Chapter 62: Malini

MALINI

It took one of the Srugani lords and all his associated followers—a not insignificant number of men—abandoning the monastery for Malini to learn the full truth.

“The messenger dragged himself from his dead horse,” Lord Narayan proclaimed, pacing. “Risked his life to bring this to us. And now—nothing. Where is Emperor Aditya? Prince Rao, do you know?”

Rao shook his head. Said nothing.

“Chandra cannot be sure that Aditya is here, or he would have sent far more men,” said another lord.

“He may be targeting every monastery to the nameless,” Rao said. “Or we were followed, on the seeker’s path.”

“Targeting every monastery would be foolish at best, an affront to the faith at worst,” another voice said, appalled. “No sane man would do it.”

Rao’s laugh was bitter. “Chandra would.”

“The soldiers will arrive here by tonight,” said another.

“Are you sure?”

“If they’re traveling inconspicuously, they won’t have horses, or any possibility of arriving sooner. But the messenger was sure.”

“And Emperor Aditya…?”

“Was told as soon as the report arrived,” said Lord Khalil, gaze hooded. He watched the others as if over the catur table, weighing up his next move, and weighing them up too.

“And his plans?” Lata asked, from the corner of the room.

“He hasn’t seen fit to enlighten us,” Khalil said levelly. “But I’m sure he will speak to his beloved sister.”

“I am sure he will,” Malini replied, with just as much evenness. Her blood sang in her ears.

“There will be many battles and many wars, if Prince Aditya intends to take back the throne.”

“And he will,” Malini said firmly.

Khalil made a noise. It was not quite agreement.

“Would he have us run, like cowards, ill-befitting our status?” Narayan asked.

Malini did not think survival was cowardly but refrained from saying so.

“We are warriors, my lords,” said Rao, surprising her. “We do not run from battle. But we may at least use this time to strategize. If you will join me…”

Malini did not stay.

She went to walk through the gardens. Careful footsteps, passing priests at meditation, or painting lacquer upon leaves.

“Lata,” said Malini, to her ever-present shadow. “Military history.”

“My teacher was the one who knew her history best.”

“If she were here, I’d gladly take her counsel. But you’re her disciple. Tell me what you know.”

“I know this, princess: You use any tools you have available to you. Take stock—what do you have?”

Malini looked around herself. The gardens. The unnatural trees; the leaves and fruit that would never rot that hung about them. A dark foreboding crept up her spine.

“I cannot use what I have.”

“Why not?” Lata asked simply.

Because it’s wrong.But no. That did not matter to her. Not truly.

Because it would be monstrous.

Even that. Even that did not matter as much as it should have.

“Because I may lose Aditya’s followers. Or…” She paused. “Or I may gain him more,” she murmured. “They think he does not have the capacity to be ruthless. They think…”

Lata’s face was suddenly gray. She knew exactly what Malini intended to do. “I did not mean…”

“Did you not?” Malini did not smile at her. She did not feel joyful. “Thank you,” she said instead.

“Don’t thank me,” Lata said. “Please.”

Finally, thought Malini. She understands the bitterness of knowledge.

Malini found Aditya meditating in his room, cross-legged on the floor. She watched him for a long moment, waiting for him to notice her and raise his head. When he did not, she kneeled down beside him regardless.

“My brother,” she said. She spoke in a low, gentle voice. The kind their mother had once used. “I need you to lead your men. We cannot remain here any longer.”

There was a long moment where he said nothing.

“Did Rao send you?” he said finally.

“No.” She did not need Rao to direct her on what was needful. Aditya should have known that.

“Strange. And yet you both want the same thing from me.” There was a joyless smile on his mouth. “You want me to kill for the throne. Murder for it.”

“You must kill for the throne,” Malini said. She forced her voice to remain calm, kind. “That is what war is. And it isn’t simply Rao and I who want you to take the throne. Aditya, you know this. You know all those men wait for you to guide them because Chandra must be stopped, and there is no one but you to do it. Why won’t you act?”

Her brother’s eyes were dark-ringed, but his expression underneath the hardness of his smile was determined.

“Come with me,” he said. “I have something to show you.”

He led her to a garden. Within it stood a basin of water upon a plinth. She followed him to it; placed her hands upon it, at his urging.

“You always want knowledge,” he said. “Now you can receive it.”

“I have plenty of books,” said Malini, looking at her brother’s face, and not at the water. “Or I did once. And now I have Lata to continue my education.”

“You want to understand why I resist the path you think I must follow. To understand that, you must understand the knowledge the nameless granted me,” said Aditya. He hesitated. Then spoke again. “Malini, in truth, I need you. I need your insight.”

“You already have my guidance,” she said. “You know exactly what I think is best.”

“No,” he said. “I need you to see. I need you to understand what holds me here, and why I cannot leave until I know what I must do. When you see, you will.”

“I told Rao once long ago,” said Malini. “I don’t believe in fate.”

“And yet there are forces greater than us,” Aditya said. “Forces we cannot control, that carry us whether we will it or no. The greatest lesson the nameless has taught me is the strength it takes to recognize when there is no fight to be won, when there is no war of equals. Only the possibility of surrender.”

Surrender. It was an ugly word, a burning word. She jerked her hands from the basin’s edge.

“I don’t accept that,” Malini said sharply. “That isn’t my way.”

She took a step back.

“Malini,” said Aditya. “Please. If you don’t look, you will never know why I struggle.”

“Tell me, then,” she said. “Tell me, so we may move beyond your struggle and return to the real world.”

“You think I can reduce a vision of the nameless to words you’ll understand?” He laughed, a tired laugh. “Malini, be reasonable.”

She had been reasonable. She’d been more than reasonable. He had left his crown, his empire, for the sake of serving his new faith. And she had, very reasonably, begged him to return. Now she was here before him, with blood on the monastery’s doorstep, reasonably asking him to act.

No more.

She couldn’t look away from him, this brother she loved, who had rejected all the privileges life had given him, walking a path she could not understand. She let something rise inside herself then—something iron hard and angry.

“I am not asking for anything unreasonable,” Malini retorted. “I never have. But if you will not explain yourself, let me explain something to you: You and Chandra both believe the right to rule is something that must be given to you, by the mothers of flame, by blood, by the nameless. I’m no such fool. I know there is no higher power that sanctions a king or emperor. There is only the moment when power is placed in your hands, and there is one truth: Either you take the power and wield it, or someone else will. And perhaps they will not be as kind to you and yours.” She leaned forward. “You had your choice, Aditya. And when you relinquished power, Chandra turned on me and my women. Alori’s death. Narina’s death. Every single moment of suffering I have faced—they all lie on your shoulders. You must do better now.”

He flinched. She forced more words from her throat, more poison and truth, pressing her advantage as his stubborn passivity began to crumble.

“If I had the ability, I would obliterate Chandra,” she said slowly, deliberately. “I would cut off the trade routes that carry him rice and grain. I would burn his fields and destroy his mines. I would take every ally from him—by bribe or violence. And I would kill him. Slowly, and dishonorably. That is what I would do if I were lucky enough to be you, Aditya. To have your privileges. But I would never be you because I would never have rejected my birthright as you did.”

“You, my own gentle flower of a sister, dreaming of war,” he murmured. “I thought you of all people would understand my need to be free of such things. You were the most spiritual of the three of us as a girl. Do you remember that? No devotee of the nameless, certainly. But you used to make me take you to the mothers’ shrine so you could lay jasmine blossoms and kiss their feet.”

“That was before the first time Chandra hurt me,” Malini said crisply. “That ended my childhood fancies abruptly.”

He stared at her, uncomprehending. “When,” he said, “did he hurt you, as a child?”

She sucked in a breath. He didn’t remember.

She wanted to lift her hair and bare her neck. She wanted to show him how she had been hurt; to show him not simply the physical scar but the way Chandra’s cruelties large and small had flayed her sense of self, until she was raw, a furious tangle of nerves, until she was forced to build herself armor, jagged and cruel, to be able to survive.

But he would not understand. He had never understood. Her hurts and her terrors, which had consumed her all her life, had always been small to him. He had either never truly seen them or simply, easily forgotten them.

So instead, she walked away from the plinth and touched her fingertips to one of the leaves in the garden. Rubbed her fingers back and forth over the surface, feeling the slick strangeness of it. Lac. Sweet lac.

“There are sewers beneath the gardens, are there not? To carry the waters away and feed the fruit orchard.” She had seen the grates; heard the echo of them. “How deep are they? Large enough for men to walk through them?”

“I believe so,” Aditya said, clearly perplexed by her change in conversation.

“Can they be used to leave the gardens discreetly?”

“Perhaps,” Aditya said cautiously.

Malini thought of the oil that had been rubbed into Narina’s hair, and Alori’s, the day they burned. The wax stitched in small weights into their skirts.

She felt nauseous.

And exultant.

“I have a plan,” said Malini. “To ensure that we survive, and are able to leave this place, and seek out your army—and we must hope, by the mothers, that they’re still waiting for you.”

She told him each detail, carefully delineated, deliberate. She watched the horror on his face grow.

“I won’t do it,” said Aditya. “I won’t allow it.”

“You will,” said Malini. “You will. Or we will all die. Perhaps we could have fought them, but thanks to your unwillingness to act your numbers are depleted. This valley is a prison.” The only stroke of luck was the narrowness of the entry to the monastery gardens. “Ask your nameless for guidance if you like, Aditya, but it’s this plan that we will enact.”

“And if I will not?” he said softly.

She could have threatened him. The lords were frightened and angry and restless, and she knew how to weave pretty words and wear a pretty face while doing it. It would take so little to turn them against him. Or she could have wept or pleaded with her brother, wearing her wounded heart on her skin.

But she was tired of all of it.

But she needed him, still.

“Look at the world, not at the water,” said Malini. “Look at your sister. You know this is what must be done.”

The lords were still bickering when she returned. She went to stand by Rao’s side. Waited, until their noise lulled for a moment.

“My lords and princes,” she said. “May I speak?”

They fell utterly silent.

“My brother Chandra always told me I did not obey the priests or the mothers as I should,” said Malini. “He told me I should listen to the voice of the mothers in my heart. But when I listened, I heard nothing. And I knew he heard nothing, too.”

Truth and lie. She wound them together, a weaving so fine that it had the look of one singular flesh. “Then he sought to burn me. And I finally heard the mothers. And I remembered one fact we have all forgotten, my lords.”

She had them. Held them bound with her words, winding and winding.

“The first of the mothers, who founded our line and the empire, was a devotee of the nameless god, as the Alorans and Srugani are. In his faith and his nature, Aditya is closer to her than any scion of her line has ever been. He does not forget that Parijatdvipa is bound together for a reason. The mothers chose to ascend in fire to gain the power to protect their people. Our people, for we are one empire.”

There was a noise from behind her. Malini did not turn as the men bowed; as Aditya approached, dressed in his soft priestly robes, his head held as high as an emperor’s.

Aditya took a deep breath. Moved forward to stand before her.

“There is nothing to fear,” he said, in that measured, resonant cadence of his, the one that had always quelled even the fiercest men to quiet. “My sister speaks true. I have never forgotten the bonds between us, my brothers. And I know how to ensure not only our survival, but our victory.”