The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3)

Chapter 11 Malini

MALINI

Ahiranya was a dark and imposing presence before them. At the forefront of her army, on her war chariot, Malini drank it in: the vast swathe of the trees. The utter silence surrounding the forest, a hush without birdsong or human voices to cut through it. Even the sound of her army—all groaning chariot wheels, heavy hooves, booted feet—seemed oddly muted.

The first time she’d come to Ahiranya, she had been a prisoner. She hadn’t seen much of it when she’d arrived—only what she could glimpse when she parted the curtain of her chariot. Only what had filtered through her numb misery. But even her shallow recollections were enough for her to see how utterly Ahiranya had changed since then.

The dust-strewn road, surrounded by homes and blasted, wizened trees, was gone, swallowed by verdant forest. There were immense tree trunks, cleaved and sharpened like blades, ringing the deeper forest like walls.

Stay away , everything said. Get out. The way a venomous snake wore its colors on its flesh. Just the same.

She felt a whisper against her ears. A breeze, or her name. She resisted the urge to shudder. She felt watched.

“Send forward the men,” she said to Mahesh. He raised a hand in signal, and a line of foot soldiers walked light-footed toward the forest, sabers in hand.

Of course Malini felt unease. She had expected to. She’d seen the guts and innards of that forest. Had walked through it, and survived it; had kissed Priya beneath a waterfall deep, somewhere, in its heart.

She knew there was a great deal to be afraid of.

What she had not expected was the other feeling that ran through her. It was not emotion. It was like a guiding star, tugging her blood as the tide draws the sea. The trees and thorns were a warning, but they beckoned to Malini all the same.

She wanted to walk between them. Into them.

Strange. Strange, and foolish. Her scarred chest throbbed.

There was a scream as one foot soldier suddenly plummeted, vanishing into the ground. Another fell, caught in a snare.

Traps, of course.

A gesture from one of her generals, and another cadre of soldiers moved to locate any traps they could. Blades were wrenched from the ground. Another man located a pit and marked it.

Once that laborious work was done, the next line of foot soldiers were sent toward the forest. She and her generals watched grimly as the soldiers slipped between the trees, melting into darkness. Malini gripped the hilt of her saber. The cool weight of metal grounded her.

There was a hush in the air. A heartbeat passed. Another. Then the cries began in the forest. Screams, then silence.

“The forest truly is impenetrable,” Mahesh murmured.

Malini nodded once. Their sacrifice of soldiers had proven it.

Now she only had to test her flames against the forest.

“Arrange your archers,” she ordered Khalil. “Make sure they’re prepared.”

“They’ll be ready for my signal,” he replied.

“Lord Mahesh,” she called. On his horse, Mahesh turned. Inclined his head. “Bring your men forward.”

The priestly warriors—her once enemies—moved forward on foot. They held their weapons. Before each of them lay a black chest. They were prepared.

Only Malini herself was left.

Prakash, quietly, cleared his throat. Malini looked at him. He was in the chariot beside her and his face was troubled.

“Empress,” he murmured. “I still suggest caution. The Ahiranyi will have the advantage among the trees. Even if the trees were not… as they are… they know the terrain better. To enter is to walk into darkness, where blades and magic may wait for us. Even a single arrow could destroy you.”

“I have heard you, Lord Prakash,” Malini said evenly. “But I am Empress of Parijatdvipa. It must be me.”

It must be me.

Not because of bravery, or because she possessed the desire to strive forward in battle in the way her brothers’ teachers had always urged them to. Just and righteous warfare did not concern her. The battle tactics girls learned in court were by necessity cruel and viperous and underhanded, and above all, clever . But this was not cleverness, either. Her desire was driven by a rage deep and acrid, a rage that had swelled and deepened after Priya’s betrayal of her.

If Ahiranya burned—even the smallest span of it—Malini wanted to be the one to strike the blow. She wanted to know if it could burn at all.

“Sahar, arrange my defenses,” she said to the head of her guard. Then, turning her head to the left, she called out, “Rao. With me.”

From horseback at Malini’s left side, Sahar gave a nod. With a gesture of her hand, the women who made up Malini’s personal guard fanned around her.

Rao, in his own chariot, had straightened from the forward-shouldered slump he’d been in. His bloodshot eyes met her own. He gave a firm nod. Malini’s charioteer gave a click at the horse, and her vehicle lurched forward.

They went to the border of the trees.

The snarl of branches was menacing—leaves blood-black and profuse, limbs stretching their fingers to the soil. The horse drawing Malini’s chariot whickered and resisted the tug of the reins as her charioteer tried to guide it forward.

“Stop,” Malini said. She did not speak loudly—she felt like a prey animal, instinctually turning to a soft voice to avoid the attention of what lay beyond the trees. But her charioteer heard her, and with a nervous bob of his head, he stopped.

“What are you doing?” Rao asked. He had already alighted from his chariot, already had a chakram ready in his hand. It was foolish of him to ask.

Malini did not answer. She too alighted. Her feet met the soil with a thud that did not echo—the sound swallowed by earth and tree alike. She drew her saber, holding the gleaming moon-scar of it at an angle at her side, ready for the possibility of battle.

She met Sahar’s eyes. If Sahar disagreed with her decision, she did not say so. “Stay close to me, my lady,” she said.

In her left hand, against her hip, Sahar carried a black lacquered box.

Only one box of false fire. One burning, squirming thing stolen from a woman’s death, to protect the Empress of Parijatdvipa.

She strode forward.

There were cries of alarm from her generals, who were still a sensible distance back. A voice yelled, Hold . Rao cursed, a soft thing under his breath.

“Malini,” Rao began. And without pausing, Malini said calmly, “Will my warriors allow me to face Ahiranya’s wrath alone, Rao? Or will you walk with me?”

She did not turn her head, but she heard it as he and her personal guard thronged around her—heard the clang and thud of boots, armor, maces being hefted up; the songlike sound of a sword whip being unraveled from a belt.

It was absurd to think any of their weapons could stand against what waited in the trees. But Malini had brought them here. Malini carried her own saber in a tight clenched fist like a shining lamp against the dark, a shield against horrors. She could not judge them for it. As long as they obeyed. As long as they followed.

One step beyond the line of trees, only one, and she felt the coldness of the air—sticky as tree sap, icy as a deep river. The ache in her chest twisted, yawned open. If her hands had been unimpeded, if she had not had her saber, she would have clutched her own chest—felt the scar through cloth, searching for the open wound she could feel in her soul, if not her flesh.

“Empress,” Sahar said in a low, tense voice. “Shall we turn back?”

“No. Not yet.”

That same tug in her chest, that same memory of how the forest had rustled, breathed around her when she’d escaped her imprisonment inside it. She looked down and watched as the ground shuddered. Green roots slithered through soil toward her. Moving, unwinding.

The roots… hesitated.

Grim satisfaction ran through her. The forest sensed what Sahar carried. It feared harming her.

A half step in front of her was a hewn tree, sharp-edged flowers growing red along its trunk. She paused before it, feeling that same strange tug in her scarred chest, in her heart.

Malini. You’re here.

“The box,” she said. Sahar passed it to her.

She opened the box. Set her own saber aflame.

Priya , she thought into the dark trees. Into the dark of her own chest, the void left there. If you are here, I hope the fire finds you. I hope you burn.

She struck her saber into the bark. It melted through the wood like a blade through flesh.

And Malini heard—her own name. In Priya’s voice.

And pain.

It was madness, utter madness, Priya was not here , but Malini’s scar was agony; her skin was soil where a root had been ripped free. She gave in and clutched a white-knuckled hand to her chest. With the other, she withdrew the saber, wrenching it free from the wood. It was easy enough; the wood gave way, with a crack like bone and marrow.

The flames spread wildly.

One step back, and another, with Rao’s hand tight on her arm and Sahar holding her shield between them and the trees, and they were in the open air again. The fire was spreading like a sparking wheel, a sickle of flame. Around it the wood blistered and burned—birds flew screeching from the branches, and the whole forest rippled, alive and furious.

Thorns shot roughly from the ground. The air was thick, vibrating like a plucked string—and with a crash of pressure, an unfolding, the soil closed over the flames, smothering a vast swathe of them. Not all. But enough that one of Malini’s questions had been securely answered.

So. False mothers’ fire was not enough. Not enough to burn Ahiranya in a breath.

Not enough, most likely, to kill the yaksa.

But it was enough to begin the assault on Ahiranya.

Malini withdrew, back to her chariot. Sahar climbed on with her. The charioteer, with obvious relief, turned them toward the line of men.

Her waiting generals—Khalil, Narayan, Prakash—were visibly restraining themselves from comment.

A sharp nod from her was all it took. Khalil moved forward, raised a hand, and signaled the archers.

A golden flock of arrows flew, each tipped with what remained of Chandra’s stolen, murder-borne flames. The forest burned once more, and the ground shuddered and roiled. The horses made an awful noise, trying to resist the control of their charioteers and riders; Malini gripped tight to her chariot and held on.

“Lord Mahesh,” she called out. And her generals took up the cry for her.

“Now!”

In the gaps that burned through the trees, warriors raced into the forest, flames upon their swords.

Malini watched them go. Her tongue tasted of ash. Her chest ached. It was like a thrum, a pulse inside her—a sinew strained, a string that could not be cut.

As the forest burned, so did something inside her. Where she had been stabbed. Where her heart had been stolen from her.

What had Priya done to her?