The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3)

Chapter 3 Rao

RAO

“There will be war, of course.”

The snap of a flask. Liquor being poured. The scent of it was sharp—iron-rich, so close to blood that Rao could only turn his face from it and stare at one of the lamps along the wall. The flame inside it flickered orange and yellow.

A flame could burn blue, if it burned hot enough. Rao knew that now.

He kept silent as another voice muttered, and then another. War, yes. There would be war. The Ahiranyi had sent an assassin, after all, to murder Parijatdvipa’s holy empress. There would have to be vengeance. No— justice . The Ahiranyi would learn Parijatdvipa’s strength once more.

An assassin. The word rattled strangely in Rao’s head.

Priya had saved them all at the Veri river. She’d fought for them, nearly died for them. He’d dragged her flower-riven body from the riverbed himself. Without her the empress would have no throne at all.

But there was no denying that she had stabbed Malini, in the end.

“… impassable borders,” another man was murmuring. Rao turned his head, following the voice. One of the Srugani. Rao did not recognize him, and had no interest in recognizing him, but he noted the sweat on the man’s forehead and the tension in his jaw with a disinterested eye, just for the sake of something to do apart from thinking of flame, and flame, and flame. “We sent warriors to Ahiranya, but the trees consumed them. Like teeth in the maw of a beast. You will not believe me, my brothers, but if I were asked to choose between the jaws of a tiger or Ahiranya’s forest…” He shook his head. “I would choose the tiger,” he said heavily.

I believe it , Rao thought. He’d seen what Ahiranya’s forest was like firsthand. He’d seen what the rot could do to a body.

He said nothing. The highborn around him shifted uneasily on their bolster pillows. There was a clink, as more liquor was opened and shared.

Mourning meant no liquor, no gambling, no sex until the ritual of grieving was done. The empress and her court of loyal women prayed still by the smoking ashes of flowers. He hadn’t gone to the funeral—he would rather have cut out his own eyes than watch an empty pyre burn in Aditya’s name—but he’d heard florid descriptions of Malini’s noble misery as she kneeled by the flowers, and her gray face, and her white grief clothes, bleached like sun-touched bones. A perfect mourner. She had to be cajoled to even eat.

And yet here were her men in a dark room with the shutters closed and the curtains drawn and candles burning, drinking their way through the finest liquors in Parijat and eating their fill as they pondered the doom ahead of them.

“The priests claim the yaksa will return,” a young Parijati noble said. His voice trembled a little.

A murmur of unease. One man laughed.

“Impossible,” he said.

“If the priests say it, then it must be so,” another man said. There was a ripple of disagreement.

The yaksa are returning , Rao thought. He’d seen a yaksa’s severed arm, a relic of the Age of Flowers, blooming with new life. He’d seen a vision from the nameless god in a pool of water. A coming. An inevitable coming.

He’d seen Aditya’s eyes when Rao had shown him the severed arm. He’d seen the moment when Aditya had made his choice: when Aditya had decided the nameless had a purpose for him, that it was time to burn—

Rao stood abruptly, knocking over a cup of wine in the process. The man next to him swore as it pooled messily on his lap.

“Apologies,” Rao said shortly. The man opened his mouth to say something—but when he met Rao’s eyes, it abruptly snapped shut.

Rao turned and left the room. No one made any effort to stop him.

For days, Rao had been possessed by a vague but urgent desire to vanish into the anonymity of a pleasure house and drown himself in a vat of cheap wine surrounded by strangers, but the time he’d spent in the presence of his fellow highborn had made clear to him that he wasn’t fit for company.

That was fine. He’d be alone instead. He bribed one of the guards for drink and kept on walking.

There were a few low-roofed chambers overlooking a garden of lotus ponds. He climbed up to the lowest of them, swinging up one-armed, his other arm cradling three flasks of arrack—his least favorite liquor. As soon as his legs were on firm roof-stone, he pried open a flask and set the rim to his lips. Bitter, fiery liquor burned against the roof of his mouth. He swallowed fast, letting the fire run right through him.

He wanted to drink until he couldn’t feel his own skin; until he was a blank, buzzing, nauseated void of a man, all the grief scooped out of him.

Another swig. And two, and three. He leaned back on his elbows and stared out at Harsinghar.

From here, the city was a night sky laid out on the earth, dark and formless and flecked here and there with light. It looked almost peaceful. From here, he couldn’t see the mourners still crying and praying outside the walls of the mahal. He couldn’t hear them, either. It was a relief to hear nothing but the wind—to feel nothing but liquor and the sharp bite of the night’s breeze against his face, turned up at the sky.

But, ah. If he could still feel his face, well—then he had more drinking to do.

So he drank more, until even the darkness had softened. When he heard a clatter—and felt a stone bash sharply against his leg—he swore with surprise, and the flask slipped from his drink-dulled grip. It rolled, spilling all the arrack left in it, which wasn’t much.

“Rao?” a voice called. “It’s me.”

“Lata?” He sat up. “Why did you throw that? Come up.”

“I can’t climb to you,” she replied, voice small in the dark—small and far away. “I’ve already tried. Didn’t you hear me?”

“No,” he said. Slurred , more like. “But I’ve had a great deal to drink. I’d climb down to you, but I’d probably break my neck.”

He didn’t have to hear her to know she was sighing and shaking her head, that her forehead had creased a little, the way it did when she was lost in thought or thoroughly vexed.

“I didn’t see you at the funeral,” she said.

A punch of grief through his chest. The funeral. The funeral.

“Did Malini notice?” Rao asked.

“No. The empress was… distracted.”

He could hear the thread of worry in Lata’s voice. Malini did not miss things. But Aditya’s death, and the actions of Elder Priya, had changed her. She’s wounded , Lata had said to him once. Not just in the flesh. Somewhere deep within her, where no physician can heal her.

Rao had understood. He knew how that felt.

“Good,” he said. He thought about opening the next flask, but something like panic bubbled through him. His hands were shaking. “I should have come,” he said. “But I… Lata. I didn’t need to see Aditya burn. I already—”

“Rao,” she said. Her voice was thick. “I know.”

Suddenly he was tired of not seeing her face, of being alone on that roof with a vile drink he didn’t even like. He slid to the edge and jumped down. He tumbled, his elbows catching the stone, face pressed to the ground. He watched Lata hurry toward him, her sari skirt a blue shadow against the grass. She grasped him by the shoulder.

“Get up,” she said. “What did you drink?”

“Arrack,” he said.

Another sigh. “Can you get up on your own, or do I need to find guards to help me?”

He insisted he could get up, and between them they managed to haul him to his feet. He leaned a little of his weight on her shoulder, and the two of them stumbled through the lotus garden into the corridors of the mahal.

“You’re too heavy for this,” she said after a few minutes. “Use the wall for support instead.”

“Should have thrown me into the pond,” he muttered, as he let her go and grasped a lantern sconce. “That would have woken me up.”

“Or drowned you.”

That wouldn’t have been so bad , he thought. But thank the nameless, he had the sense not to say it.

Usually there were curtains covering the doors that led off the corridors of the mahal—expansive silk things in peacock green and lustrous blue, shot through with gemstones and silver thread. It took his dazed eyes a moment to register that all the curtains had been replaced with plain white cloth that hung heavy, too thick to billow with the soft night winds. He grasped one curtain in his hands. Felt its weight.

“Do you think,” he heard himself say, as if from a distance, “that anyone really mourns him?”

“Of course they do,” Lata said from somewhere behind him. “The empress does.”

He swallowed, his throat unaccountably aching. Grasped the cloth tighter.

“Yes,” he said. “She does.”

He felt her hand on his upper arm. A light touch. Then a man’s voice, from the gloom ahead of them.

“Prince Rao,” the voice said. Heavy footsteps followed it. “I…”

The voice trailed off as the man emerged into the lamplight. Romesh was one of Low Prince Ashutosh’s men—his high-collared, long-sleeved tunic, marked with Ashutosh’s liegemarks, hid the leaves of rot at his arms and his throat. His eyes darted from Lata to Rao—from the empress’s advisor to one of her generals—and then he bowed and said, “I’ll take my leave.”

“No,” Lata said. “Please, take him. I’m afraid he’s had too much to drink.” She stepped away from Rao, walking swiftly toward Romesh—and then beyond him. “Take him to his chambers,” she urged. “Prince Rao must rest. The empress will have need of him soon. There is much work to do.”

Work. War, he supposed, was indeed work.

Romesh nodded his head in acknowledgment, then deferentially took Rao by the arm. They walked together in silence for a long moment.

Rao’s head was not exactly beginning to clear, but the worst of his dizziness had shifted.

“You were looking for me,” he said eventually.

“Perhaps when you’re less in your cups, my lord,” Romesh said gruffly.

“You want to speak to me? You’ll find no better time. We’re alone, after all.” Silence—just their footsteps, the crackle and spit of the lanterns. “You’re nervous,” Rao said. “You sought me out. So speak. Tell me what you want.”

He turned his head, lights blurring around him. Romesh’s jaw was set, his expression conflicted. Then he said, “The Ahiranyi woman. The—good one. She’s your prisoner?”

It took a long moment for Rao to understand what he meant. The good one. “Sima?”

Romesh nodded curtly.

“Me and the other men—we want to know how she is.”

“She’s caused no trouble.” She really hadn’t. All through the war, she’d been firm and determined. She’d waded into deep, corpse-infested water to save Priya. But ever since—ever since everything —she’d been gray and silent. When he’d arranged her safe chambers and promised her safety, she’d only nodded and murmured her thanks, and turned her face to the wall.

And Rao had… simply let her.

“She’s proved herself trustworthy,” Romesh muttered. “She was good in the war. She fought hard. My lord, if you’ll let me speak plain—she’s not responsible for the actions of the other one.” A pause, and then he said, almost reluctantly, “I liked them both. But the other one… she made her choices.”

Everyone knew what Priya had done. A thorn knife. A dead priest. Stone cracked through with flowers, and Malini clutching her own bloodied chest, weeping as the blood spilled through her own fingers.

“Sima is safe,” Rao said. “Safe and well treated. I’ve vowed to protect her. That won’t change. You can tell your men I’ve made a promise I won’t break.”

In his own chambers, he forced himself to drink some water. He could only take a few mouthfuls.

His tongue was dry and his mouth tasted foul. His eyes had started to burn. He rubbed them, the prickling heat only growing stronger.

He couldn’t rest tonight. Not after Aditya’s funeral. Not after an empty pyre had burned. Not when all he could remember was Aditya looking at him, tears bright and shining in his eyes.

What is a star?

Aditya, fire climbing over his skin. Aditya, in Rao’s hands and then not.

Distant fire—

He was walking before he consciously chose to do so. He was steadier now. Steady enough, at least, to walk in a moderately straight line. Corridors, and flickering lights, and the faces of bowing maids—and then—

“Let me in,” he said, and the soldiers protecting Sima’s chambers stepped aside and opened the doors, and let him pass.

Sima jumped to her feet when he entered. She’d been sitting on the floor cushions, but she straightened swiftly, brandishing something in her hands. There was a mirror behind her, great and silver, and in it he could see his own reflection—a wavering, insubstantial figure—and the tense lines of her back, ready for violence.

She met his eyes. Dropped whatever she’d been holding.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why I came here so—late. I should have known—not. Not to do so. Was that a knife?”

She wasn’t supposed to have weapons. Even after Lata had asked him to look after her, he’d had to negotiate with Malini’s other advisors for custody of her. The Ahiranyi prisoner cannot have weapons. The Ahiranyi prisoner cannot leave her chambers. If the Ahiranyi prisoner seeks to break the rules of her imprisonment, then the price must be death.

“No,” she said, after a beat. Her voice was rough. “Just a clay bowl.”

Rao looked down. The clay was a shard. Jagged enough to cut.

“Just a bowl,” he agreed slowly.

Sima kept looking at him. She didn’t ask him why he was here, but he could read the question in her face.

“I’m sorry,” he said abruptly, “that I haven’t made your imprisonment more bearable. And I am sorry…” He trailed off, unable to find words.

“It’s not your fault,” she said thinly. “Priya made her decision. And I made mine.”

He still couldn’t quite believe she’d chosen this: to part from Priya. To ally herself with Parijatdvipa, even if it meant imprisonment and suspicion. If it hadn’t been for Lata, it could have meant Sima’s death. And he’d seen Sima and Priya together. They’d fought for each other. Nearly died for each other. How could they have wrenched apart so swiftly, so completely?

He rubbed his aching, stinging eyes. “I’ll do better,” he promised. “There are people here in Harsinghar who care about you, Sima. You’re not surrounded by enemies. Or—not only enemies. And if… if you want the company of friends… Or if…”

He was swaying. When had that begun?

“Rao!” Sima was shouting. He watched her mouth move, distantly aware, as his knees buckled.

He heard the doors bang open as the dark swallowed him.

A dream.

No. Not a dream. He knew this. He’d seen this before, in dark water. In Aditya’s eyes.

A vision.

The void surrounded him. Dark, vast and liquid. And then it bloomed.

Mountains. White snow. A slash in the stone, a wound, bloodletting. Blood the color of deep waters.

A coming. An inevitable coming.

A man holding out his palm. Aditya, smiling even as he wept.

Rao. Rao—

He opened his eyes.

His vision swam for a moment, then steadied. The two soldiers were holding Sima tight by the arms.

“Let her go,” he forced out. His words were rough and slurred, but the soldiers understood and set her free. He forced himself up onto his palms, his knees. His whole body was shaking, god-struck. “Didn’t you think—a physician—might be more useful to me? Than…?” He gestured vaguely at Sima, who was rubbing her arms, her expression tight.

“Sorry, my lord,” one soldier muttered, looking suitably ashamed. The other was already ducking out of the room—likely finally in search of some real help. Rao almost called out to summon him back. A vision was not an illness. No medicine could cure it.

But when he managed to get up to his knees, he heard Sima whisper his name.

He looked at Sima’s gray face, her horrified eyes. And then he looked beyond her, unable to meet that gaze.

He met his own in the mirror.

His eyes, in the silvery glass, were a smear of fiery gold.