He lowered his sword.
“Princess,” he said.
“Commander Jeevan,” she said. She’d heard his name often enough already on this journey to remember it. “What has frightened you?”
His jaw tightened. He didn’t sheathe the blade.
“I am not frightened.” His voice was a whisper. “And keep your voice low. There are men farther along the path. Setting up camp. We can’t skirt them without being seen.”
And they couldn’t move anyway. Not easily. Not now.
“I’ll get Priya,” she said.
“No. Lady Bhumika needs her.”
Ah. So someone had told him what was happening. “She has plenty of women to rely on,” Malini said. “But you will need Priya’s strength.”
She turned to go. He grabbed her arm.
She met the soldier’s eyes. “They are Parijati, aren’t they?”
He said nothing.
“Don’t fear,” she murmured. “If they’re Chandra’s men, I have no qualms about you killing them.”
“And if they are your priest brother’s?”
It seemed too much to hope, that they would be Aditya’s soldiers. But nonetheless she said, “Then, knowing the pact I made with Lady Bhumika, you should allow me to join them.”
“I’ll get Priya,” one of the other soldiers muttered. Jeevan gave a curt nod and did not let go of Malini.
“You accompanied me to the Hirana,” Malini said. “I remember.”
“I did,” Jeevan said.
She tilted her head a little, considering him. “You feel no pity for me,” she murmured. “But you took no joy in my suffering either. Curious.”
“Not so curious,” he said, gaze still fixed on her, though a muscle in his jaw twitched a little. “I care about only a few things. You are not one of them.”
After a long moment, someone approached.
“What is it?” Priya’s voice was low. She drew near them, her footsteps silent on the ground.
“Men ahead,” said Jeevan. “Camped. They don’t yet know we’re here. They will soon.”
“Are they dangerous to us?”
“They’re Parijati.”
Priya met Malini’s eyes.
“Protect us however you see fit,” said Malini.
Priya huffed out a breath. “Jeevan, why are you holding her hand?”
“Someone is approaching,” one of Jeevan’s men said, quiet, sword at the ready.
Jeevan swore, finally releasing Malini, who had just long enough to wish she had a weapon herself before a man appeared ahead of them. There was no way for them to hide from view. Jeevan and his men stepped forward with their swords, and Priya straightened, drawing on the strange magic within her.
The Parijati man turned on his heel and ran.
For a moment, they simply stared at his retreating form.
“Does no one have a bow and arrow?” Malini murmured.
Priya gave her a look. Twitched her fingers, and a branch flung itself through the air and hit the man on the back of the head. He crumpled to the ground.
He yelled as he fell. Priya winced, swearing.
“Be ready,” Jeevan said. The men fanned out as racing footsteps converged, and more Parijati appeared.
“There’s more of them!” One of the Parijati men shouted the words, then something incomprehensible that drew more footsteps, men running along the seeker’s path. Men of Parijat and men of Alor, in the sharp blue turbans of their people.
Wait—Aloran.
Jeevan and the others met them with a clash of steel, swords a dancing arc against the air. Priya spared Malini a glance—mouthed at her to run—then turned and strode into the fray. No weapons were in her hands—nothing but the thing that lay in her blood.
Malini should have fled. Common sense demanded it. But there was something more than sense, common or otherwise, at play. Aloran men. Men of Parijat, but—for all they wore Parijati clothing, in pale weaves, with prayer necklaces wound about their throats—they did not wear the white and gold of the imperial army. This was an opportunity, a possibility.
More fool her. Of course one Aloran man broke through Jeevan’s ranks. Of course he ran, and swung his sword at her.
“Rao,” she gasped out. “I know Prince Rao, do not harm me!”
The Aloran’s eyes widened.
Unfortunately, words did little good against a moving blade. Malini could only watch as it descended toward her—and then Jeevan was there. His sword met the Aloran man’s at an angle, knocking it aside and out of the Aloran man’s hands. He struck, and the Aloran ducked, rolling to the ground.