The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3)

Chapter 63 Priya

PRIYA

No more cell on her own, and no more heart’s shell at her wrists. Ever since that strange, precious moment in a garden with Malini, they had not spoken of bargains or negotiation. Instead, Malini had carved her a little freedom. Priya had a room now, and Sahar to guard her.

Sahar had taken the orders with obvious unhappiness.

“Don’t you find it odd that you’ve been told you have to watch me?” Priya had asked her. “Do you think you’re being punished?”

“I trust whatever the empress wills,” Sahar had said. “And I am still her head guard. I just have—additional priorities.” Her nose had wrinkled.

Priya had refrained from saying anything to that.

Now Sahar entered Priya’s bare, light-filled room at speed, face stormy. Priya was already standing, pacing.

“Something is happening,” Priya said. She’d heard noise from the corridors, and clamor from the mahal’s gardens and the city beyond its walls, echoing in through the window. “You can tell me. What’s going on?”

“I’m not a courier,” Sahar said, slamming the door shut. “It isn’t my job to carry messages.”

Priya leaned back against the wall and waited for Sahar to continue. She’d come here for a reason. Priya wasn’t much for patience, but she could give Sahar a little today.

“Come with me,” Sahar ordered finally.

“Does the empress want me?”

“No,” Sahar said shortly. “Come.”

Sahar didn’t wait any longer. She grasped Priya’s wrist and ushered her to the door. They went out in the corridor and walked swiftly along halls lined with guards.

“You killed a friend of mine,” Sahar said abruptly, not looking at her. “I used to like you once. But now…” Sahar exhaled and shook her head. “Just don’t give me a reason to hurt you. The empress wouldn’t forgive me.”

They were walking toward the prison cells. Priya considered resisting, but Sahar was so furious that Priya was half sure she would try to gut Priya, given the opportunity.

Sahar gave a sharp nod to the guards at the prison doors, and they moved to the side, inclining their heads. The door opened, and Sahar dragged Priya in.

Inside stood Prince Rao.

“I’m doing this as a favor to you and to Sima,” Sahar replied, voice low. Her grip on Priya’s arm was iron, and then suddenly—it wasn’t. “Be quick. I won’t give you long. Don’t let Elder Priya in with her.”

“Thank you,” Prince Rao said. “Of course.”

He turned his gaze to Priya, growing cooler, less friendly. He inclined his head.

“Elder Priya,” he said. “I was asked to do a kindness. Please. I will take you to her, but first I must explain why she is—changed. And how she came to be here.”

“Who is she?” Priya asked, a little exasperated.

“Bhumika,” he said. “Your fellow elder.”

She stared at him. She could not speak. Her mind was a roar of blood, her heart cracked open.

He spoke, and she listened.

Bhumika. Bhumika alive .

They walked. He gestured ahead of him to a cell with bars. A quiet cell, lit by a burning lamp. She was afraid, strangely afraid, that he’d lied to her. But there she was. A cell with a woman within—a woman who sat neatly with her hands clasped, who turned her head and met Priya’s eyes.

Priya’s heart splintered all over again.

“Bhumika,” Priya breathed. She didn’t give a shit what anyone said. She was going to break this prison into shards; she would turn every bar to roses. Bhumika was in front of her, alive and whole. Bhumika was here.

It took all her control just to slam herself against the bars, to clasp them and reach her fingers through for Bhumika to touch. To not rip the whole place apart. “Bhumika, Bhumika. You left me. You left Padma. You—where have you been? What did you do?”

It took her a second to realize that Bhumika was not reaching for her fingers in return, or speaking. There was a stillness about her that was familiar, but the look on her face wasn’t. It made Priya’s stomach drop and her voice die.

He hadn’t been lying.

“You really don’t remember me,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Bhumika said, quiet in the absence that Priya’s voice had left. “I have lost myself. I don’t remember the woman I once was.” Her hands gripped her skirt, creasing the cloth into half-moons. “We knew each other?”

Priya searched for her voice.

“You’re my sister,” Priya managed to say. “My family. You—you left. I didn’t know if you were dead or just—gone. But it’s okay, Bhumika. I… I’m just glad you’re alive. You’re here. It doesn’t matter what you remember.”

Bhumika rose to her feet and walked toward the bars.

“I am sorry for causing you pain,” Bhumika said.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” Priya said immediately.

Bhumika was looking at her face, taking in each of her features with care. There was no familiarity in her face, but there was tenderness. She reached out for the bars.

Finally, their hands met. Flesh. Bhumika was here. Bhumika was real. Priya could have wept, but she felt too much for tears. Her whole body was an unraveling knot. She leaned against the bars, her forehead against metal, their clasped hands.

Inside her, unfettered by heart’s shell, her magic sang in recognition. Bhumika was not in the sangam, not in the shared waters their magic rose from, but dregs of the magic of the yaksa still moved in her—Priya could feel them. And Bhumika felt her in return. Bhumika’s gaze was suddenly distant, fixed over Priya’s shoulder—as if she saw something Priya could not see, and heard words Priya couldn’t hear.

Bhumika closed her eyes. Opened them. She’d begun to weep, silent rolling tears.

“Bhumika, are you all right?” Priya asked, alarmed.

“I was told I would grieve,” she said, which made no sense to Priya. Before she could question it, Bhumika grasped her hand tighter. “Leave us, Prince Rao,” she said.

“I can’t do that,” he said.

“You owe me this at least,” Bhumika said. Her voice was quiet but firm. “Please. We need only a moment.”

He hesitated. But he looked at her teary face, and something in him visibly crumbled. “Be quick .”

Priya heard his footsteps. A door shutting.

Then Bhumika blinked her tears away, her expression firm.

“I only cried to make him leave,” Bhumika said. “He feels guilt for imprisoning me.”

“As he should,” Priya said sharply. Bhumika’s grip tightened.

“Listen to me,” she urged. “He told you the knowledge I shared, yes?”

“Yes. But what—”

“I did not share everything with Prince Rao, and he knows it,” Bhumika said, speaking firmly and hurriedly. “I have given him the ability to kill yaksa but not destroy them in their entirety. I told him I would only provide it to him if he promised me the safety of the Ahiranyi people. But I will tell you.”

“You can’t trust me this easily,” said Priya, hushed. Her skin felt like it was covered in sparks of lightning, alive. “You don’t know me. What if I give this to the empress without asking for anything in return? I could have been sent here to trick you, I—”

“I feel what you are,” said Bhumika. “It is not a matter of trust. You’re needful. I am sorry for it. Listen to me: The place where the strength of the yaksa enters the world. Destroy that and the strength of the yaksa will die with it.”

“The Hirana,” Priya breathed. Of course.

To reach it, Malini would need her. Without Priya’s thrice-born guidance, Malini’s soldiers and priests would have to die in waves to break through Ahiranya’s wall of trees. But Priya could lead them directly there.

That gave her leverage.

“I can save Ahiranya with this,” Priya said, elated and relieved. “You had no reason to tell me this, no reason to put trust in me, but thank you for doing it. I’ll negotiate with the empress. And I’ll make sure she frees you, too.”

Bhumika’s grip tightened suddenly.

“There is another price,” she said. “ She was the one who opened the waters.”

“Who?”

“The god who grows upon you like a strangling fig grows upon a hollow tree. I can see her in you. Feel her. The waters will survive, as long as a single cutting, a seed, a root of her remains,” said Bhumika urgently, and Priya felt the realization rush through her body before it touched her thoughts.

Of course. Every part of Mani Ara had to be destroyed.

Even the parts that were Priya.

“I am sorry,” Bhumika whispered. “I am so very sorry.”

Priya shook her head, searching for words, wanting Bhumika to understand that there was nothing to be sorry for, that they both knew how cruel the world could be, that Bhumika had lost herself, and how could Priya do any less? But it was too late. The door clanged open, and Rao walked back in.

“Enough,” said Prince Rao. “It’s time to go.”

“I’m not leaving Bhumika in this prison,” Priya said immediately. “You must be a fool if you think I’m doing that. Someone tried to kill me when I was in a cell. The guards can’t be trusted.”

She saw him hesitate.

“Elder Priya,” he said. “I promise Lady Bhumika will be given better accommodation, and I promise she’ll be safe. Now please. Go, before Sahar gets angry?”

Malini came to Priya’s room hours later. She left her guards at the door, sweeping in with the scent of flowers, gold glinting in the braid of her hair.

Time. Malini had asked her for that—begged for it with those dark eyes of hers, vulnerable despite all her power. But her gaze was steady now. She was glittering, untouchable, beyond Priya. She was the empress.

“You’ve been wandering,” Malini said.

“I was taken to see Bhumika,” said Priya. She took in a slow breath. Steeled herself. “She and I both want to bargain with you.”

Malini looked at her, one elegant eyebrow raised.

“Do you?”

“She told me everything. Even the secrets she has kept from you.”

“Everything? Remarkable trust from a woman with no memories,” Malini murmured.

“We’re still bound by magic,” Priya said. “Still temple sisters. That was enough.” Priya leaned forward. “Vow that Ahiranya’s people will be safe and free, and I’ll give you a way to destroy the yaksa forever. Fewer deaths of your soldiers and your priests. What do you say?”

“Yes,” Malini said simply.

Priya blinked.

“What?”

“Yes,” said Malini.

Priya stared at her silently. Malini stared back, calm and unsmiling.

“My scribes will arrange a contract,” said Malini. “A true political pact between the Elders of Ahiranya and the Empress of Parijatdvipa in return for knowledge.”

“You’ll do it, then?” Priya asked, her voice small. “Spare Ahiranya?”

“I will. I don’t fear killing,” said Malini. “But if I have the opportunity to spare my own people and ensure that the yaksa never return, I’m going to take it.”

She moved toward Priya. Hesitated, as if she feared to draw closer. Priya saw a flash of vulnerability in those dark eyes again.

“I wouldn’t lie about this,” Malini said softly.

Priya let out a shaky laugh.

“You hate me,” Priya said. “You have good reason to lie to me. To hurt me. I thought I would have to fight you for this.”

“Do you believe I still want to hurt you, or do you believe I should want to?”

Priya said nothing. From some reason, those words were more awful than any knife would have been.

“To destroy Ahiranya would destroy you,” Malini said. “I don’t want to destroy you. Not any longer.”

Priya swallowed. The room suddenly felt too small, and she could think of nothing but reaching for Malini—of crossing the distance between them and grasping Malini’s arms, drawing her close and tasting her again, the salt and flowers of her—

She clenched her hands tight. Her nails pressed grooves into her palms, grounding her. Did she deserve Malini’s touch, her mouth, the tender promise that Malini did not want to destroy her? She knew she did not.

“Arrange the contract,” Priya managed to say. “Then I’ll tell you all you need to know. In return for saving Ahiranya, I promise, Malini—I’ll win Parijatdvipa this war.”