“He isn’t your friend,” Prem goaded. “You know that, don’t you?” He tsked. “Poor dove. I can see that you don’t.”
“I’ll peel your skin off your bones, low prince.”
“Grand talk. Come closer, if you mean it.”
Together, Rao and Prem took a step back, and another, moving deeper into the seeker’s path. The air rippled strangely around them. They saw the hesitation in the eyes of the Parijati soldiers, who clearly feared the odd stillness of the forest and remembered the horrifying tales they’d been told about Ahiranya as children.
“Go back the way you came,” Prem called out. “Go squat on the regent’s throne. It’s clearly where you want to be anyway. Or does Chandra need you to prove yourself first?”
“Speak,” Santosh commanded angrily. “Lower your weapons and tell me how you’ve betrayed the emperor, or your man dies.”
The Saketan boy was watching them.
“My men know their loyalties,” said Prem.
The boy closed his eyes. Jerked forward, yelling, as he tried to make a bid for freedom. The Parijati soldier holding him wrenched his saber back.
There was a burst of blood, and Prem’s man was dead.
In almost the same moment, a volley of arrows broke from behind them, responding to Prem’s command.
“Quick,” Rao said, as Prem’s hand lowered and the Parijati ducked, raising shields or arms—one receiving an arrow through the wrist for his trouble. “Into the forest. We can try to outrun them.”
“And lead them right to Aditya?” Prem said, incredulous. “Come on, Rao, if we stay and fight—”
“We die,” said Rao.
“I’m not afraid of death,” Prem said.
“Maybe not,” Rao replied. “But you’d like to win, wouldn’t you?”
Prem hesitated.
“Trust me, Prem. They don’t know the terrain. We have a guide. They won’t know what to expect in there. I have a plan—”
“Whatever you’re thinking,” Lata yelled, with more volume than Rao had ever heard from her before, “hurry up!”
“I’m trusting you,” Prem said roughly. And with another gesture, a sharp whistle, his men were turning down the seeker’s path.
The Parijati, overcoming their hesitation, took hold of their horses and followed them.
BHUMIKA
There was a burning, charred metal smell upon the air. Bhumika sat very still, surrounded by her people, and felt the drip of blood from thorns—smelled the wafts of smoke rising from the city and seeping in through the wefts of vine barring the windows.
Jeevan entered. Stood before her. Shook his head.
“Bad news, my lady.”
“Tell me.”
“Your husband lives.”
Any normal wife would have been thrilled to hear that her husband had survived. But Bhumika bit down upon her tongue until she tasted blood.
Her brother hadn’t even done her the kindness of taking this choice from her hands.
“What shall I do with him?” Jeevan asked.
“Bring him into the rose palace,” she said. “Find a room where he can be locked away. And then I’ll see to him.”
Jeevan placed Vikram in Khalida’s own room, which adjoined Bhumika’s sleep chamber. Vikram lay half-conscious upon Khalida’s sleep mat. There was a great wound gouged in his side, mirroring the one he’d received in Lord Iskar’s haveli, hastily bandaged with cloth torn from a soldier’s tunic. She wondered which poor soul had saved him, perhaps at the cost of their own life.
Bhumika sat upon the ground beside him.
“The rebels,” Vikram said. His voice was a hoarse question, bloody with fear.
“A wall of vines grew around the rose palace,” said Bhumika. “No one can enter.”
He didn’t question her words. Perhaps his injuries had temporarily addled him.
“They’ve overwhelmed the city,” he said. “The mahal—they should not have been able to break the mahal’s walls. They were not an organized military force. Nothing like Parijatdvipa can muster. How did they break the walls?”
Bhumika was silent. She watched his face twist with torment.
“So many of my men are dead,” he said.
She had not known what she would do once she saw him. But the look on his face softened her treacherous heart.
“Even my uncle’s home has burned,” she said quietly, thinking of that beautiful old haveli with a heartache. The flowers she’d grown for her uncle—deep red lilies, fed by her own heart and her own magic—had turned to ash at his bedside. She’d felt it. But there was no room for her grief, in this task or in the role she now found herself in. She could only fold it away, shelter it, until a time came when she could indulge in feeling her sorrow. If such a day ever came, of course. “There are highborn who have fled the city, and perhaps my uncle joined them. I do not believe he had the strength to do so, may soil and sky protect him. But I will imagine that he died in his bed, at peace. That is a kindness I offer myself.”