And then, Priya knew, she had appeared. She remembered Malini’s eyes in the dark. The rasp of her voice, her words—Are you real?—with a shudder.
“Does that disturb you?” Malini asked. Her voice hardened. “I like you, Priya. But I am afraid that I’m running out of time for the niceties of our relationship. If General Vikram is dead—who knows where my brother will send me next, or what will become of me?”
There was no distance between them and yet somehow Malini took a step forward, tugging her hands free from Priya’s. She touched her fingertips to Priya’s chin instead, so close to Priya’s mouth, her fingers warm and steady, impossible to ignore.
“Kill me or save me,” murmured Malini. “But do something, Priya. My brother wants me to waste away here, or beg him for the sanctity of an immolation—but I will not. I have been able to do nothing to change my circumstances apart from obtaining you, so please do me the kindness of ending my suffering, one way or another. Surely you’re humane enough for that.”
Priya wrenched back from Malini’s hand.
“If you speak of what I am to anyone,” Priya said angrily, “I’ll force that needle-flower poison down your throat myself.”
“I have never,” said Malini, “threatened to tell anyone your secrets, Priya.”
“You know nothing of my secrets.”
“You know that I do.”
“I am not ashamed of wanting you,” Priya blurted out, even though she was ashamed of wanting Malini, because it made her a foolish love-addled thing unfit for the task her sister had set her. A failure. “But I don’t appreciate you using my wants against me, and I won’t let you do it anymore. Tell whoever you like that I want you. But if you speak of what you think I am—”
“I told you,” Malini cut in. “I haven’t threatened to reveal you. I could have long ago, and I have not. I won’t.”
That pulled a choked laugh from Priya’s throat. “How generous of you! But you want to keep me on your side, don’t you? Without me, you have no one here. No one.”
Malini said nothing to that. The vulnerability was gone from her face, and now her expression was nigh unreadable.
“Hide here from Pramila if you want,” Priya added, as she turned. “I’m not going to help you.”
“Would you really condemn me for doing what I need to in order to survive?” Malini asked. When Priya didn’t answer, Malini said swiftly, “We could make a deal, you and I. There are other things I could offer you in return for your help.”
Priya stopped. Turned back. “Like what? You have nothing.”
“Tell me what you need and want. Bargain with me. So I am not as tenderhearted and na?ve as you thought—so I want to live and I am willing to use you to do it—so what? Don’t let that anger you, Priya. Use that. You will never have this kind of power over a royal of Parijatdvipa again. I am a princess. I know the heartbeat, the innards of the empire. Beyond this prison I have allies waiting for me. You have things you want, Priya. You told me. I know it. Use me.”
Priya looked at Malini. At her pale brown, dark-eyed face surrounded by knotted curls, a face thin with sickness, and thought of how much of a fool she’d been to not see that Malini could read her like a book.
“You are useful,” said Malini, when Priya continued to stare at her, heart pounding with fury and shame. “What you are—you have use. But so do I, to you.”
“I make a good weapon, I suppose,” Priya said faintly. She thought of Meena again—of rage, and Meena’s body falling, and the smell of fire and cooked flesh that had haunted Priya for years.
Oh, spirits, thought Priya, with a kind of despair. What am I choosing to turn myself into? What am I becoming? Is remembering myself worth this?
As if summoned by her thoughts, a new memory came over her. A spill of water on the floor. The smell of ghee and resin in the air. One of her temple sisters turning to her, eyes wide, clutching her own throat. An elder, mouth curled downward, sorrowful, lighting a flame—
She didn’t want to remember this.
“Priya.” Malini exhaled. “Please.”
Priya realized she was shaking.
“I can’t,” Priya said abruptly. “Not now.”
“Priya—”
“Not now.”
She left the room abruptly.
She didn’t make it very far.
Away from the guttering lantern light, away from Malini, she kneeled alone, crouched with her head on her knees. She was shaking.