Priya approached her, and Malini laced her arm with Priya’s, leaning her frail weight against Priya’s smaller frame. Priya should not have been able to support her as easily as she did, but then, Priya was all muscle and sinew where Malini was all fragile bones and barely a scrap of flesh on her.
Priya looked at the hand on her arm. The seawater color of Malini’s veins through her soft skin.
Priya thought, absurdly, of the bower. The clink of white bones in wind.
They walked slowly together from the northern chamber across the triveni. Priya expected Pramila to appear at any moment, but thankfully there was no sign of her as they left the open air and entered a dark corridor. The maids had snuffed out the lamps along the wall on their departure, preserving the oil and the wicks for future use.
“You must forgive me for being such terrible company,” said Malini. “Once, I was wonderful company. But I am not entirely as I used to be.”
Malini’s eyes suddenly met Priya’s, and Priya nearly stumbled. It was like the moment when their gazes had first locked through the lattice—a jolt that hummed through her. Priya did not know if she would ever get used to the strangeness of being seen, really seen, by someone who had power over her.
“I have terrible dreams,” Malini said, as if in apology. Her voice, in the semidark, was like the brush of a wing against Priya’s ear. “Every time I sleep, I dream them. I dream of the imperial mahal. I dream of my favorite attendants. I dream of…” A hitch in her breath. “Of what my brother did.”
A pause. Her breath, quiet as the tread of a tiger’s paw.
Priya looked away from her. “This way, my lady,” she said, guiding Malini into the bathing chamber.
Without waiting for Priya to undress her, ignoring Priya’s vague attempt at a protest, the princess sat down on the low stool set on the floor. She brushed her tangled hair back from her face with an impatient hand as Priya dragged over a full bucket of now lukewarm water the maids had left.
“Cold, I said.”
“My lady—”
“Please,” said Malini.
Priya went to the kitchens—there was water there, stored for cleaning—and brought a kitchen bucket full to the bathing room. She set it on the ground, took the long-handled ladle, and dipped it into the water.
“Hand me the ladle,” Malini said.
Priya didn’t argue. Malini took it from her and poured the cold water straight over her own head. There was a splash as the water met the stone floor, a hiss from between Malini’s gritted teeth. Her hair was dripping, her sari soaked.
Priya looked away and made a show of seeking out the comb she’d tucked into the waist of her sari, and the soap too. She’d forgotten the drying cloth, and marveled silently at the absurdity of her own life.
“Shall I wash your hair?”
Malini was silent for a long moment, head bowed. Then she dipped the ladle once more in the water and poured it over her head.
“Yes,” she said finally, water trailing rivulets down her face. “If you like.”
Priya stepped behind her and squatted down, hooking her sari between her knees to stop it from getting wet.
Lightly she took Malini’s long hair in her hands. It was thick and dark and utterly, horribly snarled. Priya didn’t dare to think how long it had been since someone had brushed it. Malini certainly hadn’t done so—oh, these highborn women—and Pramila would hardly have tried. Still, Priya carded her fingers gingerly through its length, trying to ease the lightest of the knots with nothing but her damp hands.
“I’ll need to use oil,” said Priya carefully, “to get out the worst of your knots. I can’t do much more as it is.”
“My maids in Parijat used jasmine oil,” said Malini. “My mother’s favorite, though I never cared for it.”
Malini didn’t even wince when Priya caught at one snarl with her fingernail; didn’t react when Priya murmured an apology and reached for the ladle, pouring more water over Malini’s hair before she began to lightly scrub a thin lather of soap into it, washing it clean.
Beneath the weight of her hair, Malini’s bare neck was pale, her shoulders through the wet cloth all birdlike bones. There was an old scar on her neck—a faint tracery of silver, curved like a sickle moon.
“May I tell you a secret, Priya?”
If Sima had said that to her, she would have leaned in, conspiratorial; would have laughed or grinned, and said, You can tell me whatever you like—light, casual words. But she could not be casual with the princess. She thought of all the questions the princess had asked her, when she’d first arrived. The steady, patient stream of them, measuring Priya.