The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3)

Chapter 21 Priya

PRIYA

The mask-keepers were working tirelessly to keep Ahiranya running, but somehow Kritika was not too busy to track Priya down and harangue her.

Priya wasn’t shocked. She’d been waiting for it. The newcomers were hard to miss, after all. They’d taken over four dormitories between them. And Priya—in an effort to get the lecture over with—had placed herself helpfully in Bhumika’s study. She was leafing desultorily through some reams of incomprehensible figures when the door crashed open.

“Outsiders.” Kritika’s voice was furious. “Parijatdvipans. Why would you allow them in here? What led you to this madness?”

Priya released the papers.

“They asked,” Priya said simply. “They want to be here. They’ve got nowhere else to go. What other reason do I need?”

“They’re liars,” scoffed Kritika. Her gaze narrowed, reading Priya like a book. “Don’t you think this is a trick of your empress?” Kritika asked. “Apparent innocents, sent to destroy us from within?”

A memory bloomed in her skull. Malini, imprisoned, fragile—her eyes huge, her mind caught in a snare. She’d always admired Malini’s mind—its cleverness, its slow cunning. But this didn’t feel like something Malini would have planned.

Malini wanted to break Priya herself.

“Are you listening?” Kritika demanded.

“I’m trying,” Priya said. “But you know how I am, Kritika. If you look closely, you might see your words going into one ear and falling out of the other one.”

Kritika hissed something under her breath—definitely a swear of some kind.

“We are at war, Elder Priya,” she gritted out.

“Are we? Tell the yaksa to send me out with an army, then. That would be a proper war.”

“Don’t be a fool.”

“Fine,” Priya said, her patience finally snapping. “Let’s call this a war, then. Why not? If this is war, we maimed those people, Kritika. Our yaksa, our power—we changed them. Destroyed their homes, their crops, their chance of survival. They’re casualties of war. We should feel terrible for what they’ve suffered, and we should do everything in our power to help them.”

“They are our enemies,” Kritika said staunchly.

“No. They have the rot, Kritika. They were shaped by the yaksa. That makes them ours. They’re going to be fed our grain and given work, and I promise if they try to harm our own, I’ll kill them myself.”

Kritika’s mouth opened, but a skitter of noise in the hall and a series of hard knocks at the door silenced her. Priya was moving before she heard a familiar voice call her name.

Rukh was doubled over, panting. He’d clearly run, and Padma was still adhered to his hip, clinging on to him with a slightly alarmed and windswept look on her face.

“Rukh,” Priya said. “What’s wrong?”

“The yaksa,” he said, voice shaking. “They—the one with Ashok’s face. He—he brought children. Other children. I spoke to one—I heard—they’re going to be temple children.”

She stormed across the mahal.

She’d been avoiding the yaksa with Ashok’s face. But now she followed the echo of him in the sangam. She knew even as she strode through the mahal, as vines brushed her face, as the corridors closed in on her in thick foliage and flowers as large as her fists, that seeing him would hurt. Go back , the green seemed to say. Your foolish heart leads you here, your grief leads you here. But you will not find what you seek in him.

Priya had always been too foolish and heart-driven for her own good. That wasn’t going to change now.

He wasn’t with the children he’d brought to the mahal. They were waiting at the base of the Hirana. She’d told Rukh to watch them for her while she dealt with him.

The room where Ashok’s ghost waited shone with light. The windows had broken under the weight of roots, letting the sunbeams and birdsong pour in between leaves of emerald and jade. There were large-winged moths in the high branches of the trees clasping the ceiling. She could see the colors of their wings: gold and umber, red and lustrous carnelian.

The yaksa was lying in a bower of his own making. His head was turned away from her, the dark leaves of his hair swathing his face. She could see the tilt of his shoulder. One leg hung from the bower, almost touching the ground, which was cracked beneath his toes. Small white flowers were worming through stone, trying to meet him.

He looked entirely inhuman and therefore nothing like her brother. And yet Priya couldn’t help but stop suddenly, grief clambering horrible and swift up in her throat. It was the thought of children that had done this to her. Ashok. Ashok.

She wished suddenly for that strange knowledge that had wormed through her on the edge of Ahiranya, when she’d suddenly known two of the yaksa’s names. But no other name came to her now.

“Why are you here?” the yaksa asked, without turning his head. The leaves of the bower rustled at his voice. They turned to her, as if she were light or rain—watching her for him.

“Children,” Priya blurted out. “Why would you bring children here?”

“You know why,” he replied. “To create more temple elders.”

“You have me. You don’t need them.”

“You are still imperfect,” he said.

“I’m growing stronger,” Priya said hotly. “I’ve reached for Mani Ara. I have her power, I’ve learned the names of your kin—”

“Names are nothing.” His head turned, with a creak and whisper of wood. “We have always had many temple elders. Never only one. You cannot be alone.”

“The mask-keepers are once-born and twice-born,” she said immediately. “They’re enough.”

“They will pass through the waters again. But children are needed. Children are easier to shape and hollow,” he said, and the rage swelled in her like fire. She wrestled to control it.

“I won’t let them become temple children,” Priya said tightly. “I won’t let them suffer like I did. Like Ashok did.”

The yaksa didn’t flinch.

“And yet you must,” he said. “It is our will.”

“I am Mani Ara’s hands. If you go against me, you go against her.”

Those words were a mistake.

He moved, sudden and swift. In the blink of an eye he’d risen from the bower and grasped her by both wrists. His touch was unyielding, his mouth a bristle of thorns. And yet his voice came from him too human. It had a human’s cruelty in it.

“Mani Ara,” he said, “would forgive me for breaking her hand.” A twist, a tightening, of his grip at her wrists. She didn’t flinch. She’d suffered worse. “Mani Ara would make a better hand. Mani Ara would feel no pain,” he continued. “You would, Priya.”

You’re only flesh.

She understood the message clearly.

“Don’t try to frighten me,” she said. “I know my value.”

“Do you?”

“I know I’m needed. You won’t break what you need.”

His grip tightened. She ground her teeth to stop crying out, and tasted blood.

“You can’t break me like that,” she forced out. “Ashok tried. It didn’t work .”

He released her. Her wrists were already purpling. She ignored the throbbing pain.

“They have been given to me by their families,” he said, face blank and inhuman again, the cruelty leached from it. “I will raise them to be temple elders. They will grow strong and hollow, and they will pass through the waters. This is decided, Priya. It cannot be changed.”

“Give them to me,” she said.

“Your task is to reach for Mani Ara.”

“Temple children should be raised by temple elders,” Priya insisted. “By me . It’s my right. I’ll train them, rear them.” Protect them from the kind of pain you and your kin could inflict on them. Give them someone to defend them. “You can’t possibly want to raise them yourself, yaksa.”

“I raised the first temple children,” he said. “And many after.”

“Human children are—they’re messy . They scream, they cry, they fight, they die.” She saw him flinch at that, or thought she did. “Give them to me,” she urged. “I’ll shape them so well. I know what it takes to be strong.”

Silence. Then he said, “I will, if you perform one act for me. One test.”

“Anything.”

“You named my kin,” he said. “Avan Ara. Vata Ara. You called them. Knew them. Tell me my name, Elder Priya.”

She shook her head.

“I don’t know it, yaksa.”

“Name me,” he said again, “and you may have them. Remain silent, and I will know there is not enough of Mani Ara in you to allow you to rear them. What is my name?”

Panic buzzed in her skull. But she was stubborn—she’d always been stubborn. She clenched her hands tight, and sucked in a slow breath, and reached through the panic.

To the waters of the sangam, and the green within her.

The waters washed her panic away and left nothing behind—just a vastness that unfolded inside her.

“Arahli Ara,” she said finally. Her voice was an unnatural river-rasp. Water over stone. “That is your name.”

He breathed, a green-rustling exhalation, and bowed his head in reverence. She’d passed his test.

“High Elder,” he said. “Mani Ara’s beloved. The children are yours. Train them well. But remember this: You have value, but the ones you love do not. Not to my kin. I could take the eyes of the boy Rukh. Or a tongue. Or a hand. I could steal away Bhumika’s daughter and let the soil swallow her. And I am the kindest of my kin.”

He had not raised his head. His voice was soft.

Priya’s stomach knotted. Grief-sick.

He really isn’t my brother , she thought.

“Wield Mani Ara’s gifts with care,” he said. “They are a knife that could cut throats and leave you with nothing but sorrow.”

“I will, yaksa,” she said. She inclined her head. “Thank you.”