The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3)

Chapter 52 Priya

PRIYA

They were taking her to Parijat. They had to be.

Malini’s soldiers had placed her in an enclosed cart. The one high lattice carved crudely into the wood wasn’t close enough or large enough to let her see the landscape they were passing, and the jolt and rumble of the wheels and the clatter of the horses made it hard to hear anything that would allow her to orient herself—no rush of river water or noises of local villages.

And thanks to the magical stone cuffs now at her wrists, no green.

She hadn’t expected how losing it would make her feel, but it was… disorienting. She knew what she was meant to feel—but when she reached for it, constantly and compulsively, there was nothing there.

She slept a great deal. She was fairly sure the food she was given wasn’t drugged, but boredom made it hard to do anything else. The only time she saw other people was when her food was brought, or when she was taken out at swordpoint to relieve herself. Which was a kindness, she supposed.

Over time, her guards grew more lax. Sometimes she heard them talking as they directed her cart—voices rising and falling in casual murmurs. She learned the name of the stone that controlled her.

Heart’s shell. Why was it called that? It was a strange name. Perhaps it sounded different when it was said in a language that wasn’t Zaban.

The cuffs at her wrist and the single ankle chain of heart’s shell were impossible to ignore. They clanked whenever she moved—and because she was on a literal moving cart, she moved frequently. Once, in a thin knife-slant of sunlight, she’d examined the links. No metal—apart from the lock at her ankle bone—held the chains together. It was pure, whittled rock, smoothed to a gleaming shine.

What was even harder to ignore was the pressure in her own head. She could feel the yaksa trying to reach her. Sometimes she woke and felt the ghost of their touch on her still—flat, lidless eyes, and hands reaching, and mouths of bark and thorn shaping her name. Trying to call her back to them.

They couldn’t. Not with the stone at her wrists.

Malini was clearly making good use of her heart’s shell. The guards carried it; their blades were edged with it, and they wore it around their throats. Just like Ahiranyi once wore beads of sacred wood, Priya realized, and almost laughed at the realization. They were no different from each other really, underneath the thousands of ways that they were. They all feared something in the dark, something they could only keep at bay but never vanquish.

The door opened. A figure entered, up onto the cart’s creaking wood. And Priya—straightened.

“Sima,” she breathed.

Sima took one step farther in. Joy shot through Priya. Sima was alive. Sima was safe . Sima was—

“Pri,” she replied. Her smile was strained. Her eyes were damp, shiny. Both her hands were curled into fists at her sides. Careful , her face said.

The cart was still. It was quiet enough that Priya could hear the movement of bodies around it. Guards, listening in.

Sima was dressed like an Aloran woman, in a narrow churidar and a loose man’s-style tunic. No shawl. Her face was sun-dark, golden at the nose and cheeks. She looked as strong as she’d always looked, but she also looked…

She looked like she didn’t smile as much anymore.

“Are you hurt?” Sima asked, after a beat of silence. “Do those… are they hurting you?” She gestured at the heart’s shell at Priya’s wrists.

“No,” Priya said. “They just chafe a little. Sima, I’m so glad you’re safe. And I’ve missed you.” She swallowed. “I really have.”

“Oh, Pri. I…” She stopped and shook her head. “You killed Romesh,” she said. “Or I was told you had. Did you…?”

A thump of grief and guilt in her chest.

“I did,” Priya said. “It was not my weapon, but it was my fault.”

Sima lowered her head.

“I’m not going to make excuses,” Priya said quietly. “But I am sorry. You have the right to be angry with me.”

“Of course I am,” Sima said, her voice low. She raised her head. Her eyes were damp. “I’m so angry at you. I don’t think I could ever forgive you. You—you did that. And you left me.”

Priya nodded, her own throat tight.

“I did,” she said.

“You’re awful,” Sima said. “An absolute shit.” She rubbed her knuckles over her eyes, her wet face, roughly. “Try to do what the empress wants. Please, Pri. Don’t die now. I’ll never forgive you.”

Priya wanted to reach for her, wanted to draw her into a rough hug so both of them could cry in the ugly, awful way you could only cry with a friend. Instead she raised her hands and clumsily wiped her own eyes.

“I’ll do my best,” said Priya. “But for now… tell the guards, or the empress, or whoever let you come here—I won’t offer you anything useful. If the empress wants answers, she must speak to me herself.”

She’d seen Sima alive and healthy. She knew Sima was well.

That was enough.