Chapter 70: Priya

PRIYA

After the coronation, Priya went to Rukh.

There was a makeshift sickroom, for all the people who had been injured protecting the mahal. Rukh had his own bed. It was by the window, under a fall of sunlight. He was lying on his side, and the leaves of his hair had all turned, seeking the sun.

She had waited until she was sure she would live—that the waters wouldn’t take her life. She had waited until she felt like the magic had settled in her blood, steady and strong. To delay any longer would just be cowardice.

She didn’t want him to know that she was afraid.

“Rukh,” she said. “Are you awake?”

When he raised his head, the leaves of his hair moved. The spines of wood on his hands shifted, moving with the fine bones of his fingers, as he turned his body to look at her.

“Priya?”

“That’s me,” she said with a smile. “Is there room for me?”

He shuffled over. She sat on the bed beside him.

“I want to try something, if you’ll let me,” she said. She cupped his hand between two of her own. “I want to try to help the rot.”

“I don’t want to wear any more beads,” he said, resigned.

“No,” she said. “Not that. I want to try something magical. Will you let me try, Rukh?”

He was silent for a moment.

“I’m so tired,” Rukh said in a small voice.

“I know,” she said. She rubbed her thumb over his fingers, careful to avoid the broken skin around the green. “I know, Rukh.”

He looked down at her hand on his.

“Will it… will it hurt?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I don’t know. But if it does, you tell me, and I’ll stop.”

“Okay,” he said. He opened his fingers, with an audible snap of joints. “Okay,” he repeated. “I trust you.”

Priya tried to project confidence as she held his hand tighter. Breathed deep. Closed her eyes.

All she had was Ashok’s words—his memory that the thrice-born had once been able to manipulate the rot. All she had was her own hope, that what she was could be used for something good.

She let the magic rise in her. Pour out of her.

As she held his hand, she felt the rot within him, a living, magical sentience—the same green life that lived in the forest, in its trees and its earth—and felt it respond to her.

Slow, deep breaths. That was what it took, to move her magic gently, to bid the rot as she would any other green and living thing. Do not grow, she told it. Do not spread. She tried to draw it back, wither it into nothingness, but it had made a place in Rukh; hollowed itself a home, and without it he would die.

She did what she could. Only that.

Then she opened her eyes once more, and smiled at him.

“Priya,” he breathed deeply, as if he hadn’t breathed fully in a long time. “I… Priya, what did you do?”

“You’re not going to die,” said Priya. “I’ve made sure you won’t die. The rot won’t hurt you anymore.”

He looked wildly at his hands, which were still bark-whorled, still strange.

“But you can’t fix me? I’m… not going to change back?”

“I can’t make you like you were before,” Priya said slowly, looking at the roots curling around his ears; the lines of sap, like veins, that showed through at his throat and in the shaded whites of his eyes. “But you’re okay, Rukh,” she said gently. “You’re okay.”

Rukh nodded solemnly. Then his lip trembled, and he placed his forehead against her shoulder, and she felt big, racking sobs break out of him. She clambered further onto the bed with him, holding him tight. She pressed her face to his hair, her own eyes wet, and was so horribly, brilliantly glad that she hadn’t lost him too.

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “Rukh. It’s all right. It’s all right.”

Bhumika was alone, waiting for her, standing at a broken window of the great mahal. Staring at the Hirana. She was drinking from a bottle of wine. One of the regent’s own stores that had, miraculously, survived the carnage.

“Where’s Padma?” Priya asked.

“Sleeping,” said Bhumika. “Khalida is with her. You think I’d leave my newborn infant alone?”

“I was just asking,” said Priya. “Besides, you can leave babies alone to sleep. Can’t you?”

Bhumika muttered something unsavory under her breath and nudged the bottle of wine toward Priya. Priya took it and drank.

“So,” Bhumika said. “What will you do?”

Priya lowered the bottle.

“What do you mean?”

“I know you want to leave, Priya.”

Priya swallowed. Stared out at the Hirana, broken but standing, a light flickering upon the triveni, where some of the once-born remained. “I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to, Pri.” When Priya remained quiet, Bhumika said, “All I ask is that you… don’t simply go. Talk to me. There’s so much I need you for here. Unrest. Trying to ensure that the rebels and our own people don’t tear out one another’s throats. The threat of Parijatdvipa at our borders. The need for allies to trade with.”

“That is a lot, isn’t it?” Priya sighed, and rolled her shoulders, straightening her spine. “I’d like to help keep us safe. Though I don’t think Jeevan would be happy about that. He wasn’t well pleased when I cracked a soldier’s head with a branch.”

“He’d cope,” Bhumika said dryly.

“As for the rest—the truth is, I’m not a politician,” said Priya. “I’m not a warrior. I’m not even a maidservant anymore. I am…”

She thought of the feel of Ahiranya unfurling in her mind. Of power in her blood. Of what it meant to be touched by spirits—to be a temple child, a keeper of faith.

To be… elemental.

Bhumika was still watching her.

“Not very much at all,” finished Priya. “I’m not very much at all.”

“You’re an elder, now.”

“Come on. We both know you’re the only true elder here.”

Bhumika shook her head. “That’s not true, Priya,” she said. “Maybe you’ll see that one day.”

“I do want to leave,” Priya admitted. “I suppose I always want to do the wrong thing. But I promise you, I won’t go. I won’t leave you to suffer dealing with this work alone.”

Bhumika shook her head. “That isn’t what I want.”

“What do you want, then?”

“Tell me what you want to do,” Bhumika said. “That’s all I want to know.”

She wanted to sink beneath the waters again.

She wanted Ashok to be alive.

She wanted Malini. She wanted the woman who had held a knife to her heart. She wanted only things that would destroy her, and what good would that do anyone?

“So many things,” said Priya, finally. “They don’t matter.”

Bhumika waited. Then drew the bottle toward herself. “This is a very fine Saketan vintage,” Bhumika said, looking down at the bottle. “Vikram was fond of good wine. Once, I arranged for a cask to be brought from the Sonali stores. An old vintage, beloved of my uncle. He didn’t even touch it. And yet sometimes, I thought he valued me.” She raised her head. “Do you love her more than your own family?”

Of course Bhumika knew. Priya had never been good at hiding her feelings.

“We’re not a very good family,” Priya said. “We never have been. But she… she isn’t very good either.”

“Ah, Priya. That isn’t an answer.”

“Here’s my answer, then. I chose you. I chose—Ashok.” Her voice broke a little. She swallowed. “I choose Ahiranya first. I have to. It lives inside me.”

“One day you’ll leave,” said Bhumika. “I know you will. But I need you to make me a promise you won’t break.” Bhumika turned to look at her. “Make an ally of her,” she said. “A sweetheart, if you like, but an ally. If you cannot do that—if she will be a threat to our country—then I need you to remove her. Do you understand?”

Silence.

“You want me to kill her,” Priya said.

“I want you to use your closeness to her, if Ahiranya requires it,” Bhumika said calmly. “I want you to remember, always, where your loyalties lie.”

“Here?”

“Yes, Priya. Here.”

Priya shook her head.

“You think strangely,” she said.

“I think like a ruler,” Bhumika said, resignation in her tone. “I have to, now.”

“I may never seek her out. I may…” Priya shrugged, helpless beneath the weight of want and duty both. “She may not want anything to do with me. But if I go to her, if she does…”

“You shouldn’t lie to yourself,” Bhumika said gently. “Believe me. It does no good.”

Priya nodded. Pressed her knuckles lightly to her ribs, where Malini’s knife had touched her.

“You’re right,” Priya admitted. “I will go to her. But not right now. Perhaps not for a very long time. And if I do—if she will see me, if she…” Priya paused. Swallowed. Said carefully, “I won’t forget where my loyalties lie.”

“Thank you,” said Bhumika. She touched her shoulder to Priya’s. “More wine?”

“Absolutely.”

Priya drank, one deep swig, and lowered the bottle again. “I meant it, when I said I’m no politician and no warrior.”

“I know that, Pri.”

“But there is something I can do,” she said. “Something useful. Something good.”

“What is that?” Bhumika asked.

Priya looked out at the Hirana again. She thought of how long she had kneeled on the bed with Rukh. Rukh crying, devastated and full of hope.

She and Bhumika were finally the cure they were always intended to be. The destiny they deserved lay inside them, belonged to them alone.

A cure.The thought made her skin burn.

She touched a hand to her cheek, feeling the line of warmth that lay there, a stitch of throbbing fire. She breathed through the hope and her chest took in air, hollow to it like a thing carved open. For a second, one dizzying second, she felt as if she lay under water still, something growing in her lungs, her heart, something blooming, something she had forgotten—

Then the moment passed, and she lowered her hand. She was Priya again, and she knew what she needed to do.

“The rot,” she said. “I’m going to destroy the rot.”