The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3)

Chapter 30 Priya

PRIYA

“How long do you want them to run in circles?” Khalida asked. “Will this… help them? To be temple elders?”

The children were running in circles around the orchard. Priya and Khalida were watching them from the shade with Padma at their feet, Rukh crouched beside them.

Khalida sounded dubious, which was fair. One of the youngest was lying pointedly on the ground, face-first in the soil, limbs starfished.

“One of the yaksa told me this would work,” Priya said with a shrug. “At least it should keep them distracted.”

“They’re worried about the ceremony later,” Khalida said, voice hushed now.

“Then maybe I’ll make them run a bit longer. They can’t think if they’re running.”

“You should make them climb trees,” Rukh said. He had his elbows propped up on his knees, his chin in his hands. “Jeevan made me climb trees. He said it’d be good for my balance.”

“Why don’t you go climb trees now, then?”

He looked up at her, suddenly bright-eyed.

“Can I teach them?” Rukh asked eagerly. “Can I?”

Another child had slumped on the ground. The rest were flagging—all but Ashish, who was still running steadily.

“Why not,” Priya said, giving in to the impulse of chaos. “You there!” Priya yelled, raising her voice. The children stumbled to a stop. “Rukh will be leading the rest of your training today. When it’s time to get ready, Khalida will stop you.”

There were groans but no real protests. Rukh grinned at her and ran over to the group, already yelling orders.

“Keep an eye on him?” Priya asked Khalida.

“You’ve released a monster,” Khalida said dryly. “But I’ll do my best to manage him.”

Priya would have liked to run in circles, honestly. Maybe climb a tree or two. But she couldn’t. The journey through the deathless waters was approaching. She had a duty to the mask-keepers.

She found Kritika’s room, knocked on the door, then nudged it open without waiting for a reply.

The older woman was brushing her oiled silver hair into a plait. She gave Priya a nod as she entered. Kritika’s mouth was thin, bracketed by lines of tension. She wore a white salwar kameez. Beads of wood were wound into her hair.

“You look ready,” Priya said.

“I am, Elder,” Kritika said stiffly. “I’m prepared.”

Priya crossed the room toward her.

“There’s no shame in being frightened,” she said.

“I’m not. I have faith in the yaksa.”

Priya nodded. She wasn’t here to poke at the fraying edges of Kritika’s faith today. She was here to be kind.

“I’ll be there too,” Priya said quietly. “I’ll be watching. And I’ll pray for you all. You’re strong. You’ll make it through.”

“Strong,” Kritika repeated. The lines around her mouth deepened. “I have tried to be.”

Kritika reached a hand out. Surprised, Priya let her hand be gripped. Let Kritika look up at her, eyes shining with fervor, faith.

“Today Ganam and I will become twice-born,” Kritika said with determination. “And I have hope that the twice-born among us will survive their third journey. Soon you will have real help, Elder Priya. Fellow elders. And the yaksa will listen to more voices than just your own. You will not be alone. We will save Ahiranya together.”

There was real hope in Kritika’s voice. But fear, too.

Priya grasped her hand in return.

“I know it,” she said.

Evening came, and dusk fell. The temple children lined up for the ceremony. Priya and the mask-keepers had agreed to try to make the journey through the deathless waters as traditional as possible: children in white, and mantras being softly sung; lanterns lit, and the effigies of yaksa surrounded by flowers. The moon above them was only a sliver, a hand sickle against the black night sky.

Priya kept her focus on the mask-keepers. Nervous twice-born, faces gray with fear, were trying to look strong. Ganam had vomited in a courtyard just before they’d begun their walk to the Hirana, but nothing in his bearing betrayed his nerves. Little Pallavi had run off to the kitchens and brought him back water, which he’d thanked her for. Afterward he’d said to Priya, in a mutter, “I’d prefer liquor.”

“Wouldn’t we all,” she’d said, feeling that want down to her bones.

Now they stood before the Hirana together. Waiting.

There was a rustle, nearly a sigh, as the tree shuddered, and the ground shifted, and the yaksa emerged as if from nothing, simply rising from the night dark. All of them were here.

It was Arahli Ara who opened the way, who whispered through the green and made the Hirana yield open for them, providing them a path into its heart.

“Go,” Priya said. “Become twice-born and thrice-born. Take your place as elders.”

She felt sweaty. Uncomfortable in her tunic. Not at all like a proud and confident temple elder. The mask-keepers drifted past her, entering the tunnel, following the yaksa into the dim and dark.

Priya looked at the children. “You stay here,” she said. It wasn’t their time.

They nodded. Ashish was looking at the tunnel, his face wan and resolute. He, more than the rest, seemed to fear the fate that lay ahead of him.

Priya stepped into the tunnel, followed the dark until finally blue light began to bleed through it, overcoming the shadows around her. The deathless waters lay ahead. It was time.

A hand grasped her own, clammy with sweat.

“Priya,” said Kritika. Her voice was a gasp. All fear. Priya turned to her and saw her fractured shadow face: her trembling mouth, her wide eyes. Her terror, all the hope and faith stripped clean. “I do not know if I will survive it.”

She thought of telling Kritika she could turn back. But she knew Kritika wouldn’t, no matter how much she wanted to. There was a lump in Priya’s throat, fresh nausea in her stomach. She gripped Kritika’s hand tight. “None of us know,” Priya said quietly. “But you won’t go alone.”

“Kritika.” Another voice ahead. Ganam, waiting for them. His expression was resolute. He held out his hand.

Hesitation. Then, with a gasp, Kritika wrenched from Priya. Her mouth went firm. Her spine straightened. She took Ganam’s hand and walked toward the water.

There were, perhaps, things Priya should have said or done. But she could only stand with her feet in damp soil, blue water-light shining on the walls. She could only watch, as Chandni said in her melodious voice, “Go. We wait for you.”

Twice-born—a bare handful, only three mask-keepers—walked into the water. Their white tunics billowed around them. She saw their bodies sink. First torsos. Then necks. Then their heads were immersed. Hair rose, a cloud around them. Then even that vanished, and there was nothing but the light of the water. Not even the shape of their bodies remained.

Ganam and Kritika entered together.

And then—silence.

It stretched, and stretched. She waited, counting her heartbeats. But they were too swift, too unsteady to be a reasonable measure of time. She took another step forward, and another, and felt Nandi’s—Avan Ara’s—fingers grasp her tunic, holding her fast.

“The water isn’t for you,” he whispered. “Wait.”

She waited, and her mind was empty, blank. She couldn’t think. If she thought, she would feel her fear not just in her body but in her mind, and then she wouldn’t be able to stand here with a yaksa grasping her skirts, waiting for the living or dead to rise out of the water.

The first body to emerge rose like a flower—blooming, each limb rising at a time, feet first, and then a torso, and finally the head. Mouth open, eyes sightless.

Avan Ara let her go then, allowing her to stand on the wet edge of the waters and heave the body out. A woman. One of the mask-keepers. She would be no thrice-born.

Priya thought she would be sick.

Silence again. A steady sure grief began to rise in Priya. It had been too long. There would be no one else. No survivors. Only, if they were lucky, bodies to bury.

And then, a shadow—something rising. Someone broad, strong, and her stomach twisted violently at the sight. Dead, dead, and all my allies are gone—

Ganam rose with a gasp, and a swear, and scrambled for the bank, and heaved himself out. She ran over to him, helping, dragging him by the shoulders. She was crying like a child and she didn’t give a shit.

“You’re alive,” she sobbed.

“See,” he said, teeth chattering, water in his hair. “P-Priya. See. You’re not the only one who gets to survive.”

“Get up,” she said, and slapped his arm. “Up, now. You need to get warm.”

“Where are the rest?” he asked.

“None yet,” she said. “But there will be more.”

She waited. Waited. The joy turned bitter. Her vision went narrow and small. Her false confidence shriveled and faded away.

Nothing and no one.

There were no other survivors.

The yaksa were speaking. Their voices above her were like storm-bent trees, furious and fearful and strange.

“How is this possible?”

A murmur, in response. She couldn’t understand it.

“Everything has changed too much.”

“… betrayed,” another whispered. “We need strength. We need what was murdered and should have lived.”

“Only her —”

Priya didn’t look up at them as they argued around her. Out on the grass surrounding the Hirana, where the yaksa were ringed around her, she was growing and plucking flowers to weave into garlands to lay on the bodies that would be buried. She pressed her magic into the soil. Grow , she urged. Live, flourish, so that I may crown the dead.

The mask-keepers deserved better than a funeral of fear and shame and quiet. They deserved a reverent burial. They had entered the deathless waters to make themselves strong enough to protect Ahiranya, to become powerful enough to make up for all the ways Priya was weak, unable to defend and protect and govern Ahiranya the way it deserved. Kritika had been frightened, but she had still gone into the waters. She’d done it for Ahiranya, and she’d done it so Priya wouldn’t be alone.

She’d never liked Kritika, and Kritika had never really liked her. But they’d come to rely on each other.

I need you here , Priya thought. You deserve so much more grief than I can give you. A flower, woven with another, and another. But I can give you this.

“I lived in this earth,” Sanjana was saying, her voice a wild bird, a saw to bone. “The soil ate me and I ate it in return. Bones buried within me, and bodies drowned, and I am telling you this, my kin: I will not die now.”

“You should never have let the other one go,” Avan Ara said. “Bhumika was ours. You were too human, Arahli. Rotten—”

“Hush,” said Vata Ara, the yaksa who wore Sendhil’s face.

“We need temple elders reared from babes.” Chandni’s voice. No. Bhisa Ara ’s voice. She could not let herself forget what they were. “That is what we need and what we shall have. The ones who entered the water were imperfect. We will have better.”

Priya’s hand stilled on the flowers.

“The children aren’t ready,” she said.

Silence.

“Speak again, child,” Vata Ara said. “If you must speak, then speak.”

She did not turn to face them. Did not bow. She only sat, her hands and her lap brimful of flowers.

“Arahli Ara can tell you how long it takes to make a child hollow and strong,” she said. “If they enter the waters now, the children will only die. Give me years to teach them and they might live. Instead of using them, give me the deathless waters broken from their source. Let me feed my warriors those vials of poison and strength. And… let the best of them, the ones who prove their strength, try the waters. It’s another chance for all of us. A way to turn strong worshippers into strong temple elders.”

An approving noise, a murmur that moved through the yaksa.

“Spoken like a leader,” Vata Ara murmured.

Spoken like a desperate woman , Priya thought.

“The waters are yours,” Avan Ara said. “Take them. Feed them to your people.” Then he leaned down and tugged her by the braid, as Padma so often did, a childish, urging hand. “Go and bury your bodies now,” he said imperiously.

She walked back toward the mahal, holding flowers—wearing them around her arms and shoulders, a living cloak. It took her a moment to realize Arahli was walking with her. She’d been too numb to really care.

“Yaksa,” she murmured.

Was he here to comfort her or show her another cruelty? His eyes met her own. His wood-whorled face was unreadable.

“You did well,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“It is a plan your brother would have approved of,” Arahli said, and ah, there it was—the sting, the words meant to poison and cut.