“I can do whatever is needful,” she said.
They made their way down, Malini seated upon a sling of rope. She held it tightly and gazed at the drop beneath her—a great endless sweep of air, ending in jagged rocks. When she found her feet once more on steady ground, she did her best to hide her relief.
They began their journey. There could be no more dallying. They would need to meet their strongest forces, waiting upon the road to Dwarali, and pray that Chandra’s men had not come across them yet. They would follow the coast as much as possible. The lands there were beyond Parijatdvipa’s borders, and accordingly likely to be safer from Chandra’s spies or soldiers. Khalil relayed all of this, as Rao stood stiff and grief-stricken at Malini’s side, as Lata held her arm—as Aditya stood at the head of them all, quiet as a ghost.
“It will be a long journey,” the Dwarali lord said gruffly. “But we’ll rig a chariot for you, princess. Something suitable.”
“Dwarali women ride, don’t they?”
“We all ride,” he told her. “Man, woman, or any soul between.”
“It is a shame I do not have their skill,” she said. “This skill your Dwarali women possess.”
“Skills are learned, princess,” he said. “I think you will gain them swiftly enough.”
He spoke with a respect that verged on reverence. Malini simply nodded, eyes fixed on the distance, and kept on walking.
They had been traveling for days. Days. They were nowhere of consequence, a dirt track, surrounded by dust burnished bronze in the light of the setting sun, when Rao turned.
Lata’s grip tightened upon her arm. “Prince,” Lata said, voice firm. “Is it time?”
Rao’s expression—she had never seen the like of it. He looked determined and terrified all at once, staring at her, through her, his eyes blazing.
“It is time,” he said.
Lata exhaled. Her grip on Malini’s arm released. She stepped back, leaving Malini alone.
Rao took a step closer to Malini.
“Rao,” she said, suddenly frightened. “What is it?”
“You may mock our fates,” said Rao, “but you understand. We’d run from them if we could. To know your greatest purpose in life, or your inevitable end—it’s a terrible burden.
“I didn’t envy my sister her name,” Rao went on. “Not once I knew it. But even then, I believed my fate would be easier to bear. Now, I’m not so sure.”
Rao kneeled down before her. He did not kneel like a man overcome by grief, or as men in tales kneel before women they loved. He did not even kneel as he had when his sister had burned upon the pyre, with his face blank and his hands in fists, too devastated to move or breathe.
He kneeled and lowered his head. Touched his fingertips to the ground before her feet.
He kneeled as a man kneels before a king. An emperor.
“It’s time,” he said, in a clear voice, to Malini and all the assembled highborn of Parijatdvipa, “to tell you my name.”
BHUMIKA
They didn’t call it a coronation, but that was exactly what it was.
There was a throne room for the regent, half-burned and ransacked, in the mahal. Soon, they would have to make use of it. But they were Ahiranyi. So they went first to the triveni. To its plinth. There were only two of them there, thrice-born upon the Hirana. But behind them were the new once-borns who had been rebels and had been Ashok’s. At their back rose the servants of the mahal. This was a portentous day, and everyone wanted to be present.
Some of the servants had asked to follow their footsteps. To enter the waters, now that they had seen the change it had wrought in the surviving rebels, in Bhumika and Priya. But Bhumika had refused.
“Not yet,” she said. “The waters demand a price. Let the ones of us who must go survive it first and learn its strength. And then we’ll see.”
They had waited a single night. Waited, and no one had sickened and died. Maybe fever would come for them and kill them. But Bhumika had hope.
She carried Padma against her chest, bound to her in a sling of cloth. One of the men had tried to argue with her, saying the Hirana was no place for a child. But Bhumika had raised an eyebrow and said, “Is there anywhere safer in Ahiranya than at the side of a thrice-born?” And he had fallen silent.
Priya’s face was drawn, her eyes red. She had not mentioned Ashok since his death in the waters, but Bhumika knew she thought of him constantly.
“Come,” said Bhumika. Held out a hand. “We go together.”