Rao’s mind went white for a moment. He saw an arrow fly past him. Heard shouts, muted, as if his ears were beneath water and the water were the thud of his own bloody rage pouring through his skull. The next thing he knew, he had Santosh pinned beneath him. Santosh was yelling for his men, for Chandra, for help, for anyone to help.
In a haze, Rao drove one of his steel chakrams by hand into Santosh’s palm. He drove it hard and vicious, feeling the bones snap under it like the necks of small furred creatures.
“He is a royal of Saketa,” Rao said raggedly. “You had no right, no right. All your talk of honor—you had no right.”
“The emperor,” Santosh gasped out. His teeth were washed red. “For the emperor, for Parijat, my men, protect me!”
But one of Prem’s men was now at Rao’s back. Another was leaning over Prem, talking to him urgently. And there was Lata, trying to staunch the flow of blood, tears streaming down her face. The battle had to be over, and Rao knew, knew distantly that he should take Santosh hostage, that Aditya could use him as leverage.
“Chandra is not our emperor,” Rao said, voice rough.
Santosh’s mouth was open, still yelling, so Rao lifted his bloodied hand and took one of his daggers from his belt. Without pausing, he drove it to the back of Santosh’s throat.
They set up camp. Prem’s men didn’t leave. It was a miracle that they remained, but Rao accepted it. He had thought the rot on Prem’s skin would send them running. But they merely shook their heads. “We knew what he had, my lord,” one said. “He was our lord. He told us. He explained. It doesn’t spread. Not between people.”
Together, he and the men set up a tent for Prem to be settled in. He kneeled on the ground, once it was arranged, and watched Lata work, preparing her tinctures. Preparing the bandages, her eyes red. She’d known. All this time. Only Rao, it seemed, had been in the dark.
He couldn’t ask Prem now why he hadn’t told him. He could only feel the blood drying on his clothes, and watch the saber-wounded mess of Prem’s stomach rise and fall. He could not see how Prem could survive this.
“It can’t infect you,” said Lata. Her voice was careful, calm. “He wasn’t lying about that. Where is his pipe?”
“His pipe?”
“An analgesic,” she said. “It dulls the pain. He’s found it helpful these past months.”
“Won’t do any good,” said Prem. He sounded hoarse. “It hasn’t worked for a while. And now…” He touched a hand to his upper abdomen. Swore.
“Don’t touch it,” snapped Lata.
“What difference will it make now?”
She said nothing. Prem closed his eyes, his skin pale and drawn.
“You should never have come to Ahiranya,” Rao said, a knot of helpless sickness in his stomach. He wanted to scream at his friend, to shake him. “You should have remained in Saketa, drinking wine.”
“That was never my way,” said Prem, with difficulty. Already, the bandages Lata had applied to his stomach were wet with blood. “Don’t get me wrong, Rao. I like a good wine. But seeing the right man on the throne…”
“Ahiranya has done this to you. Trying to see Aditya crowned has done this to you.”
“Ahiranya didn’t do this to me,” Prem said hoarsely. “I was sick before I came here.”
Rao shook his head. “What do you mean? How can that be?”
“This rot,” Prem said. “I don’t know how it’s spread, but it exists in Saketa too. Hundreds have died of it. The high prince has managed to keep the whole business quiet for now, but…” Prem coughed. A wet sound, bubbling with blood. Lata moved quickly, daubing the blood from his lips. “The last two years. It’s dug its roots in. It’s becoming hard to ignore. It must be everywhere.”
“It hasn’t reached Alor,” Rao said.
But did he know that for certain? He had been to Alor only rarely, after his fostering to Parijat. His elder brothers supported his father ably, but there were aspects of governing the city-state of their birth that they had never involved him in. If a strange blight had attacked Alor’s fields and farms, its herds of cattle, would any of them have told him?
“Rao. Chandra. He. He’s made the mothers angry. Using their names for political ends. Great, good women of old, they didn’t die for the likes of him. Now they’re punishing us all.”
“You can’t believe that’s why you’re—like this.”