Instead, Priya said with false lightness, “Well, men can only marry women now. One of the first regents did away with the way things used to be here.”
“And there are such tales,” Malini said, “about women too?” There was something hesitant in her voice.
“Yes,” said Priya. She swallowed again. She knew exactly why her throat felt dry. “What other tales shall I tell you about the yaksa, my lady?”
“Everything,” Malini said immediately. “Anything. I was told tales by my nursemaid, but they were clearly sanitized, made palatable for good Parijati children. I want to know a tale no one would ever tell me.” She paused, considering, then said, “Can you tell me a tale from the Birch Bark Mantras?”
“Those tales are forbidden, my lady,” Priya said, even though she had memorized them by rote as a girl, and still remembered fragments of each poem, ragged ghosts of verse.
“Tell me where the yaksa came from, then,” said Malini. “That must be innocent enough.”
It probably wasn’t. But Priya didn’t say so.
As she guided Malini over a dip in the floor, she glanced down. The floor, marked by grooves like waves. Like water.
Those waves had moved, too. They were not where she’d left them, yesterday.
“The yaksa come from the same place everything comes from,” Priya said slowly. “From the rivers.”
“Rivers?”
“The cosmic rivers from which universes are born,” Priya said. “Rivers that flow from the yolk of the World Egg. Rivers of heart’s flesh and heart’s blood; rivers of immortality; rivers of the soul. The yaksa were born in these rivers as fish, and swam through them until they found the world on the shore. They entered our world from there, but it was the youngest of them, Mani Ara, who came to Ahiranya, and made it her home.”
“What is the World Egg?”
“The egg that the world was born from.”
“And where,” Malini murmured, with a faint tilt of her head, “did the World Egg come from? The World Peafowl?”
Priya made a valiant effort not to roll her eyes. “How do the Parijati believe the world was born, my lady?”
“From fire,” she said. “We believe another world burned, and out of it came our own. From ash and flame.”
“And where did that other world come from? My lady,” Priya added, with barbed deference. “From another burning world, perhaps?”
“It’s burning worlds all the way down,” Malini said, voice dry, a curl of amusement shaping her mouth. “You’ve made your point, Priya.”
Priya’s face felt annoyingly warm. She was glad she was far darker than Malini and didn’t show her wounds and hungers as easily on her skin. She looked away.
“My nursemaid told me of one river,” Malini said. Her voice was low. “A magical river, hidden beneath Ahiranya’s surface. A river called the deathless waters. Perhaps you know of it.”
It took everything in Priya not to stiffen. She had been lulled into a false sense of security by the brush of Malini’s hand on her arm, by shared tales. The cold knot that twisted to life in her belly was all the more shocking for it.
“You heard me speak of them to Meena,” Priya said quietly. “To the rebel. Didn’t you?”
Malini did not deny it. Instead she said, “I know it worried my father. The children developing strange gifts in Ahiranya. He spoke of it with my mother. He said something had to be done.”
Her father. Emperor Sikander.
“My lady,” Priya said quietly, tamping down on the little twist of rage in her heart. “Why did you bring me here? Why did you lie about me, and claim I saved your life?”
There. She’d said it. She’d faced the reality, finally, that she’d made a terrible error when she’d revealed herself before Meena, before Malini, and hidden the truth from Bhumika.
“I don’t know why that rebel was here,” Malini said finally. “She did, perhaps, want to kill me. But when I saw you, Priya…”
Her voice faltered.
“You’re strong,” she said finally. “And I will ask you no questions about your strength but… I very much need a friend, in this place. A friend who understands how it feels to lose and grieve people you love. A friend who can keep me safe from my fears. And I—I hope that you will be the friend I need.”
A friend. As if they could be friends.
Malini’s touch was so light. The princess felt fragile and looked fragile. How can you be this soft? Priya thought helplessly. How can you know what I am and look at me with eyes like that? How can you be so stupidly trusting?