Priya did not want to give him Rukh. But Jeevan was looking back at Bhumika’s palanquin restlessly, and they couldn’t afford to pause here for long.
“Fine,” Priya said. “But—be gentle with him.”
Ganam took Rukh from her arms. Rukh’s eyes were squeezed shut, his breath short.
“He’s not just one of yours,” Ganam said, easily adjusting his weight. “He’s ours too. Spied for us. Served our cause. Maybe freedom will mean being able to protect our children instead of using them,” he added, brushing Rukh’s leaf-strewn hair back from his forehead. “I’d like to believe that.”
Priya looked at Rukh, pressing his head against Ganam’s shoulder. At Ganam’s guarded but tender expression. The crowd of people around them, and the anger in them, and the hunger too. For something better. For a future.
“I’d like that too,” Priya said.
From across the path, Kritika was looking at her, a thoughtful expression on her face. She nodded to Priya. After a moment, Priya nodded in return.
They kept on walking.
BHUMIKA
Even with the use of a palanquin, she was exhausted by the time they reached the bower of bones. Labor had left her body changed and depleted, and the baby barely slept. Thank the spirits that she had Sima to give her advice on keeping the poor child alive.
This is no place for you, she thought, holding Padma close to her chest. They had made it to the bower of bones. There were fine, delicate profusions of bones upon the ground. Clinking in the leaves above them. No place for any of us.
As Khalida kept watch, she rested her back against a tree and fed Padma. She was so tired that she could have wept.
“Not long now,” she whispered to Padma, who was now only quietly fretful. “Soon, we’ll be home.”
“The city isn’t safe,” Khalida reported, later. She and Jeevan had entered Hiranaprastha, returning to the edge of the forest, where the others waited, with what news they were able to gather. “People are protecting their own homes as best as they can, but guards and soldiers without masters are causing plenty of havoc. We could be in trouble if we enter the city as we are.”
Bhumika nodded in acknowledgment, unsurprised. Her mind was overfull of possibilities and concerns—the likely distance of any imperial forces, sent to quell unrest or provide the regent aid; the quantity and strength of the soldiers she and the others would have to face; whether they would end up caught between multiple forces, in a melee of blood…
“We don’t have to fight,” Priya said suddenly. “There’s a way to move through the city without upsetting anyone until we’re ready and able to deal with them.”
Priya’s plan was neat and simple, and Bhumika couldn’t keep an approving look from crossing her face.
“See,” Priya said, with a smile. “I am clever. Shows you.”
“I’ve never said that you’re not clever.”
“You call me a fool all the time.”
Bhumika wrinkled her nose and looked away. Sisters.
“We’re prepared,” one rebel said, soon after. The vial-cursed stood in a circle around them. Ashok was lying near them, wrapped in a shawl, Padma fussing in her blanket next to him.
Priya met Bhumika’s eyes. Bhumika nodded.
A slow, shared exhale of breath and the ground around them bloomed with sharp flowers, stormy purples and bitter yellows. The rebels breathed with them, sharing strength.
The flowers began to rise up the rebels’ feet. Bhumika looked down and watched them curl around her own ankles. Moving across her like new flesh.
The city was broken: buildings burnt and smoldering, the few that stood shuttered and boarded. There were figures moving in the distance, groups of men with axes or maces, faces swathed in cloth. But they didn’t approach the rebels or the people of the mahal.
Even from a distance, the leaves and flowers rising from their skin were visible. They looked like a huddle of rot sufferers, stumbling wide-eyed through a city that had no place for them. They were given a wide berth.
Bhumika held Padma—who was, blessedly, sleeping—against herself as they crossed Hiranaprastha, and gazed at the mahal. Its outer walls were shattered, where the rebels had broken the stone with vine, and shifted the foundations by moving soil and root with their vial-cursed strength. But as Bhumika looked, she saw a light flickering from deep within the mahal.
A woman on the walls, an arrow nocked upon her bow.
Bhumika shouldered to the front, head held high. When the woman on the walls saw her, she lowered her bow. Gave a shout. And with relief, Bhumika realized her people had held the rose palace after all.