“Stop,” said Bhumika. “Stop, stop, please stop. Pri. Priya.” She pressed her cheek to Priya’s own. Her skin was wet, with water and tears. “He’s gone, Priya.”
“No. No, he’s not.”
“He’s gone,” Bhumika said again, and Priya knew she was right. She could feel the absence of him. The silence in the sangam. “He’s gone.”
MALINI
The fires didn’t gutter until late morning.
When they finally died, the warriors made their way down to the remains of the monastery.
“You shouldn’t come, princess,” one warrior said. He had the length of his own shawl knotted around his face, leaving nothing but his eyes and the furrow of his brow visible. “The air is poisonous.”
She knew that. She could smell it, feel it, even from here.
“I must,” she said, and wrapped the long edge of her own sari around her mouth. The cloth was still faintly damp from the waters beneath the gardens—a green, ugly dampness. “But I will accept you as my guard, if you will accompany me.”
There were no priests or Parijati soldiers left alive. A few royal warriors had run for their lives, when the flames had begun. Many had been burned too badly to make it far, and Aditya’s men had found what remained of them at the edge of what remained of the bridge.
Some of the lords were already beginning to work out how a makeshift bridge would be built. There was precious little left in the lacquer gardens of use, but at least a handful of their own men were from Dwarali and knew how to climb perilous rock faces. Three offered to make the way down, with only rope to hold them steady, and seek a safe route or supplies.
As they discussed what options were available to them, Malini kneeled down upon the charred ground. The sun was warm upon her back. Over the grate that led to the water were panels of thick wood, nailed in place. They were scorched or burned beyond recognition, but Malini could see marks upon them, like those made by scrabbling animals upon the trunks of trees.
Nail marks. Someone had clawed at the cover of the entrances to the water. Someone had fought to survive. But Aditya’s men had sealed the exits carefully. The bridge had burned. They had died in terror and in pain.
She looked and felt… nothing. The nothing was so solid, so complete, that she knew it wasn’t true emptiness or true neutrality. It was a feeling like a fist around a throat.
“Princess,” the warrior said again. He sounded anxious. “Please.”
She took his offer of a hand and walked away from the dead.
And that night, after the Dwarali soldiers had long since departed, she dreamt. Narina and Alori sat at the end of her bed, their hands clasped, their hair haloed with crowns of silent flame.
“You are not real,” she told them. “I am done with the needle-flower.”
“But it isn’t done with you,” Narina said pityingly. “I am sorry for it, Malini. But here we are.”
“Malini,” Alori said. “Malini. What do you think your name would be, if you’d been born like me, a royal of the nameless faith? What do you think the priest would have whispered in your ear?”
Fate had not named her. But the choices men had made, and the choices she had made—when her brother had pressed a knife to her neck, when her brother had tried to see her burn—had shaped her and given her a purpose.
“I don’t think of it,” she said. “I don’t believe in it.”
“And yet the nameless thinks of you,” said Narina. “The spirits think of you. The mothers think of you.”
“I do not believe in the mothers any longer,” whispered Malini. “I do not believe that what Chandra did made anything more of you.”
“The universe is vaster and stranger than you know,” Alori said sorrowfully. “But, Malini…”
Her voice faded. Odd. She had not thought a vision could weep.
“When you murder your brothers, remember that we loved you once, heart sister,” Narina finished. “Remember that we love you still, no matter what you become.”
Malini closed her eyes, which burned with tears. She closed her eyes against the vision of them, and the grief. When she opened them, Narina and Alori were gone.
At dawn, one of the Dwarali soldiers returned. He came with more rope and a plan to make their laborious way down the cliff face, with the security of rope and a winch to guide them all down.
Malini thought of her treacherous descent of the Hirana and nearly laughed. Oh, if only Priya were here.
“Can you do this?” Rao asked.