The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3)

Chapter 43 Rao

RAO

The highest rooms of the Srugani mahal were so far up the cliff face that standing at their windows made Rao feel as if he could touch the melting blue sky. Malini was not looking at the sky. Her head was bent over a map.

Rao slipped past Raziya, who gave him a nod, then left the room, leaving him and Malini alone.

“No pretense at praying alone today?” Rao asked.

“The High Priest has no eyes on me here,” Malini said. “And if he does, I find I cannot care. Why did you want to meet, Rao?”

He looked at her gaze—her knowing, piercing eyes. She’d guessed at what he wanted. She always did.

“I will take you to Lady Qutlugh,” he said. “I will stay until your negotiations are done. But then, I beg you, Malini. Let me go to Alor.”

She said nothing. Her silence spoke for her.

Convince me.

“You send your generals where they’re needed. I want to go to Alor. I admit it.” He did not say I am still broken . Did not say When Sima and I were alone on the snow I realized how much I loved your brother, how much I loved Prem, and the grief of what I never said or did is driving me mad. Let me have the peace of home. Let me have at least that. Instead he said, “I can also serve you better there than anywhere.”

“And how will that serve me, Rao?” She did not sound displeased—or at least, no more so than she usually did. “I have your father’s loyalty. And Alor’s rot cannot be defeated by battle.”

“The priesthood of the mothers supports you, but they also stand against you,” Rao said. “But the nameless god proclaimed your right to the throne—through me. We have no High Priest, as the mothers of flame do—but there are influential, powerful temples in Alor, and I can seek out their support. The priests of the mothers gained too much sway in the time of your brother,” he went on. “It wasn’t so, before. When your father ruled. We both remember. Bring priests of the nameless into your court. It may help you.”

“Or it may drive High Priest Hemanth to behave entirely like an animal with its leg in a snare,” Malini said. But she sounded… thoughtful. “Yes,” she said, after a moment. “You may go. Bring me back worthy priests, Rao, but if you can’t, I’ll accept more coin from your father. Heart’s shell is going to cost us dearly, and what it doesn’t take, famine will.”

He bowed his head.

“Sima won’t go with you this time,” she added.

He raised his head abruptly.

“She’s proven her loyalty,” he protested.

“I know. But I have need of her,” said Malini. “She’s proven herself to you. I accept that. But it’s time for her to prove her loyalty to me.”

Malini’s voice was mild, but there was iron in it.

“As you say,” he replied through gritted teeth.

He found Sima looking out at Srugna.

“All those trees,” she said, looking out from the balcony of the cliff-face mahal. Her arms were on the edge, her gaze fixed on the distance, where the trees were so thick they were like a spill of green ink. “It’s almost like being home.

“Don’t ask me if I’m going to run away again,” she added, as he propped his arms on the edge of the balcony beside her. “My answer hasn’t changed. Priya told me not to follow her. I don’t think she’d want me to try now. I’m staying with you.”

He looked at her face. It was only then that he realized Sima was crying.

“Romesh and the others—they cared about me.” Her voice was choked. “They liked me. And now they’re dead. I know you won’t believe me, but Priya is a good person. She’s always been the best fucking person I know, and she’s my friend, and she killed one of the only people I could trust in the imprisonment she told me to choose. What am I meant to do now? How can I be angry at her? How can I not?”

He hadn’t known that Priya had told her to remain, but now did not seem the time to say so. Instead, he placed an arm around her shoulder. Let her weep.

When she’d quieted he said, “I… I have some bad news. I’m sorry.”

He told her.

“You’re leaving me behind.” Her expression was shuttered, but it was the exact absence of expression on her face that told him how hurt she truly was.

“I have to go home,” he said. “I… I have to go to a monastery and reach for the nameless god again. I can’t continue like this, Sima. I have to talk to the nameless god. I need a priest to guide me.” I need to know if the voice inside me is the nameless god at all.

“Insist on taking me with you, then.”

“The empress will take you back to Parijat with her. Lata will protect you then.”

She scoffed.

“Go then. Listen to your god. But I think you should listen to your own heart a little more, and your god a little less,” said Sima.

“I’m afraid,” Rao said quietly, “that I don’t know my own heart.”

“You do. You listened to it in the snow, when we almost froze. You told me what your heart said.” She stepped abruptly away from him, arms crossed. “You won’t find your answers in Alor or with the nameless god. But I can’t stop you. Go, Rao. Just go.”