“Ma’am,” Priya said deferentially. She put her broom aside and walked off.
“Tell her if she does this again she won’t have a job. Do you hear me, Priya? Tell her that!”
Priya headed straight for the triveni, but there was no sign of Meena on the plinth, or anywhere else.
The air was clear and cold, and Priya was alone with nothing but her own memories, the lines upon the floor, and the knowledge that the prisoner lay at the other end of the triveni, one corridor away.
She had tried not to think of the princess. But she couldn’t help it.
Those eyes. She pictured them and something nameless flooded through her. For a moment, she’d felt as if she were staring into a dark mirror. Her past reflected back at her and made into something new.
Priya knew what everyone knew about the princess, and only that. Emperor Chandra had ordered his sister to rise to the pyre alongside her handmaidens, to sacrifice themselves as the mothers of flame had done, so long ago. But the princess had refused the honor. And now she was here.
You almost burned too, Priya thought as she stared at the corridor. Just like me.
That voice. The rasp of it. That mouth, shaping words in the semidark.
Are you real?
Stop being a damn fool, Priya told herself.
But she found herself crossing the triveni again, barely paying attention to the velvet night sky around her, or the figures of the yaksa carved into the great pillars holding the ceiling up above her. She moved as though the dark corridor ahead of her and the lattice wall that lay within it were a light and she were a particularly stupid moth.
“Priya.” A small voice. “Stop.”
The voice came from behind her. Priya turned.
Meena was behind her. In one crooked arm, she was cradling a small pile of firewood. Her face was strangely pale.
“I need your help,” said Meena.
“What’s happened?” Priya asked, alarmed. “Are you injured?”
“No.”
“Is anyone else?” When Meena shook her head, Priya said, “Then what is it?” When Meena remained silent a heartbeat too long, Priya pressed on. “Let’s go back to the kitchens. I’ll ask Sima to brew you a cup of tea. Something to calm your nerves—”
“I know what you are,” Meena said, the end of her words a quiver.
Priya’s words died abruptly.
“I knew it the moment you saved Sima. When you moved—you moved like you’d walked on the Hirana before, like the ground knew you.” Meena swallowed, visibly. Then she said, “You’re a temple daughter. Or you were, once.”
“You’re mistaken,” Priya said.
“How many times did you pass through the waters before the council died? Are you once-born? Twice-born?”
“Meena,” Priya said gently. “You’re addled. Go to the kitchens, now.”
“I’m not,” Meena said firmly. “I’m very sure. I know you’re a temple child. You were raised here, in this temple. Raised to rule our faith. And then the regent burned you all, didn’t he? You and your elders. But you survived, somehow. Hiding in plain sight. You’re not the first I’ve met. He told me what to look for. I know.”
Meena crossed the triveni. She took hold of Priya’s arm. Her grip was like iron.
“Look at this,” Meena said, voice firm, fierce. So Priya looked.
In Meena’s left hand, half-concealed beneath the drape of her sari, was the shape that Priya had thought was kindling.
It was a mask. It must have been hidden among the bundle Meena had been carrying on her back. The guards would not have noticed it when they checked the maidservants for weapons. It was, after all, not a weapon. It was no more than wood, deep and dark, bent and carved into crescents that stretched from a central hollow. But it was beautiful, and familiar, and every inch of it was carved from the boughs of sacred trees. Close to it now, Priya could feel the warmth of it, rich as a bloodied heartbeat.
A crown mask.
The bead of wood at her wrist didn’t hold even a shadow of such power.
Priya flinched, despite herself.
“You recognize it,” Meena said, and her shaky voice was full of triumph.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Please, Priya. You do. I know you do.” Meena took a step closer. “You can help me find the deathless waters. You have to. We need their strength to free ourselves from an empire that has always hated us, from rulers that want us to roll over like dogs for the crime of being better than them.” Her grip tightened on the mask. “They’ve stolen so much from us. Our language. Our elders. They deemed our culture filthy, they let us starve. We need the waters, Priya, we all do, before it’s too late.”