Chapter 72 Rao

RAO

The remaining army waited in an arc around the border of Parijatdvipa.

The generals were arranged at the back of the army. Rao stood with Khalil, Prakash, and Narayan and watched the sway and bend of the trees. Beneath the usual noises of an army, there was an eerie hush—an absence of birdsong and wind that made his blood run cold.

He touched his fingertips to the heart’s-shell dagger at his waist, then turned as Lord Khalil called his name. Khalil’s eyes were narrowed against the sunlight. He gestured Rao over.

“No need to stay on guard,” Khalil said, mild humor in his voice. “Everything rests in the hands of the brave soldiers and priests who walked into Ahiranya. We will live and die by their doing.”

“How can I calm myself, knowing that? How can anyone?”

“Try,” Khalil suggested. “Surely by now you know that war requires patience. The wait before victory or defeat would be interminable without it. Pray to the nameless if it will help.”

It would not. It would only remind Rao that if he were following the bidding of the nameless, he would be in Ahiranya with Malini. He would be embracing his own death. But he nodded and said, “That’s a good suggestion. Thank you.”

“My wife,” Khalil said, after a moment, “is wroth with you for bringing that Jagatay tribe into Dwarali. But I am not. I know you acted at the empress’s bidding, and I can see the benefit of it.”

“I am glad of that,” Rao said, and found that he was.

“The heart’s shell, of course, is useful,” Khalil said, touching a light hand to his own brace of stone-tipped arrows. “But when I am sultan I will make allies of them. Marry together our lines.”

“And then the heart’s shell will belong to your family,” Rao said slowly.

Khalil smiled.

“Perhaps it will have no worth in the new world the empress will carve,” Khalil said. “But we will see. I would be a fool to reject any gift from the empress that empowers my family.”

There was a thud of hooves as a rider approached them. Mahesh descended from horseback and removed his helm, giving Khalil a nod of respect. “No signs of fire yet,” Mahesh said. “And no danger either. The trees move as they always do.”

Mahesh, his loyal soldiers, and the warrior priests Malini had placed in his service had guarded the border diligently and knew it better than anyone. Rao nodded. He trusted him on this.

“Good, good,” Prakash said. He was seated in his chariot. Exhausted. He had traveled directly from Srugna, which was suffering with a terrible devastation of rot. “Boy,” he called out to a younger soldier, who startled and straightened up in response. “Bring Lord Mahesh water.”

The soldier obeyed, and Mahesh drank deeply. There was, Rao noticed, a mark high at Mahesh’s throat. A single line of lichen.

“Lord Mahesh,” he said quietly.

Mahesh met his eyes and gave him a joyless smile.

“You cannot serve here long without rot finding you, Prince Rao,” Mahesh said, grim acceptance in his voice. “I am glad you were spared that fate. But I have heard you have been following your own perilous destiny.”

“I fulfilled my destiny when I named Malini as empress,” Rao said. “Everything since then has been nothing but a series of disasters.”

“They call you the voice of the nameless,” Mahesh said. “Not the warrior priests the empress handed me, of course—those fanatical bastards only have time for the mothers—but the other soldiers speak about you. They say your sight is blessed.”

“A series of disasters,” Rao repeated. “But I am glad to hear that a grand tale follows me.”

Mahesh gave him a look Rao couldn’t read. Then he strode toward Rao and clapped a hand to his shoulder, drawing him away from the other generals.

“This work, this war… I do it for Prince Aditya,” Mahesh said. “As you do, I believe.” Mahesh shook his head. “For a while I thought we would lose you with him,” he said. “You wept tears like fire for days after his death. My men were sure you’d slip into death with him. I am glad it was not your fate. We are all glad.”

Visions played in licks of flame behind his eyelids. Snow beyond Dwarali. The lure of Alor. Fire, and Aditya’s gentle smile, his beckoning hands. Rao looked away, toward the bristling wall of trees.

“As am I,” Rao lied.

Mahesh’s grip tightened. “Good.” Released him. “That’s good.”

Mahesh had just mounted his horse and turned to supervise his men when cries of alarm rose up from the perimeter of guards around Rao and the other generals. Bows were nocked, arrows drawn, as they turned to a single rider racing toward them from the direction of the war camp. Rao’s heart was in his throat.

“Is that—the empress’s sage?” Narayan asked.

“Lower your bows!” Khalil barked.

Rao ran toward her. Lata slipped down from her horse into his arms, grasping his shoulders so tightly he thought she might rip through cloth.

“The High Priest,” she gasped. “H-he and other priests and—soldiers from Harsinghar, only a small handful, probably faithful roped into his schemes—they’re here, Rao. Riding to us now. They came to the war camp, but I didn’t wait to speak to them.” She found her footing and he released her. “He should be in Harsinghar,” she went on. “But someone betrayed us—set him free. So many priests with him. Rao, Generals, I—had to warn you all.”

He turned to look behind him and saw that the other generals were watching. Listening. Their expressions were grave. They knew that Hemanth had tried to work against Malini and place her nephew on her throne. They knew that Hemanth’s presence was an unnecessary complication.

“We cannot meet the High Priest with our weapons drawn,” Narayan said. “Let us talk to him and see what can be done.”

Hemanth approached with a crowd of priests behind him, all of them on horseback. He must have ridden swiftly from Harsinghar. His ash-mark was almost entirely erased by his own sweat. But his expression was entirely a priest’s—tranquil despite the heat and the suspicion of the men around him.

“My lords,” he said, his voice sonorous. “Where is the empress?”

“She is not able to speak with you, High Priest,” Khalil said first, cordially.

“Ah.” He looked to the forest. “Too late to face her directly, then,” he said. His eyes were sorrowful. “So be it.”

He gestured; a handful of priests rode toward the army at the border. Some of the soldiers around Rao reached for their weapons—Rao shook his head. He saw similar gestures from the other generals.

They could not simply attack unarmed priests. Rao knew that. And still, there was a bitter taste in his mouth as he watched them go.

“They are only passing on my words,” Hemanth said. “There is no need to fear them.”

“Your words,” Narayan repeated.

“I told them what I would say to you,” Hemanth replied. “They listened and drank my words like water.” He held his palms open, vulnerable. “The empress has come to Ahiranya with men of faith,” he said. “Men ready to burn. I prayed to the mothers, and in my dark grief, they spoke to me. They told me that those who love the mothers must help the empress face her glorious fate.”

“There are already priests with her,” said Rao, finding his voice. “High Priest, there’s no need for this.”

She has no need for you.

“She seeks to burn the temple of the Ahiranyi,” Hemanth said calmly. “I know this. She believes the deaths of holy men will destroy the yaksa. But the mothers have shown me a different and deeper truth. The truth I have always known: Her death remains the answer. The temple of the Ahiranyi does not matter. The priests do not matter. Only she matters. She must die.”

Lata jolted forward, rage on her face. Rao gripped her arm.

“If you attack the High Priest of the mothers of flame, what do you think will happen to you?” he muttered. Then he said, more loudly, “My men will hold you with respect and care, High Priest, until the empress’s work is done.”

Hemanth shook his head, smiling sadly.

“Soon the empress will burn,” said Hemanth.

“The empress will not ,” Lata replied immediately.

“I have no doubt she will do her duty,” said Hemanth. “Why else would she have entered Ahiranya? In her heart she has always known her purpose. When the yaksa are dead, and we are free of their presence, Prince Vijay will take the throne, and you men shall lead on his behalf. It will be a better world. You are lords and kings, and you will help him make the empire glorious once more.”

How neat it would be. How tidy. No more empress. Another sacrificial statue carved in gold, a Malini to be worshipped by future generations. The priests would burn incense for her, and say she had been good and pure and righteous, and they would forget that the true Malini had ruled an empire for a heartbeat, a single moment in time, then died under the inexorable hand of her own priesthood.

He saw hesitation in some of the faces around him. Narayan. Prakash. It made anger roil in his stomach.

“No,” he said roughly. “This was not what Aditya died for. I was there. I witnessed his death. Lord Mahesh and I—and our warriors—we made a vow to him. I will not betray my friend, my prince. I will not betray the son of flame. And that means I will not betray the empress. She has brought us here to see the yaksa finally destroyed, and our world free of their power. She has entered Ahiranya not to die but to show the priests the respect and reverence they deserve before they save us all.

“I was there when a priest of the nameless killed a yaksa,” he said angrily. “I witnessed that, too. What have you done, High Priest? What will you do? Will you burn now, and die by your ideals?”

A shadow passed through Hemanth’s eyes.

“To my regret, I must be there to rear Prince Vijay and teach him what it means to rule,” Hemanth replied.

“Is that so?” Rao laughed. “You convinced Chandra—a rotten husk of a man even when he was a child, I remember that too, High Priest—that he was worthy of a throne. You made him worse.” Rao’s voice was trembling with anger. “You burned women and turned their remains into weapons. You may claim to act for the greater good, but I have seen the nameless and the void my god resides in, and I have seen the flames of holy fire, and I see you . You are not worthy of your title or the respect it brings you,” he spat.

“Where are the soldiers who were left to watch you?” Khalil asked into the silence, his voice like stone.

“They are dead,” Hemanth said simply.

“You killed the empress’s soldiers,” Khalil said flatly. “Left to guard you.”

“I attempted to reason with them,” said Hemanth. “And I grieve for them now. But their loss could not be helped.”

Khalil gave a sharp nod to one of his riders. His soldiers surrounded Hemanth in an instant.

“Go with my men, High Priest,” Khalil said. “They will treat you with respect, I promise you. The empress is following the will of the mothers and the nameless in this, and we will not turn against her. Not even for you.”

Hemanth’s exhale was soft. His eyes closed, then opened. He lowered his arms.

“I hoped you would listen, my lords,” he said. “I hoped you would see trust. But if it is not to be—well. So be it. It begins regardless.”

Lata made a shocked noise. She’d turned, looking away from Hemanth. Looking to the army.

Rao turned, slowly, to look with her. Behind him Hemanth’s voice was heavy. Prophetic. “Ahiranya will burn,” he said simply. “Everything will burn, until the empress chooses a willing death. That is what my priests pray for. That is the only gift that will quench their fire.”

And as Rao watched, the distant priests turned from flesh to beings of light, and then beings of pure fire—and the Parijatdvipan army, surrounding them, was hit with a deluge of flame like a tidal wave.