“I’m not a child anymore, Ashok,” Priya said steadily. “I may have ended up in the regent’s household because of you and Bhumika, but neither of you controls my decisions now. I’m a woman grown. If I had chosen to, I could be a married woman and a mother.”
He snorted. “You were never inclined to be a married woman.”
“If only I lived in the Age of Flowers after all,” she said dryly, not allowing herself to feel any bitterness. “Then I could have married a woman like the ancients used to. But I could still have chosen to make a home with a nice girl, marriage or no marriage,” Priya added with a shrug. “I chose to stay at the mahal.”
“Why?”
Priya began to speak, but Ashok was already talking once more.
“You stayed, Priya, because you can’t forget what we should have been any more than I can. You feel the injustice of what was stolen from you. You may not want to see Ahiranya free the way I do, but you want what’s rightfully yours. And mine.” He leaned closer. “Please, Pri,” he said. “Help me. Help us both.”
It was as though she were no longer standing on the mossy ground of the forest, a grown woman with her hands in fists at her sides. Instead, she was a child drenched in soot and blood. Her head was against the crook of his shoulder as he ran, struggling to hold her, as he whispered, Don’t look, Pri, don’t look, don’t look.
Just show me the way—
“We need the deathless waters.” His voice was a midnight wind. “Will you find the way for us, Priya? Will you help me take back what was stolen?”
She thought of Bhumika, pregnant and wed to a murderer, using everything she had to give a handful of orphans a modicum of life, and Ahiranya a modicum of stability.
She thought of Rukh, who had thrown his lot in with rebels, who had rot-riven hands and no future to speak of.
She thought of the Hirana. A heartbeat beneath her feet.
Maybe wanting more than what she had was selfish. Maybe it was a mistake. But she thought of all she had suffered, and all Ahiranya had suffered, and felt the kernel of anger in her chest bloom open.
“Yes,” she said. “Brother. I suppose I will.”
MALINI
It was early morning when the maidservant arrived. Malini was lying on her charpoy, curled up on her side, the room tilting and swooping lazily around her, when Pramila unlocked the door and entered.
“You’re a very lucky girl,” Pramila was saying. “Your new tasks won’t be terribly onerous, and when you leave my service, you’ll have much finer skills. You’ll perhaps even rise in the regent’s household. Won’t that be nice?”
“Yes, my lady.” The voice that replied was low and warm, with the lilting inflection of an Ahiranyi speaker of Zaban. Malini closed her eyes, glad her back was turned, and readied herself.
She’d seen this maidservant twice. Once, when she’d flung the dosed wine across the floor with numb hands, too addled by needle-flower to do anything but crawl and sob and peer at the face through the lattice and wonder, hysterically, if she had dreamt it all up.
The second time, she’d watched the maidservant murder a woman.
She could not remember the maidservant’s face. Only her arms, and the rippling shift of muscle in them as she’d fought. Only the way she had straightened, shoulders back, the wind against her black hair. She could only remember the maidservant turning and—looking at her. The shock in those eyes.
She could remember thinking—even as she wondered if the maidservant would kill her, even as her mind bent and twisted and examined the things she’d seen and heard—I can use this one.
I can use her.
She had fought to have this opportunity, feigning a collapse in the presence of Pramila and the guards that had left a very real bruise on her hip; crying like a hysterical child before the regent. All of it, in order to have this: a maidservant who was not Santosh or Pramila or Chandra’s creature, a maidservant who was likely not simply a maidservant, standing before her within the walls of this blighted prison.
“Princess,” said Pramila. Her voice was clipped, almost blade-hard, at Malini’s back. “I have your new maid. Here, as you begged for. Aren’t you pleased? Won’t you greet us properly?”
Malini took in a steadying breath and rose up onto her elbows. Then sat up straight. Turned, setting her bare feet on the stone floor. The room tipped alarmingly around her, then settled.
“The one who saved my life,” Malini said slowly, taking her time over the words so that she could also take her time looking the woman over. “I remember.”