Chapter 15 Priya

PRIYA

Deep breath in. Out.

The fire from the forest was gone. The feeling of Malini’s hands was gone too. Priya couldn’t even feel an echo of them. There was no pain. Just the sound of water, a bubbling rush around her ears. Just the feeling of liquid slipping between her fingers. Just strange hands on her hair, cold as silt.

“Hush.” A whisper of a voice. “You’re with me, sapling. You’re safe.”

Priya opened her eyes. The sangam was nothing like that feverish dream, that mask of fire, those furious hands. Around her it was water and a winding, strange sky, speckled with stars. And above her, looking down at her, was Mani Ara. Finally , Mani Ara.

“The Parijati used fire,” Priya said shakily, hoping if she focused simply on that memory the dream she’d drifted into with Malini would slip by unnoticed. “Fire like before.”

Even on her shadow self, here within the sangam, the scars on her body were livid. They were a fiery gold at her throat, where Malini had burned her, and at her side, where false fire had touched her in the battle against Chandra. She could see herself reflected in Mani Ara’s eyes, which were like deep waters, or a mirror.

“Yaksa,” Priya breathed. “Where have you been?”

“Here,” Mani Ara murmured. “Always here.” Gentle hands on her. “But even now, you’re too weak to hold me. Even now, the fire almost took you.”

The fire in Ahiranya’s forest. Fire on Malini’s sword, and in Ahiranya’s trees.

She thought of the fire. The way she had felt it burn and had recoiled from it—and had found herself in a dream, with Malini standing over her.

“There may be more fire,” Priya said, panic clawing through her. “They’ll burn the trees. They’ll—if they reach Hiranaprastha—”

“Their fire isn’t as strong as they believe,” Mani Ara said. Indulgent. “It is no mothers’ fire. It cannot kill me.”

“Their fire will kill our people,” Priya said. “Yaksa, Mani Ara, please—Ahiranya and its people are in danger, please protect them. If the empire isn’t stopped, they’ll burn.”

A finger touched her mouth, silencing her.

“Of course Ahiranyi people will die if the empire is not stopped.” Mani Ara did not sound afraid. “But we are stronger than the empire.”

The yaksa who wore Sanjana’s skin had said the same thing. It did nothing to soothe Priya’s panic.

“You wouldn’t let Ahiranyi people die,” Priya said. But even as she said it she knew the yaksa would. She felt it like a string plucked, a reverberation that ran all the way through her. “You must care,” Priya said, choked. “They’re your worshippers. They love you.”

“Their love is sweet,” Mani Ara said. “But they did not hollow themselves for me. They are only mortals, my dear one.” Her hand on Priya’s cheek was tender. “They may kill a thousand Ahiranyi, as long as you live,” she said, smiling.

Priya shook her head beneath that hand. She must have said something, must have let the mournful no, no, no clawing at her throat spill out, because Mani Ara laughed, not unkindly.

“You can save Ahiranya, if you love it so,” she said. “Grow strong before the empire can set your loved ones aflame. That is all you need to do.”

“I am strong,” Priya insisted, even though she felt weak—heartsick and small under Mani Ara’s hands. “Haven’t I found you, finally? I’m strong enough.”

Mani Ara leaned over her. The yaksa breathed—an inhalation and exhalation against her hair, as light and as powerful as wind on still waters.

“You are still imperfect,” Mani Ara murmured.

“How do I become stronger?”

“Keep reaching for me, sapling. Keep making a hollow of yourself. Become nothing but mine. That will make you strong.”

Useless words. Priya had kneeled on the Hirana and deep beneath it beside the deathless waters and prayed and prayed for Mani Ara’s strength. She’d worn the crown mask for so long and reached so deep that she’d changed herself, becoming more yaksa—more flower-skinned and green-veined—by the day. How was that not enough? What else could she possibly do?

The yaksa didn’t care about anyone. Not Padma or Rukh. Not any other child in Ahiranya. They would not have cared for Priya either, but they needed what she was—temple raised and thrice-born, almost hollow enough, almost strong enough. And there was nothing she could do to change their hearts.

She should have felt helpless at that realization. Lost.

Instead, rage was kindling in her chest. They could not disregard everything and everyone that mattered to her so easily. Not after what they’d made her do. Not after what she’d given up for them.

She met Mani Ara’s liquid eyes.

“If my people die,” Priya said slowly, deliberately. “If Ahiranya dies, I will not be anything for you. I’ll fill the hollows of myself up with grief and anger. There won’t be any room for you.”

Something flickered, a dark fish, in Mani Ara’s eyes. For a moment, Priya did not know if Mani Ara would laugh sweetly or tear her soul to strips.

Priya did not look away.

“You are my priestess,” Mani Ara said. There were echoes of waters in her voice. “My hands. My power is yours. Wield it, if you like.”

Can I? Can I truly?

She didn’t ask. She didn’t want this power snatched away from her. But somehow Mani Ara knew. Her face softened. She pressed one wood-whorled thumb beneath Priya’s left eye socket, caressing the shape of it, close enough to gouge.

“If you cannot wield my power, then who else?”

She leaned down.

“Wake, sapling,” Mani Ara whispered, the almost-kiss of her mouth tracing Priya’s hairline. “Wake now. And grow strong and empty. For me.”

Priya’s eyes snapped open. She turned onto her side and heaved onto the ground beneath her.

She’d woken in a sickroom—made private by curtains, with one of the mask-keepers hovering anxiously over her. But there was nothing that any physician could do for her, never mind any once- or twice-born mask-keeper, so she waved away their questions and slipped out of the room. There were other bodies behind curtains—figures groaning in pain, and others utterly silent.

Hiranaprastha smelled of smoke. Underneath it was the sensation of the green, and that felt and smelled like charnel and decay to Priya’s overwhelmed senses.

The yaksa had been busy after her collapse, and they’d been angry . The borders of Ahiranya were newly rich with rot. She could feel new trees, which were blood-heavy—feel the weight of the Parijatdvipan bodies speared violently on their branches. The power that had been poured into those trees was a rageful lash of magic—splintered and rotten to the core. It was only luck and an empty stomach that stopped her from being sick again when the sensation of it washed over her.

She dragged her body across the mahal to the armory and found Ganam outside it, nursing a pipe, crouched on the ground with his back to the wall. He lowered his pipe when he saw her. Inclined his head. His expression was serious, tired.

“You’re better?”

“I’m standing,” Priya said, which she knew meant nothing. “I’m sorry, Ganam.”

“For what?”

“For not defending you all. You were relying on me.”

“We were,” he said. “But you didn’t choose what happened to you. There were enough pilgrims who saw the state of you to prove that.”

“The fire did something to me,” Priya blurted out. “That was why my magic wasn’t there, fighting alongside you. How many people did we lose?”

He shook his head.

“We haven’t counted all of the dead yet.”

“Then I should help,” she said. It was something to do, at least. Something better than remembering Malini’s hands at her throat, or Mani Ara’s lips on her forehead.

“There’s nothing urgent about it, Priya. We’ll bury the bodies later. Maybe we’ll mourn them. Come and sit down. Smoke with me.”

She didn’t want to smoke, but sitting down did sound good. She joined him, pressing her back to cool stone as she slid to the floor. It felt nice to not move—to sit in silence. She closed her eyes.

But Priya had never been good at long silences. She was soon restless, words clawing at her throat. She opened her mouth and let some of them tumble out.

“I saw Mani Ara.” She didn’t open her eyes, but she sensed Ganam’s stillness. Felt it, as his body turned toward her, attentive. “I’ve been seeking her all this time. It’s what the yaksa wanted me to do. And I finally saw her again, and spoke to her, and now I know the yaksa don’t care if any of you live or die. They don’t care at all.”

A beat of silence.

“I knew that,” Ganam said heavily. “And I think you knew it too.”

“Mani Ara said I am her hands. That her power belongs to me. That I can use it. So it doesn’t matter if the yaksa don’t care, because I care if any of you live or die, Ganam. And I have her power.” She opened her eyes and turned to look at him, seeing the skepticism on his face—and the tentative hope. “The yaksa need me,” she said. “Mani Ara needs me. I don’t know why, but they do. So they’ll care about what I care about, or they’ll get nothing from me.”

He swallowed. Nodded.

“So,” he said. “All-powerful Priya. What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know yet,” she whispered. “Anything I can. Even if it kills me.”