“As my sister did.”
Prem didn’t flinch at that. Only nodded and drank. “As your sister did, yes.” He drank again, then sighed. “Ah, I’m sorry, Rao. I’m not good company.”
“It’s fine,” Rao said.
It was not, in fact, fine.
“I am sorry for your loss. I am. But…” He shook his head. “We’ve lost so much already, and this coup isn’t yet really begun. But that’s how it goes, isn’t it? Removing a despot from power comes at a cost. I just didn’t particularly want to pay it.”
A maudlin comment, from the usually lighthearted low prince. Rao waited, frozen for a moment, as Prem looked at him in return.
“You can’t pine after her forever, Rao,” Prem said finally. “She was never for you anyway.”
Rao had to bite back a laugh. Prem didn’t understand anything at all. Didn’t understand what Malini was to him; what had been whispered to him long ago, a secret, a thing that was his and his alone, in the dark.
“I’m sorry,” he said, straightening. “I’ve been a fool. I—” He turned. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
“Rao—”
“In a moment!” he shouted, and pelted out of the door.
He should not have been able to find the maid. In the dark of a crowded night, on a street that never slept, it should have been impossible. But when he ran out of the pleasure house, he saw the shadow of her, the shape of her shoulders and the paleness of her sari, as she moved between lantern-lit market stalls. He caught up with her. Gasped out, “Wait.”
She turned, one swift arc, and he saw her hand clench into a fist. There was a knife in her grip, an ugly kitchen blade. She had the sense not to brandish it. It was held tight at her side, her arm at an angle, as if she were ready to gut him if need be. Her expression was tight, and only thawed minutely when she realized who he was.
“What do you want?”
“To give you a message.”
“You’ve given me a message. I’ve given you hers. What more is there?”
“Just this. You tell her, I’ll be beneath the entrance to the seeker’s path,” he said. “We’ll wait for her at the grave site.”
“The bower of bones,” corrected the maidservant. “That’s what we call it.”
“The bower of bones,” he agreed. “Tell her I’ll wait until the festival of the dark of the moon is done. If she can escape, we will take her with us. If she sends word, we’ll try to come for her. I’ll try to come for her.”
“She wouldn’t want that,” the maid said tightly.
“I know,” said Rao. “But… she may weigh the risks and change her mind. I want her to have the choice.” And then, with embarrassing sentimentality, he said, “If she is dying, she may want to be cared for her by her own people.”
“More than she wants her cause to win?” The maid laughed. “You don’t know her as well as you think you do, my lord.”
“I know as much as I need to,” he said.
He could not tell her that he knew deep in his bones that Malini would live. Such things were not for outsiders. He could not tell her the secrets of the nameless—the whispered answer that lived in his blood, that told him more about Malini than even Malini knew.
“Tell her that,” he said. “That’s all I ask.”
After the maid had vanished, he made his way back to the pleasure house much more slowly. His side ached. Prem was gone. To organize his men, no doubt, or sleep off the drink.
Lata found him seated on the steps to the veranda of their ridiculous room. “You’ve delayed long enough,” she said into the silence. “It’s time to go to Aditya. He’s been waiting for you.”
“After the poet, when I was injured—you asked me what I wanted to do.”
“You can’t do what you want,” Lata said. “Can you?”
“No.” He shook his head.
She gazed back at him, entirely calm. She’d nominally been a servant in the imperial mahal, before Malini’s fall from grace. But in truth, she’d been an apprentice to the sage who had educated Malini and Alori and Narina as children. She was as familiar as anyone could be with the strange weight of the nameless faith—its joys, its demands. Its price.
“Lata,” he said. “Why do you never call me Rao?”
She gave him a considering look. Then she crossed the floor and sat beside him.