The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3)

Chapter 19 Bhumika

BHUMIKA

Their food supplies had begun to deplete. They had no choice but to mingle with other people. As evening fell, they reached a caravanserai.

There had been strange, unseasonable rain. It was not monsoon season, but the rain had poured for hours. The road to the caravanserai was churned, thick with mud, and the guards at the perimeter fence looked tired and irritable, mud staining their trousers to their knees. They held up spears when Bhumika and Jeevan drew close but only in a desultory way. They were doing their job. There was nothing to fear.

Not yet, anyway. But she kept up her guard, making sure her eyes were demurely lowered, her pallu—wet though it was from the rain—drawn over her hair. She let Jeevan step forward and speak for her.

“Where are you from?” the guard asked abruptly. He looked between them. His scowl deepened. “Not Alor. I can tell.”

Bhumika had tried her best to ensure they wouldn’t draw interest. She and Jeevan had practiced speaking Zaban with a less pronounced Ahiranyi accent. She’d tied her sari in the Aloran style, and he had prepared a lie he trotted out now, claiming they were from a village on the far border of Alor, where languages and accents mingled easily. But she had known it was unlikely to be enough. They were not actors.

“Show us your arms,” the guard said. “Both of you. Go on.”

Jeevan rolled up his sleeves, and with a show of hesitation, she did the same. The guards leaned forward, inspecting their skin for rot. When none was found, a guard said, “Legs now.”

“I am a married woman,” she said in a small voice. She was not baring her legs. “I… I shouldn’t.”

“Tell your wife,” another guard said lazily, gesturing at Jeevan.

Jeevan leaned forward, murmuring something apologetic, and clasped the man’s hand. She knew he was passing coin between them and was unsurprised when the guard—without any visible change of expression—tucked away the coin, then nodded at his fellows. Spears were moved aside. The way was open to them.

“I should have made you pay double,” the guard muttered, as the two passed. “An outsider’s tax.” But he did nothing more to stop them.

Inside, there were stalls selling food, many carefully covered to protect them from the deluge of rain. But it was not the market that snared her attention; it was the lake that lay at its center. It was vast, unchecked by trees or hills—a single flat sheet of waters ringed by the caravanserai’s walls, and rest houses, and market stalls. Its surface was covered utterly in blue lotus flowers, which grew so profusely they were an azure blanket. The water between them was ringed by green algae. It was beautiful, and it called to her strangely.

“I’ll get our supplies,” Jeevan said, voice low. “Then we can leave swiftly.”

It seemed a shame to leave a place of relative safety. But she didn’t argue. She inclined her head. “I’ll wait by the water,” she said, and pointed to the water’s edge, by an elderly lady’s stall.

“I won’t be long,” he replied, anxious, and swept away.

There was no drop between the water and land. The lake was very high indeed. The rain had raised it rapidly, she was sure. She stood and looked down into it, gently adjusting her shawl, half expecting to see her watchers in the water once again. She listened to the threads of conversation moving around her. People muttering, concerned about crop yields. Talk of rot. The air was thick with fear.

The elderly lady at her stall tutted loudly; Bhumika raised her head.

“Keep away from the water, little sister,” the older woman called in thick Aloran. It took her a moment to parse her words.

“Is it dangerous?”

“Old stories,” said the older woman. “But old stories have grains of truth, eh? They say Utpala is the open mouth of the nameless god. Fall in, and you’ll see the whole universe, and lose your life to it.”

Bhumika looked down again, briefly. This is not the mouth the stories spoke of , she thought.

“The flowers are certainly beautiful,” Bhumika said.

The stall keeper snorted.

“They are. And our only defense against being inflicted in holy visions, no doubt.” Then she grinned, to show that it was more of a joke. “Now will you buy? No? Then give my stall some room, little sister. You’re scaring my customers away.”

It was said genially, but Bhumika took it as the order it was and moved away.

She walked leisurely away from the water and let her eyes thoughtlessly skim the land around the lake. She didn’t let her gaze pause when she saw a group of men watching her, but internally she tensed and felt her unease increase. She cursed the foreignness she had not yet learned to hide. Whatever her old life had been, she’d had no need to melt into a crowd and vanish. It did not come easily to her.

Jeevan returned. A full bag of food was with him. He kept his face calm as he offered it to her, as she flaked golden pastry with her fingertips and told him lightly about her concerns, pausing between her words to make their one-sided conversation look casual rather than urgent. Easy talk between a husband and his wife.

“It would be unwise to stay the night,” he said, “but also unwise to go. What do you suggest?”

“We leave now,” Bhumika decided for him. “And we try to avoid them.”

“You have your knife?” Jeevan asked.

Tucked against her side. Strong and sharp. “Yes,” she said.

They left the caravanserai and received significantly less bother as they did so.

Bhumika did not watch to see if they were followed. To watch would be to reveal that she knew the threat existed at all. That would be like blood to a tiger.

They walked fast, moving off the path into trees. The air smelled of sweet fruit, of fresh rain-churned soil. They walked for ten, perhaps fifteen minutes, before Bhumika murmured, “Four of them.”

Jeevan’s gaze ticked to her, then forward again. He had never questioned her overly sharp hearing—the way she always knew what things lurked in shadows in the dark.

They turned. The men were approaching and making very little effort to hide. She moved to stand behind Jeevan, watching them with careful eyes.

The men held weapons. Chakrams, drawn from wrists. Daggers.

“We have nothing for you to steal,” Jeevan said bluntly. Behind the cover of his body, Bhumika carefully drew her own dagger. Held it steadily. Memory or no memory, her body had an old knowledge of how to wield a short blade.

“You have food,” one said. His expression wasn’t particularly vicious. But he was twisting the chakram between his fingers, waiting to strike.

They had no way to defend themselves from a projectile thrown from a distance. Both she and Jeevan knew it.

Jeevan needed to get into proximity to them before they could act.

She considered what to do as the men and Jeevan traded barbs. He was not witty, her guard—but he knew how to play his role.

How to distract them?

Without overthinking it, she touched a finger to Jeevan’s back. Be ready.

Then she opened her mouth and let out an earsplitting scream.

The men flinched, startled. It was enough of an opening for Jeevan to lurch forward, saber angled, and split the first man at the arm, then the throat. He caught the second in the chest before the other two managed to respond. One moved to stab him and slashed Jeevan on the arm; with lightning speed Jeevan turned on him and met him blow for blow.

Then a strike of ill luck. The last man threw himself bodily at Jeevan, grappling with him. Jeevan’s saber was knocked from his hand, skidding into the soil.

The last man ran to seize it. But she was already moving, light on her feet.

She heaved up Jeevan’s saber, her arms protesting, and angled it just in time for the man to fall upon it. His own momentum made the saber pierce his stomach. She felt the split and the bloody crunch of muscle and flesh as it went through his belly.

Just to be sure he would die, she wrenched the saber out.

She raised her head. The man Jeevan had been grappling with was facedown against the wet ground. He was unconscious, or dead. It didn’t matter to her.

Jeevan was breathing hard. His eye was bruised.

“Thank you, my lady,” he said. Then he corrected himself. “Thank you, Bhumika.”

“Jeevan,” she said, breathless with terror—and relief. “Come. Let me clean your wounds.”