Bhumika didn’t say, She ran away a dozen times seeking you, and a dozen times my guards brought her back. She wept for you and if she’d known you lived, she would never have rested, she would never have given up on you—
Instead she said, “She doesn’t know the way either. Leave her be.”
“But she’ll find it. I know she will. Of all of us—she was always the one who could find it. She has a gift.”
A gift. Yes.
“Decisive action,” Ashok mused, when Bhumika did not reply. It took Bhumika a moment to realize he was repeating her own words regarding Vikram. “I think I need to perform some decisive action of my own. Those poor maidservants and scribes deserve justice. And I don’t think you’re inclined to provide it.” His shadowy hands clenched, with the creak of trees bending to the wind. “And now my followers and I have the strength we need to put the world right.”
“Whatever you’re planning to do, don’t. Ashok. This will only escalate.” She had terrible visions of the emperor’s soldiers swarming over the country. Trees felled, people burned, blood in the soil. Their history and their present obliterated. What little they’d saved, of resistance and art, of their culture, lost.
“Parijatdvipa is the rot that must be torn from Ahiranya,” he said. “The empire only rose because it crushed us. It doesn’t deserve to keep us under its boot any longer.”
“And what will you replace it with, exactly? Your plucky band of rebels?”
“When we have power, we won’t be called rebels anymore.”
“Of course. Apologies, Elder Ashok,” she said, her tone mocking. “And who will your new council trade with? Who will sell them the rice and cloth we need to survive?”
“We’re a rich nation, Bhumika.”
“I’m in a much better position to know our wealth than you are. We have forest, yes, trees that could be felled and wood that could be sold, the most profitable short-term route, for all that if Parijatdvipa were to trade with us at all, their terms would be less than favorable. But our people’s culture relies on the forest not being cut down. And our fields and forest are riven with rot. Perhaps you’ve noticed.” When he was silent, she said, “Ashok, we need allies.”
“And we’ll have them,” he said calmly. “When we’re free. That matters more than anything. It’s worth any price.”
“You think I don’t want a different world than this?” she asked. “You think I want the ruler of our country to be an outsider, beholden to an emperor’s whims? You think I want our siblings dead? You don’t understand that I’m trying to protect what remains of us—of our Ahiranya. I’m fighting for survival, and you—you’re choosing to gamble what little we have on a hope that may obliterate us.”
“Don’t pretty up your whoring,” he said, with a savagery that made her pause and then laugh, furious.
“There it is,” she said. “There’s the brother I know. The vicious bastard who once beat me blue to impress our elders. To prove himself strongest. You think being called a whore shames me? You think you haven’t bartered your body for your own ends? What do you think pouring death down your throat is?”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t hurt you again. You’re not as strong as you once were. You wouldn’t survive it.”
He placed a hand against her chest.
“But your husband,” he said. “And those Parijati highborn. Well.”
“Ashok.”
He shoved her down.
She returned to herself. Shaking, she rose carefully to her feet.
The floor of the courtyard was being swept clean of dust. She crossed it. Made her way to her palanquin.
“Home,” she said to her guards. They lifted the palanquin and obeyed.
Her husband had returned. He was in her quarters, in her rose palace, finishing lunch when she arrived.
“You took the palanquin,” Vikram said, rinsing his hands clean in rose-scented water.
“I went to visit my uncle,” said Bhumika.
“How is his health?”
She shook her head. Walked over to him, brushing a fingertip lightly against the back of his hand in greeting. “I am going to pray for him. Incense for the mothers. And I will burn jasmine.”
Vikram made a hum of approval. Or perhaps it was sympathy.
“I have a new maid,” said Bhumika lightly, taking the glass of lemon water a servant proffered. “Oh, don’t look at me that way, my love. This one is trustworthy. She’s from my uncle’s own household.”