Malini’s mouth was on Priya’s then, punishingly sweet, a bruising warmth that made everything vicious and hungry rise up in Priya with a swiftness that devastated her. Somehow, Priya’s hands were in Malini’s hair—that ridiculous, tangled hair that would never be unknotted—and they were stumbling back, back, until Priya could feel cold stone against her spine, the falling water around them, and Malini’s hands now upon her shoulders, her throat, her jaw. And Malini was tilting her face up, kissing her with a fury that melted into sweetness, with a tenderness that was strong as lifeblood, and burned. Burned.
RAO
The lacquer gardens of Srugna were an interlocking maze of monasteries. Rao walked through them, barely seeing anything around him. Priests had gathered. There were lords of Dwarali in high-necked robes, bows at their backs; Srugani, lances in hand; Saketans with their steel whips wound at their waists; his own Alorans, blue-turbaned with bands of daggers wound at the hip and steel chakrams at their wrists, and even Parijati, clothed in light weaves with sabers and prayer stones to mark their status. There were enough disparate lords and nobles to fill the monastery steps nearly entirely.
A man walked down the steps on the path left between them. He wore a dhoti and a shawl of pale blue, his chest bare and his hair bound back in a long braid. Even before he raised his head, even before his mouth shaped a smile, Rao recognized him.
“Emperor Aditya.” Rao kneeled. Behind him he heard Prem’s men—his men—kneel down too, a chorus of creaking leather and armor. “We’ve come.”
“Rao.” Aditya’s voice was gentle. “I’m not emperor.”
“Not yet,” said the Dwarali lord, from the edge of the steps. “But you will be. We’ve come to see to that.”
Aditya crossed the ground. Beneath his bare feet the green leaves crumpled noiselessly. The birds sang. He held his hand out to Rao, who took it. When Rao stood, he found himself drawn into a fierce hug, Aditya’s cheek pressed to his own.
“Rao,” said Aditya, drawing back, eyes bright. “Ah, I’ve missed you. Why have you taken so long to come?”
“Malini,” Rao managed to say.
“You have her with you?” Aditya asked. There was such hope in his eyes.
Rao shook his head, and the hope dimmed.
“Come then,” said Aditya. “And we’ll speak of what has passed.”
They settled into what could only be Aditya’s own room. It was neat and plain, entirely a priest’s chamber, with a charpoy for sleeping, and a box of books, carefully sealed to keep out heat and damp. There were no candles. The only light, at night, would come in through the vast window, which opened to a garden of lacquer and of green. Golden songbirds flitted from branch to branch, trilling brightly.
“I am glad you tried to save her,” Aditya said, once Rao had stumbled through the business of explaining what had passed. “And—I am sorry for your loss.”
Rao swallowed. If he spoke too soon, he was afraid he would begin to weep. His grief lay on him like heavy hands. But he couldn’t allow it to hold him.
“Yes,” Rao managed. “Prem. He was.” His lazy grin. The ever-present wreath of smoke from his pipe. Those shrewd eyes, and the sheer kindness of him, always folded around the shape of a joke, a laugh, a drink. What was Rao meant to do without him? He shut his eyes. One heartbeat, that was all he took, to breathe through the sorrow that rolled over him. “He was your friend once, too, Aditya.”
Aditya nodded. “One of his cousins is here—Lord Narayan. He will need to be told.”
“It will be done.” He studied his friend, worry pushing aside grief for the moment. “Are you—well? You seem unlike yourself.”
“I’m sorry,” said Aditya then. And there was real sorrow in his voice, at least. Now that they were alone, no longer before the Saketans and Dwarali, the Srugani and lords of Parijat, his shoulders had bowed. The calm of his face had faded. “I’m not the friend you once knew, I’m afraid. And not the would-be emperor these men require. I told them… ah.” He touched his fingertips to his forehead, as if trying to smooth away an invisible pain. “I told them I awaited a sign from my god. Releasing me to the task of war.”
“And they’ve stayed?”
Aditya’s smile was tight. “No man of faith, whatever he may worship, willingly perverts the will of a god.”
Rao thought of Prem, rotting, blooming, blaming Chandra’s perversion of the faith of the mothers of flame for the sickness that had fallen over him and his people.