“Prince Rao,” one of Prem’s men said in a low voice. “We’re nearing the end.”
A grate above them. Thin segments of moonlight. Three men reached up to heave the thing aside. Rao only had a moment to fear ambush—a canny strategist with a mere handful of men could pick them off one by one here—but they managed to worm their way through the grate without issue. When Malini was dragged out of the water, Aditya immediately wrapped her in the sacking that had been removed from one of the weapons. Malini whispered her thanks, clinching the wrapping around her as if it were the finest Dwarali shawl.
They moved quietly into the cover of trees—fresh, unlacquered, sweet with the scent of sap and soil. No lights between them, as bows were strung, their weight tested. Behind the cover of trees lay the great reservoir dam of Srugna, held back by a cunning artifice of stone the likes of which Rao had never seen before. He would have liked to admire it, to study it, once. Not today.
Malini came to stand near him. She was shivering faintly, but her eyes were sharp, fixed on the monastery below them.
“All’s quiet,” said Malini.
“Did your Dwarali lord tell you so?”
“Lord Khalil did, yes,” said Malini. “And he is not mine, Rao. Don’t be petty. His first loyalty is to his emperor.”
“His first loyalty is to Dwarali’s interests.”
“Lucky, then, that Aditya’s interests and Dwarali’s align.” Her voice, her expression, were impassive. “I have the impression you’re angry at me, Rao.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “This plan.”
“Yes?”
“It’s foolish. I don’t know how you convinced Aditya to support it, but I fear it.”
Malini did not even pretend it had not been her plan. “I didn’t convince him of anything. I merely made a suggestion. And Emperor Aditya gave it due consideration.”
“Due consideration,” Rao repeated. “What did you say to him?”
“The truth,” Malini said simply.
“This plan is…” He hesitated.
“Say it, Rao.”
“Cold,” he said. “Cruel. Unlike you.”
“You sound a little like Aditya did,” she said, after a pause that stretched the air between them thin. “But I suppose you’ve long been friends for a reason. You both have a weakness in you that I don’t understand.”
“Morality isn’t weakness.”
“It is if it will see us all dead. Rao, we have men, but only so many men, and so many weapons,” said Malini. “The monastery is in a valley. Vulnerable, for all that it has only one known entrance. All that, you know. If we remained there, we would be rounded up with ease. Or slaughtered. Perhaps they would burn us. It would be so easy.” Her voice shifted, like fingers upon a sitar’s strings, from softness to thrumming savagery. “And I will not burn, Rao.”
“Malini.”
“What? What will you have of me? If Lord Khalil or Mahesh or Narayan had come up with the idea, you would not react so. If Aditya had done it, you would have obeyed with a heavy heart, but you would not have talked to him as you do to me. Why is that?”
“You believe I think less of you than I do of these men,” Rao said, incredulous.
She gave him a look that held nothing in it. Not even judgment. “I don’t know what you see when you look at me. But if you think it is too cold for me, or too cruel…” She shrugged. “I have never lied to you, Rao. If you don’t know me, if you fail to understand what I want to achieve, you alone are responsible for that.”
Rao held his tongue at that.
Perhaps this was the moment. Perhaps it was time for him to tell her the truth. The secret of his name, wrapped like a dark gift, waiting to be spoken. He had always believed he would know when the time was right—had always been told he would know when the name needed to be uttered. But he didn’t feel that weight of rightness in his bones now. Only the creeping damp of his stinking wet clothes, and the eerie stillness of the air, as warriors crouched around him in the darkness.
He almost said it anyway. Almost turned to Malini, shaping his mouth around the words. My name, the name the priests whispered in my ear at birth. Malini, my name is—
“They’re here.” A murmur, passed from warrior to warrior, reached the place where Malini and Rao stood. Rao’s body went numb.
Below them, snaking through the one pass that allowed direct entry into the lacquer gardens, was a procession of warriors. Not Chandra’s full forces by any means, no, but Parijati royal warriors all the same. They were moving silently, swiftly, but Rao recognized them regardless. There was something about the way they moved. And of course, those weapons, great gleaming sabers, the glint of a sharp-edged discus at another man’s belt.