“You don’t make friends,” Priya said, speaking through the lump in her throat with some difficulty, “by speaking of their dead.”
“No,” Malini said with a faraway look. “I suppose you don’t.”
“I liked it better,” Priya managed to say, “when you spoke of peafowls. You can do more of that if you like.”
Malini shook her head once more, a low sound of amusement escaping her. It wasn’t quite a laugh, but it was the closest she’d come since Priya had met her. And Priya, not knowing how to feel, guided Malini once more around the triveni, watching as the wind whipped about Malini’s hair—and stopped abruptly.
Pramila stood in the western hall, watching them. Her jaw was tight. Her expression was furious.
“You,” Pramila said, “are not allowed to leave your cell.”
Her voice wavered like a flame. For a second, Priya thought she was weeping. And then she realized that the waver was not tears but anger, a storm of it that Pramila couldn’t quite modulate. Pramila crossed the room, trembling with the force of her feelings.
At Priya’s side, Malini said nothing.
“I knew you’d find a way to use the maid,” said Pramila. “And here you are. Did you pay her? Bribe her?”
“I was not feeling well,” Malini said thinly. “I needed air.”
“Give me your key,” Pramila said to Priya. She said it abruptly, holding her hand before her.
“No,” Malini said. “Don’t give it to her, Priya.”
Priya had already unhooked the key. She had no opportunity to return it to her waist before Pramila seized it from her.
“It is such a small thing,” Malini said, in a voice close to tears, “to leave my room, and feel the air upon my face. If you would only allow me a little kindness, please.”
“Do not beg,” Pramila said, disgust in her voice. “Every time you weep and you beg—I know it’s all a lie, I know what you are—”
“I only beg because you keep me penned up like an animal. Do you think my brother wants me to die locked in a small room in a foreign land?”
“No, this isn’t the way I think he wants you to die. You know exactly what he expects.”
“Do you really want me to suffer as she did, Pramila?” Malini asked. Her voice was velvet. An entreaty. But Pramila flinched as if it had been a blow.
Pramila hissed, eyes harsh with rage, and without pause raised her hand to hit Priya—not Malini—around the face. It was not going to be a perfunctory blow of chastisement, Priya saw that immediately. Pramila’s hand was curled into a beringed fist, a hard knot of knuckles and metal rings that would leave Priya bloody, and Priya only had a second to feel a kind of breathless fury rush through her, at the ugliness of being used as a proxy for Malini, before she raised her own hand to knock Pramila’s arm away.
She didn’t have the chance. Malini slammed into Priya, grasping her wrists with her cold hands, and placed herself squarely between Pramila’s fist and Priya’s face. Priya felt a thud and a blinding pain as Pramila’s hand caught Malini around the ear, and Malini’s skull cracked against her own. Priya couldn’t move, couldn’t fight—Malini was holding her, her nails digging in as they had when Priya had woken her from a nightmare, a pressure like a needle-edged vise.
“No,” Malini said. Her voice cracked a little. “No, you mustn’t.”
Priya could barely see, through the shield of Malini’s body bent against her own, through all her loose dark hair, made even wilder than usual by the wind. But she felt Malini’s breath on her skin, and knew the words were meant for her.
She froze, then. Malini did not let go.
“Prin-princess,” Pramila said haltingly. “Are you hur—”
“You may hit me again if you like,” Malini said. “But you will not hit Priya. She has no part in our business.” She remained hunched over Priya. “Go on, Pramila. Do as you will.”
“Oh! Oh. You think I won’t strike you properly?” Pramila gave an ugly laugh, and through the curtain of Malini’s hair Priya could see snatches of her face: her wet, furious eyes, and the sneer on her lips. “You think I wouldn’t dare risk harming you, when you’re here alone with me? You deserve to be struck.”
“I am still the emperor’s flesh and blood,” Malini said, voice thin but steady. “Still a princess of Parijat. Strike me, if you will, but do not forget that my brother sent me here with a purpose.”