“Aditya. Don’t lie to me,” she said.
He hesitated, drawing back from her, his hands clasped behind him. “I have a task here, among the priesthood. A purpose. And I am not sure how yet to proceed.” A pause. “If you call Rao back, he can, perhaps, explain.”
“What is there to explain?” Malini asked. “What is there to do but wrest the throne from Chandra’s hands?”
Aditya studied the writing desk, as if the answers he sought were etched there. Then, finally, he looked at her. “I am not sure that is what I am meant to do, Malini. I am not sure if ruling Parijatdvipa is the right path.”
Fury, pure and ugly and hot, rushed through her. It cut through her elation like a knife, leaving her raw. She had not been braced for it.
“You’re not sure you want to rule Parijatdvipa,” she said slowly, trying to keep the coldness from her voice. “Do you think that surprises me? I know you, Aditya. But I thought you’d put aside your reluctance, after I wrote to you what Chandra had done—the advisors he replaced, because they were not Parijati. The ones he executed. The frothing priests he raised above our father’s wisest holy confidants—and you still think your desire to rule matters? The throne is yours. If not by desire, then by necessity and by right.”
“You’re always so very sure,” he said.
“Not always. But of this, yes, I am sure.”
He shook his head. “I have seen something, in the visions granted to me by the nameless. I have seen…” He trailed off. “Let’s not talk about this now, sister,” he said. “I am just so glad you’re here.”
Fine. If he didn’t want to argue, then she wouldn’t argue. There would be time enough for that. What her letters to him had not accomplished could perhaps be done in person.
She forced her body to relax. Forced down her fury and said, “I have brought allies with me. Ahiranyi who have rebelled against Chandra.”
“And they want to join me, these Ahiranyi?”
“They want their freedom,” said Malini. “Their independence as a nation. And I have offered it on your behalf, as thanks for saving my life and seeing me into your care.”
Aditya blinked at her, startled. “You would carve a piece from the empire, in my name?”
“If my life is not worth such a price—and surely, brother, to you it is—then consider only the liability that Ahiranya represents. It suffers a crop blight that can infect flesh. Its people rebel against our rule. Soon it will be a nation without resources with a people that hate us. What use is that? We don’t need this country,” Malini said, with utter conviction.
He shook his head.
“Perhaps this is fated,” she added. “Once, we quelled Ahiranya for trying to conquer us all. It was a righteous punishment. Surely now that the Ahiranyi have helped me, we can consider their debt paid.”
“Malini. I can’t give anything to your Ahiranyi now,” said Aditya.
“But you will be able to, when you are emperor.”
He gave her a considering look. “It matters to you so much, does it?”
“Yes,” Malini said simply. He did not have to know the well of feelings that lay behind those words. “The fate of the Ahiranyi matters to me a great deal. Promise me this, Aditya. Vow it to me.”
“Whatever you want,” he said.
She was not satisfied with that answer. He should have had questions for her. He should have been weighing up the consequences of such an act, measuring whether the promise was worth fulfilling. These were the calculations that leadership required. But he was not, and his casual agreement, his tired disinterest, filled her with unrest.
Aditya looked at her, something pained in his dark eyes. “We’ll return to the monastery,” he said eventually. “And from there—we’ll see, Malini.”
“When?”
“After a night’s rest,” said Aditya. “Or whatever passes for night in this place.”
So. Soon she would be in the monastery. And from there, at Aditya’s side, she would see Chandra’s removal truly begun. She would do so as a free woman, the threat of fire no longer hanging over her head. She would begin reshaping herself into the kind of person she needed to be in order to destroy Chandra—to claw him from his throne and see his name disgraced and erased from Parijatdvipan history.
Why did she not feel entirely exultant? Why had her initial joy become a spear point of pain beneath her ribs?
She thought of Lady Bhumika laboring upon the path, and Commander Jeevan looking at her and considering whether to run her through.