Not yet.
“You know what Chandra is,” she said. “You know what he’ll do. I can assure you, Prince Rao—your fears are not unfounded. My brother is the same creature he was as a boy and a young man. He thinks the tenets of his faith will purify his hands of blood. He thinks his atrocities are blessings.”
“He’s committed no atrocities.”
“If fate is written in the stars, then I am sure his atrocities are already written too,” said Malini. “Ask your priests. Or better yet, ask your own heart. You do not need to be a devotee of a god to know what he will do.”
He thought of all he had seen of Chandra’s nature. He’d grown up alongside him, after all. Shuddered.
Malini was still staring at him.
“We have a pact between us, Prince Rao,” said Malini. “Do we not?”
He let out a breath and stood with her. He folded the muslin around the knife and took it.
“Yes,” he said. “We do.”
His sister Alori stood in the corner of the antechamber beyond, her arms crossed. Ostensibly she was on guard for visitors, but she wasn’t visibly paying attention to anything. Her face was lifted up, catching a shaft of dappled sunlight come in from the high slat window. There were birds playing on its edge. Green parakeets with vivid orange beaks, the flit of their wings throwing shadows across Alori’s upturned head.
She looked at him then, her eyes shaded by wings.
“Is it done, brother? Have you agreed?”
“Yes,” he’d told her. “It is.”
He returned to the apartment chamber. Prem still had the pachisa board in front of him, though a few of his men had now joined him at the game. He raised his head when Rao entered.
“Good talk in the bathing chamber, then?” There was a teasing note to his voice. “I have to admit, I never knew you liked them so dark.”
“You’re a fool, Prem,” Rao said tiredly. He walked past him, and past Lata, still curled over her book, and stepped out onto the veranda.
He needed the cold air. He needed to forget.
PRIYA
She had no idea how long it would be before Pramila woke up, and reason told her it would be best to return to the Hirana as fast as possible. Certainly before dawn came.
But she’d been without her freedom for so long. She was used to being able to travel—to leave the mahal and go to the market, buying fresh fruit or morning dosas with sweet chutneys to cut through the fragile lattice of gram flour. She’d enjoyed hiding from Gauri with Sima, getting sick on palm wine in the orchard, laughing so hard her sides hurt. She missed lying on her own sleep mat.
She missed Rukh, a little. And when she thought of his face the last time they’d spoken, when she thought of Ashok and what a man like her brother could do with a starstruck child who was willing to die for him…
But she couldn’t go to Rukh. She had no excuse to be in the mahal, or see Sima, or touch even the shadows of her old life.
But there was one thing she could do.
The house at the edge of the forest looked exactly as it had the last time she had visited; it struck her as odd, when so much else had changed.
She rapped lightly on the door. Waited.
It opened a crack, and Gautam’s alert gaze met her own. He didn’t look at all tired. There was something tight and terrified about his expression. Even in the dark, she could see that his hand was clenched on the handle of his scythe, holding it at the ready.
“Priya. What are you doing here?”
“I need to speak with you. I won’t be long.”
“It’s the middle of the night, you stupid woman.”
He looked as if he was going to shut the door in her face, so Priya leaned in, getting her body between the frame and the door itself. She stared him down, unblinking, keeping her expression calm.