The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3)

Chapter 46 Rao

RAO

His luck was rotten. A flood had struck Alor. “Strange rains, my lord,” one of his soldiers had told him, after interrogating a lone farmer walking along the edge of the road they were traveling on. “He says no one will travel until the ground dries and the river recedes fully.”

There were barely any travelers on the roads. Combined with the homes and villages emptied by rot, Rao found the roads eerily empty. The only large groups he saw were refugees from the edges of Ahiranya, many of them rot-riven—and they scattered at the sight of his men. He couldn’t blame them for that.

Even the caravanserais had been abandoned. There was some grumbling from his soldiers at that. Trading posts were good for fresh, warm food and an excellent place for stocking up on liquor.

The ground would have been unpleasant at best to pitch tents on, so he decided to take advantage of his princely status and descend on the lands of a local landowner. The man welcomed him effusively, arranging accommodation for his men.

They shared a meal and a hookah pipe.

“Will you be heading to your father’s mahal, prince?” the man asked.

Rao shook his head. “No, I am seeking the priesthood. There is a great monastery near here, in the forest. Nimisa.”

The man clucked his tongue.

“You will struggle to move through the forest in the aftermath of flooding,” he said. “A river bisects the woods.”

“Nonetheless I have to try,” said Rao, smiling.

The man hesitated. “And those priests… ah, it will not impact you.”

“I would still like to know,” Rao said earnestly, sensing a story there.

“They are not welcoming as other monasteries. Too ancient, too powerful. Even your father goes to them, they do not go to him.” He chuckled. “They feel the weight of their history, Prince Rao. We do not go there to pray or seek prophecy—though I send fine offerings regularly,” he added hastily. “But you are a prince. They will see you.”

“Yes,” said Rao. “I hope so.” Internally, silently, he hoped they would be willing to ally with the greater power of an empress and support Malini’s claim to the throne. Or his journey would be worth nothing.

As they reached Nimisa’s border, they passed another empty village.

“There’s rot around,” said a soldier nervously. “If we turn back, my lord…”

“We know it’s spreading across the empire,” Rao said calmly. “This is all the more reason to make this trip swiftly.”

A bigger problem immediately faced them. The flooding had turned the forest floor to such thick mud that their horses struggled to move forward; worse still, the horses resisted, eyes rolling wildly, legs rearing.

“They fear the rot,” one soldier muttered, not meeting Rao’s eyes. But he was right.

Rao bit back a curse.

“You,” he said, gesturing at the closest group of soldiers. “With me. We’ll walk. Make sure you carry heart’s shell with you.”

The monastery was as grand as he expected, and he felt a thud of his old faith—a reflexive, instinctual love—in his chest, as good as a heartbeat at the sight of it.

The faith was short-lived.

Guards swarmed out of the monastery at his arrival, holding bows and spears. “No one is allowed to enter!” one yelled from the stairs, his spear held threateningly in front of him.

“I am Prince Rao of Alor. Is this the greeting Nimisa Monastery offers a son of Alor’s king?” Rao called out.

One guard hesitated, but another yelled back, “How do we know you’re a prince?”

“Lower your spear, you fool,” a tired voice said. A figure emerged from the monastery and strode down the stairs, bowing low to Rao. “Apologies, my prince,” the head priest said. “Forgive my men. We have been facing unforeseen danger. It has made children of us.” He straightened, meeting Rao’s eyes. “I met you once when you were a young boy—before you were sent to Harsinghar to be raised alongside Prince Aditya. You have the look of your father.”

Rao had not seen his father in years. “My thanks,” he said.

“Come,” said the head priest. “We will talk alone.”

He took Rao to a private chamber, poured him a clear cup of water, and offered him dried fruit, a pleasingly sweet fare to welcome him to the monastery. Rao ate a little out of politeness, but even his mouthful tasted more and more like ash as the priest talked.

The head priest—Sunder—told Rao that rot had grown virulently across the forest ever since floods had drowned the woods. One of his priests had stumbled onto a strange path of flowers and never returned. Another became ill, growing flowers from his skull.

“We have not been able to leave,” said Sunder. “There is too much danger beyond our walls.”

“My men and I will accompany you to safety, of course,” said Rao.

The priest shook his head.

“We cannot abandon this place. Caring for this monastery, worshipping within it, is our sacred duty.”

“Then we will remain here to help you.”

“You would be wiser not to,” Sunder said immediately, but he did not mean it. Rao could see the wretched relief in his eyes. “Matters are more dire here than they first appear.” He hesitated. “I have… a regret.”

The priest drank his own water. His glass clinked as he lowered it.

“A woman came to us,” Sunder said. “She was Ahiranyi. She told us she had a way to destroy the yaksa. We drove her away. She returned, begging for safety for her and a number of villagers, claiming a single yaksa would soon come to destroy us. We turned them all away. I did not understand—as none of us did—how terribly these paths have riddled the forest. I fear she told us the truth—that a monster will soon be the ruin of us. And I fear she is dead and cannot be helped.”

Rao listened, frozen.

“I cannot stop thinking of her words,” Sunder continued. “She haunts me. I think, perhaps, the nameless punishes me.”

Was it Priya? Had she arrived here, of all places?

Maybe this was proof that the nameless was the one working through him after all, like it or not.

“This is the holiest of places,” said the priest. “And I fear that evil forces seek to destroy it. Anything you can do to help us, Prince Rao.” He exhaled, shame and fear in his face, his voice. “I have not felt the nameless in voice or heart in a long time. It is my great shame. But I see and know that you do. I should not ask, but I must. Help us. ”

Rao could not leave the monastery unprotected. He would defend it with heart’s shell. If a yaksa was coming, it was the only possible protection they had.

He had to hope it would be enough.

When he left the room, shaken, he saw eyes watching from the shadows. He almost jumped—almost reached for his heart’s-shell blade—until a figure came forward.

“Prince Rao,” said the young priest. “My name is Ishan. And I… I think you’re looking for a woman. I can take you to her.”

The priest led him from the monastery to the land behind it, cleared of trees.

“I have been taking them what I can,” Ishan said, shamefaced. “We have stores for offerings—for food, grain, oil—anything we don’t wish to keep on monastery grounds. They’re staying here.”

He took Rao into a low-walled building, opened the large doors, and called out, “It’s me!” Rao heard rustling and saw crouched figures move. So many figures.

“I’ve brought someone willing to listen,” the priest said earnestly.

“Ishan told me he would gently cajole his fellow priests,” said a woman, hidden in shadow. Her voice was low and musical. “I did not expect a highborn lord.”

She stepped into the light, and she was not Priya. She was beautiful and plainly dressed, with wide, soft eyes. Unfamiliar.

But the man who walked forward into the light was not. He’d seen that face when he’d first tried to save Malini in Ahiranya—an Ahiranyi soldier’s face.

That was all he needed to know.

Rao drew his heart’s-shell blade. People screamed. The Ahiranyi man reached for his sword. The woman stood smoothly in front of him, shielding his body.

The priest Ishan grabbed Rao roughly, and Rao dropped the heart’s-shell blade; suddenly he felt fire behind his eyes again, pressing insistently against his skull. The Ahiranyi woman looked at him. A strange look passed over her face.

“We are not enemies,” she said, placating. “No weapons are needed here. We have a shared purpose, do we not, my lord? You feel it. I know you do.”

“Please, my lord,” Ishan said shakily.

Rao urged his heart to calm. Opened his hands.

“I’m listening,” Rao forced himself to say.

“Let us have a proper introduction,” she said, polite as any highborn woman over tea. “We have very little time left before the yaksa comes. My name, my lord, is Bhumika.”