“The guards likely won’t obey their normal routine under these circumstances, but they all traveled with me from Parijat. I know them. The one with the thick mustache—he complains that his right knee pains him whenever it rains. And it rained a great deal on the journey here. The youngest of them is better with a long-range weapon than close physical combat. He prefers a chakram or bow if he has a choice. But if you attack his senior first, cut him at the knees, the younger one won’t think to retreat, and once he’s in close combat with you, you’ll find it easier to manage him.” Malini’s fingers brushed back and forth over her own; a steady, almost hypnotic rhythm. “You can get us out, Priya. Right now, while they’re distracted and there is chaos below us… You can. And I can help you.”
Priya stared back at her. Numbly, she shook her head. She thought of the consequences for the mahal, for Bhumika, if the princess escaped the Hirana. “I… I can’t. My lady.”
“You don’t need to kill them,” Malini said quickly, still holding Priya close. “I don’t ask that. I only ask you to consider what will happen to me if I stay here. My only hope is beyond the Hirana’s walls. You could come with me, Priya.” Her voice lowered. “Wherever I go, you could go.”
Malini’s expression was pleading, her voice was cajoling, wounded—but there was a hardness to her jaw, a desperation in her eyes that was at odds with her tone.
Her hands on Priya’s were a light weight, fingers curled. Everything about her was a vulnerable entreaty. So perfectly vulnerable, that Priya could only think of festival plays, of actresses wearing theater masks painted saffron and vermilion, expressions fixed—stricken or joyful, sharp-toothed or soft-mouthed—to match their roles in the tale.
Priya felt as if her racing pulse, quick with panic, tripped over itself for a moment. Frozen, she felt her understanding of the princess—of this—shift upon its axis.
She thought of Bhumika’s words from the sangam, suddenly. I must use all the tools in my arsenal, she’d said.
The princess was a daughter of the empire. The princess was trapped and desperate.
And Priya was… useful.
She’d been a fool.
“And what shall I get in return for helping you escape here?” Priya asked, rage and humiliation surging through her. “Were you hoping I’d risk my life for you just out of the goodness of my heart?” All those gentle touches, all those smiles—Malini’s hands on her own, and shared breath that could have been a kiss. All of it, no more than a careful leash placed around Priya’s neck, ready to be drawn at the right moment. “Maybe you thought I’d do it for a kiss? Do you really think so little of me?”
An expression flickered across Malini’s face, too quick to decipher. “Priya, whatever you think, you’re wrong.”
“Pramila told me not to trust you. She told me that you make people love you. That you’re manipulative.”
Malini said nothing.
“You’ve wasted your energy on me,” said Priya. “I’m not capable of what you want.”
“You are,” Malini said. “Please, Priya. If anyone can help me escape the Hirana, it’s you. There’s no one but you.”
“Of course you think I can,” said Priya bitterly. “You saw me after all, with Meena. You watched me kill her and you didn’t even look afraid. Don’t you know that you should be afraid of me? Don’t you know how easily I could kill you?” She gripped Malini’s hands harder in return, holding her fast. “I have so many reasons to hate you. You, with your imperial blood and your father and brothers who were happy to see Ahiranya’s temple children piled onto a pyre and burned.” Priya was surprised at the venom in her own voice, the way heat rushed to the surface of her skin, furious and prickling. “I have no reason to help the child of an imperial family that ordered my own family dead. I could break your neck, here and now, and you couldn’t stop me. I could fling you from the Hirana. If you think I have the power to kill all the guards, then you know I could just as easily end your life and free myself.”
“I’m not afraid of death at your hand,” said Malini.
“And why is that?”
Some of the vulnerability faded from Malini’s face. Leached away.
“The night you saw me, in my chamber, on the ground—I had convinced Pramila to leave the wine with me. I’d been nice to her. Sweet, biddable. For days. You know something about how that works. She left the wine. And I drank, and drank, and drank. I weighed up my choices. I thought: either I will grow sick enough that she will have to seek help, allowing me access to a physician who I can beg for aid to escape this prison, or I will simply die.” Malini’s voice trembled a little. “But then I grew afraid, and I flung the wine to the floor. I didn’t know what was real any longer. And I did not want to die in a pool of my own vomit, after all.”