The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3)

Chapter 24 Bhumika

BHUMIKA

They were offered transport by a man leading an oxen-drawn cart of grain. The man was bearded, his face flayed red at the nose and cheeks by exposure to the sun. His gaze slid dismissively off Bhumika, but he spoke easily enough to Jeevan. As Bhumika tucked herself into the back of the cart, the man urged Jeevan to sit near the front between the sacks of grain and talk to him.

“Looks like you’ve been in some trouble, friend,” the man said, whipping his oxen forward.

“Bandits,” said Jeevan. His face was violently bruised. “They thought we had coin.”

“Do you?”

“Not anymore.”

The man laughed.

Bhumika, with their coin bound with cloth to her thigh, kept her head down and watched the fields blur alongside them.

Jeevan was not a natural charmer, and conversation between the two men soon withered. But Bhumika had expected that. She waited until the silence was particularly painful, then allowed herself to speak, shaping her voice into something timid, curious.

It wasn’t long before the man began to soften and speak to her in turn. She managed to coax him into telling her about his grandchildren, first—in her admittedly limited experience, even men who thought very little of their wives and daughters were soft for their grandchildren, and this man was no exception. He told her about his four granddaughters and his five grandsons proudly.

“And you,” he said. “Do you have any children?”

The words were aimed expansively at both her and Jeevan. She saw the telltale stiffening of Jeevan’s shoulders. Unintentionally, unknowingly, the stranger had touched on a bruise.

She thought of the shape of her own body—the silver tracery of marks at her belly, her breasts—and then carefully thought no more of it. Her body remembered things she did not, and to dwell on them was to invite madness.

“One day, if the nameless god has written it in my stars, I would like to give my husband a family,” Bhumika said, and the man hummed his agreement.

Jeevan did not look at her. She noticed that, too. Because she was looking at him.

By the time they reached a rickety set of roadside stalls serving tea and food to travelers, he was talking easily to Bhumika about the problems facing Alor. The men who had gone to war on behalf of the king of Alor, and the way the rot had destroyed field after field. Not enough to concern him yet, but she was sure in a month or two either he would have no grain to transport, or he would have to hire guards to protect it on his journey to sale.

She’d won him over so thoroughly, somehow, that he bought her and Jeevan a meal and waved away any effort to refuse him. “You said you have no money,” he said gruffly. “What good would starving do? How will your wife have children if she’s starving?” he said to Jeevan.

Jeevan lowered his head at that, and it was left to Bhumika to offer him a shy but effusive thanks. The food was good, and she didn’t regret taking it.

The man hesitated when he rose to his cart. His gaze darted about. Then he said, “I could carry you farther. Another caravanserai lies ahead.”

Bhumika brushed a hand against Jeevan’s arm.

“We cannot,” Jeevan said. “But I thank you, friend.”

“The monastery…” The man trailed off, then shook his head. “Such a place isn’t for people like us. They’ll turn you away. But ah, if you want a god’s blessing on your marriage, what can your elder say to you?”

“The monastery,” Jeevan repeated.

“Where else could you be going?” A snort. “There’s nothing else of worth here, friend. I’m no fool.”

The rains began again, wild and unseasonal, as soon as his cart vanished around a bend in the road. Bhumika sighed, feeling the water trickle down her face and through her clothing with a resigned humor.

“He was only partially a fool,” she murmured.

“He was kind to us.”

“Kind only after we flattered him.” A pause. “Yes. He was kind.”

They moved under the canopy of a stall. It was barely any cover, but it was enough. There, they watched the rain pour down, beads of water arrowing through patches in the canvas into the ground around them.

“The monastery.”

The question wasn’t in his voice but in the way he turned his head toward her.

He did not say We have passed a dozen monasteries of the nameless god . But she understood.

She considered how he was just as beholden to the push and pull of her knowledge as she was. But he did not feel it beating, screaming, thrumming in his skull as she did in her own. She thought of telling him I feel in every bone and every beat of my heart that this is where the one I seek will meet me. And if they are not at the monastery, where the waters show the way to the nameless, then I do not know where I will find them. I do not know if such a person exists at all.

The yaksa are right to consider me nothing.

A soft wind touched her. She followed its grasp, turning her head.

In the shadows of the trees she saw her veiled watchers, bowls spilling bright water uselessly into the earth, the ether. They looked clearer than they ever had before, their limbs mottled blue with cold, their eyes hollows beneath water and cloth.

Drowned , she thought. They are drowned, and yet they breathe still.

“It must be this one,” she replied quietly. That would have to be enough.

They stayed at the food stall long enough for the rain to abate, and for Bhumika to carefully eke information out of the woman washing the cups and pans behind it. She’d been talkative enough when Bhumika had offered to help, though she’d laughed over Bhumika’s efforts.

“They must see worshippers,” Bhumika murmured to Jeevan as they left. “That is the one requirement of a priest. To serve a deity, a god, a spirit is to be its mouthpiece. To offer comfort.”

“Not all priests believe so,” said Jeevan.

She had to hope these would.

Nimisa Monastery was ancient. Five hundred years had shaped its gray stone, erasing any human-made flourishes of beauty, making it one with the soil and the green that surrounded it. Its vast entrance arch, set above steps that curved like a crescent moon, shone as if emeralds had been carved into its walls. But lichen and vines were what bejeweled it, not gemstones. They were so oddly, beautifully lustrous that Bhumika had to pause momentarily in her walk toward the monastery’s steps simply to stare up in awe.

She and Jeevan had walked along a path carved through the trees toward the steps of the monastery. The stone steps were silvery with pools of water. Perhaps it was the rain or the rot, or the looming threat from Ahiranya, but there were no worshippers waiting to enter Nimisa Monastery.

There was one young priest near the entrance, scrubbing the steps. He raised his head and looked at them with confusion in his eyes, even as a tentative smile shaped his mouth.

“Welcome,” he said, his voice low and kind. He rose to his feet, visibly hesitating. “Forgive me. In these difficult times we, ah, do not receive visitors. We are a… a monastery of solitude and contemplation.”

She felt Jeevan’s eyes on her for a second. Well, that was her answer. Not all monasteries were open to worshippers after all. No matter.

“Priest,” she said. “I must speak with the head of your monastery. I come with a message for him.”

The man’s smile faded into utter uncertainty.

“I come from Ahiranya,” Bhumika continued, not allowing herself to falter. “I come with a way to kill the yaksa. The name Nimisa echoes in the darkest of their memories for a reason. The head of your monastery will know why. Call him here. Please.”

The priest still did not move.

She drew a step closer to where he stood, then another, until she could see his dark pupils, the whites of his eyes. Was it wishful thinking, or could she see a strange light in his gaze—a hint of otherness, a sign that he had the gift she sought? Surely if he had served here, worshipped here, he would have been touched by the magic of this place.

Bhumika had no weapon to sway him with but her words. So she turned to them once more.

“Let him ask the nameless god, if he wishes. His deity knows what I carry.” She lowered her voice, cajoling. “ Your deity knows what I say is true. The nameless speaks in your heart, yes? Please. Listen.”

Finally, something flickered in the priest’s eyes. He nodded slowly and turned to enter the monastery.

He was gone for some time.

There was a strange, uncomfortable desire in her to draw on something to convince him more fully. Some power that had once existed in her body—a magic, perhaps, or a cunning that losing her memories had stripped her of. But whatever it had been, she lacked it now. She stood tall with her hands gently clasped in front of her and tried to feel no fear.

The priest returned with five guards, who moved swiftly, striding down the stairs to ring Jeevan and Bhumika, fencing them in. Jeevan’s hand flew to his saber hilt.

“Remove your weapon,” one said to Jeevan, his face grim.

“Step back, and I will do so,” Jeevan replied.

“Ahiranyi bastard,” the guard said, and Bhumika felt the mood of the men around her darken, as if his anger had given them permission to feel rage too. They were not going to allow themselves to be reasoned with. “How dare you come here, speaking of your monstrous yaksa—”

“Stop,” a booming voice ordered. Bhumika raised her head.

Above them on the stairs stood a much older man in his blue robes, chest bare, long hair swept back.

“All of you. Lower your weapons,” the head of the monastery said. And Jeevan did, slowly. The guards around them slid their own knives away. Bhumika, her dagger still safely tucked in her sleeve, bowed to him through the wall of guards.

“Thank you, priest,” she said, infusing her voice with the appropriate gratitude.

The look the priest gave her was severe—empty of any compassion.

“I do not know why you have brought wild tales of yaksa to my monastery,” he said. “If you are seeking food and shelter, we cannot provide these to you. If you seek to trick coin out of my young priests with sobbing and falsehoods, I will not allow it. But if you leave now, all will be forgiven and forgotten.” He gestured with a hand, and the guards drew aside, leaving a gap for Bhumika and Jeevan to walk away from the monastery.

Neither of them moved.

“You think I am a beggar woman spinning falsehoods?” Bhumika shook her head. “Priest, if I sought your pity, I promise you I would tell a better story. If I were lying for coin, I would have run when your guards arrived. Only true conviction would make me face their blades.”

“You are mad,” he said.

“Determined,” she corrected. “And ready to bare my neck to the mercy of your wisdom.”

One of the guards made a noise of annoyance and reached for her, trying to encourage her to move away. She threw herself to the ground in a deep bow, hands to the earth—and in the process flung herself free from their reaching hands.

“Forgive me. You are head priest of the grandest monastery in Alor,” Bhumika said loudly. “Men may forget why your monastery is great and grand. They do not know what you once were. But you have a grand holy purpose: to listen , as the nameless bid. So I beg you to listen to me. I come with a way to save you from the yaksa. I carry the knowledge in the empty vessel of my body and my heart. If you will sit with me, if you will take my burden from me, and tell your fellow priests—”

“Do not address our head priest, woman,” another guard snapped.

She closed her eyes. Behind her eyelids she saw them again—her watchers, holding bowls of spilling water, bloodied and green and gold. Her body was overfull with truth, but there was more to be had.

Will you drink?

Not yet , she thought. Not yet.

“This is what I know.” Knowledge roared like a tumult of water in her skull. And she, beneath it, was a stone worn smooth down to her purpose alone. Her voice left her mouth sonorous, strange—rich with power. “Long ago a woman came here, when your monastery was a hovel, a mere shell of stone. And she kneeled and she prayed and begged for a way to see the yaksa dead—and something answered .

“Divyanshi, first of the mothers of flame, came here and learned how the yaksa may die. The knowledge is gone along with her; the voice she sought has not returned.

“But even if the door to the void is broken and lost, a trace of its magic remains here. So you—and your priests—who live and breathe in this place, who seek the nameless god, must know I speak true. You must hear the truth in my voice. You have the authority and power to spread my knowledge. To be heard . Do you not hear the truth in me, priest? I seek someone to carry my burden. Is it you? It must be you.”

She raised her head.

“Let me show you how it may help you kill the yaksa. Let me help you set all of us—Parijatdvipa and Ahiranya alike—free.”

The young priest who had greeted them—and brought guards to remove them—was staring at her with wide eyes. Dark as the pools of water those priests used to seek the nameless god.

But the blue-robed leader of the monastery was still unsmiling and furious. No awe had softened his face. Her stomach plummeted. No matter how hard she hoped, or looked, none of that same dark knowing reflected back at her in his eyes.

“Old village tales,” he said, with a curl of disgust to his mouth. “Leave here, woman. Wailing before our monastery will not help you.”

You look into your pools of water and see nothing. I understand now. You don’t refuse me because you think I am false. You refuse because you do not know your nameless god. You feel nothing, hear nothing.

“You do not hear the nameless,” she said. She should not have spoken. She knew that. But she saw him flinch and at least knew, grimly, that she was correct.

She bowed her head and said, “I will return, priest. I promise it.” And then she lifted Jeevan’s saber from the ground before any guards could stop her, and grasped his arm, and strode away in defeat.

The rain began to fall again, bitterly cold.

“I should have known they would not listen to me,” Bhumika said.

“You paid a high price for the knowledge you carry,” Jeevan said, not disagreeing. “It should be given to people grateful to have it.”

“I managed that badly,” Bhumika said. She was angry—with them, and with herself. “I should not have been so honest or so forthright. Men with power do not respond to it. Especially from women.” She closed her eyes and steadied herself, forcing the fire of her anger to quell. “What was I like before I chose this path, Jeevan? Was I wiser?”

“You were careful with your words,” Jeevan said after a moment. “You would cajole. Mediate. For many years men with power did not listen to you. So you placed people in your debt, knowing they would help you not from fear but from gratitude.”

“As I did you?”

“I was glad to be in your debt,” he said quietly, after a moment. “That was your strength. You made people glad to be ruled by you.” The rainfall was growing fiercer. Cold water poured down on them, blurring the trees. “You are still the same woman, Bhumika.”

She shook her head.

“I have nothing to offer anyone now,” she said, staring down at her own empty hands and the rain on them. “I have no way to compel those priests. What do I have now, Jeevan? I’m powerless. I feel it in me, that absence—I know I had power once. But it is gone, and my knowledge is nothing if no one will receive it from me!”

Her voice trembled, raised on those last words. Then she fell silent, clenching her jaw, turning from him.

“You could wield your own knowledge,” he said, after a moment. “If this truth you carry requires someone powerful, someone who will be heard—that is you.”

“I can’t,” she said, voice cracking. She had considered it. Amassing her own followers, sharing her knowledge before it drowned her. But those dreams were the desires of a ghost. She could not fulfill them. She was nothing but a painful, overfull skull. She was nothing but the ache of grief for something she couldn’t remember. She was nothing but a hollow shaped by the endless push of an ancient tide. “I am nothing,” she said.

“You have never been nothing . You could lead armies, Bhumika,” he said, his voice full with such feeling it was like the sun. “Share your words, and people will follow. They always have.”

Bitter grief curled through her veins regardless—and jealousy, for the woman she had once been. Perhaps that woman had been worthy of such love.

“Not anymore,” she said.

She paused, staring into the distance. She thought of the younger priest’s dark eyes that had seen her truth.

There was still hope. Her knowledge had brought her here. She would trust in it for now. There was nothing else she could do.

“We should find shelter,” she said finally, blinking rain from her eyes. “Rest. I will have to try again, but first I need to—to think . If they say no once more, I will walk to Harsinghar and beg the Parijatdvipan empress directly to hear me.”

The empress would kill her, of course. But at least Bhumika would have done all she could.

The rain did not stop, and the trees provided limited shelter. Under their feet, in a matter of moments, the ground turned to wet mud, then to ankle-deep water. At first Bhumika thought it was another illusion from her watchers. But then Jeevan gripped her arm and cursed. She followed the tilt of his head and saw, as he already had, that a river cut through the trees ahead of them. It was so high that it had flooded its banks.

“We need to find higher ground,” Jeevan said, and Bhumika nodded her agreement. They turned away from the river.

The monastery had been on higher ground, but they couldn’t return there now. Instead they tried to find their way back to the road.

The water was still rising when they heard voices crying out, arguing. Young voices. It took only a shared look for both of them to turn and follow the noise, wading through the sodden ground until they found two children, a boy and a girl, arguing outside a dilapidated hut. As Bhumika drew closer, she realized they were not arguing with each other but with an old woman standing inside the hut’s doorway, who was clutching a blanket around her shoulders with one hand. The other hand was holding on to the older boy’s wrist.

“What is happening here?” Bhumika asked in Aloran, as Jeevan stepped ahead of her.

The arguing died into abrupt silence. Three pairs of eyes turned on them warily.

“Old Auntie’s refusing to come to our village,” the girl said after a moment, darting nervous looks between Jeevan and Bhumika. “She’s a widow. She lives alone here. But with the water—she can’t stay .”

“She won’t leave her wedding quilt,” the older boy said, still gripping the old woman’s hand tightly. “But she must. I keep trying to explain it to her, but she won’t listen.”

“What is her name?”

“Gulnar,” the girl said.

“Auntie,” Bhumika said. “Aunt Gulnar.”

Something in her voice made the older woman meet her eyes.

“The young ones will carry your quilt for you,” she said, carefully shaping the Aloran words. “And the man with me will carry you safely to your village.” She looked at the boy. “Where is your village?”

The boy swallowed. “Across the river.”

“The river isn’t safe to cross,” said Jeevan.

“There’s a bridge,” the boy protested. “It’s safe enough. Safer than staying here. You can come with us. If you help—that would be enough thanks, wouldn’t it?”

“The water will damage it,” Gulnar quavered, still holding her quilt to her shoulders.

“It can be washed and dried,” Bhumika said gently. “But if you die here, Auntie, it will not be loved as it is loved now.”

The woman hesitated, then gave a curt nod. “Let him carry me, then.”

“Get her quilt,” Bhumika ordered. The boy scrambled to obey. “Treat it gently.”

Jeevan picked the woman up.

The girl was the one who guided them to the bridge. It was a spindly structure of wood and rope, and the water was high enough now to brush perilously close to its boards. But Jeevan tested it with his own weight and judged it strong enough. “Go,” he said to the children. They rushed ahead, light on the uneven surface of the bridge, clutching the blanket between them. Jeevan lifted Gulnar and carried her to the side.

Bhumika followed a step after him. The bridge rocked under her feet. The water was roaring. She lost her footing for a moment on the slick wood, slipping as the bridge trembled.

“Bhumika.” Jeevan’s hand was holding her wrist, helping her find her balance. The old woman stood on the opposite bank.

“Come,” he said. “We’re going to the village together.”

She was suddenly, awfully, so grateful that he was here. That he had followed her from a past she could not see, and he trusted her still. That he looked at her and saw strength where she could find none, and worth where she only saw her own emptiness.

“What did you leave behind to come with me on this fool’s journey?” Bhumika asked, voice trembling.

His grip tightened, infinitesimally, on her.

“Everything,” he said. “Just as you did.”

“Everything,” she repeated. They took another step forward. Another. It would have been so easy to fall. “All this for duty? For a debt?”

Another step.

“I lied,” he said. “I am sorry.” His hand urged her forward. The bridge was swaying, the water groaning like a wounded beast. “I did not follow you for a debt.”

She did not ask him Why, then? She did not push or prod. She met his gaze as he held her steady, as he guided her across churning, black water and did not let her fall.

He never looked away from her.

“Ah,” she said softly. She knew.