Bhumika broke it into halves in the air. The two pieces crashed to the ground.
Slowly, Bhumika walked between the cleaved halves toward him.
“Will you hurt me, then?” Bhumika asked, voice mild. “Your own temple sister?”
Priya saw his hand curl into a fist. Saw him raise it. Priya moved forward, her own hands upraised.
He doubled over, clutching his chest.
His mouth parted, and a rush of blood and water poured from it. Two of his rebels who had fought free from the earth’s prison ran to him, gripping him by the shoulders as he forced his head up, touching his fist to his mouth.
“Perhaps not,” he said, voice thick.
Bhumika took advantage of his lapse in control. Her eyes narrowed, and she broke the earth beneath him again. He fell forward, and the two rebels grabbed him.
“Retreat!” one yelled, and as the soil churned up around them, the trees collapsing, they stumbled back and began to run, Ashok held unsteadily between them.
“Let them go,” said Bhumika, and the people behind her, who had begun striding forward, came to an abrupt stop. She touched her own knuckles to her mouth as Ashok had done, a calculating and almost sorrowful look in her eyes.
“We have what we need,” she said. “Priya. Are you well?”
PRIYA
“I’m fine,” said Priya, dazed. “I’m fine.”
She was suddenly kneeling. Had she planned to kneel? She wasn’t sure. Malini was beside her, knee touching her own.
“Priya,” Malini said, teeth chattering, as if cold or shock had overcome her. “Priya. Are you hurt?”
“No,” Priya said. “No, I’m not hurt.”
“I didn’t mean,” Malini began. Then halted. “I would never. I. I don’t think I would have.”
All her words were fragments. And Priya did not know how to feel, looking at her. She was perhaps a little shocked herself.
Priya pressed her forehead to Malini’s.
“Breathe with me,” she whispered, as the world steadied around them, and Bhumika’s power and her own wove the forest back into place. The soil smoothed, the trees settled. The leaves rustled in the wind.
When Malini pulled back, she had a brilliant streak of blood on her forehead. Priya touched a hand to her own scalp and winced.
“Here,” said Bhumika. She was looming over them, a cloth in hand, which Priya took and pressed hard to the wound. She didn’t think it was deep. Head wounds always bled far too much, shallow or not.
Finally, Priya looked around in wonder. Then she began to laugh.
“You’re—all of you. Is that really Commander Jeevan? Billu? You—Bhumika!”
“You seem to have lost your words, Priya,” Bhumika said serenely.
Priya felt tears threatening at her eyes, through the laughter. She forced them back.
“I was afraid for you.” Priya’s voice was rough.
“And I for you, although I don’t know why I bother, when you’re always throwing yourself into trouble.” Bhumika glanced at Malini, who was now standing behind Priya, watching them with the attention of a hawk. “Why,” Bhumika said, “are you in the forest with the emperor’s sister?”
“She would have died if I’d left her on the Hirana,” said Priya.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Lady Bhumika,” said Malini, bowing her head, just slightly, in the gesture of a noblewoman greeting a respected equal. After a moment, Bhumika returned it.
“We should speak privately,” said Bhumika.
The three of them walked some distance away from the traveling household—though Priya turned as they walked, looking for familiar faces in the crowd. With difficulty, Bhumika sat on the severed trunk of a tree, using Priya’s arm for support as she lowered herself. Priya kneeled down, Malini mimicking her. A small distance away, Khalida hovered, eyes narrowed and arms crossed.
Now that she was not using her twice-born gifts, Bhumika looked pained and tired. Her child was due so soon, Priya knew, and she felt a pang of worry run through her as Bhumika carefully straightened in her seat with a quiet sigh.
“Speak,” said Bhumika.
Priya was the one to explain the new agreement between them. The possibility of self-rule for Ahiranya—freedom entirely from the control of Parijatdvipa. As she spoke, she watched the way Malini looked between them, weighing up all she’d seen—Bhumika and Priya’s shared gifts, the informal way they spoke to one another—drawing her own conclusions about the bond between them.