The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3)

Chapter 64 Malini

MALINI

Once the contract was drawn, she gathered her court around her.

“My lords and princes,” she said. “My highborn women—my sage and my dearest advisors.” She inclined her head to Lata, to Deepa, to the women that surrounded them. They no longer sat behind her but before her—the very head of her court. “We have a path forward.”

She told them of the weapon of sacrifice. How Elder Priya would guide willing priests to the deathless waters where they would die, and burn the waters away. She spoke with confidence and calm, unsurprised by the panicked and skeptical looks of her men. She told them this was a vision of the nameless, confirmed to her by the mothers of flame. Sunder, the head priest of the sacred Nimisa Monastery, would stand with her on this matter. It was a story convincingly woven.

“Can the Elders of Ahiranya be trusted?” one asked.

“They fear that their people will perish,” Malini said. “You can trust their desire for survival.”

“And should Elder Priya show disloyalty,” Lata said, “she will be surrounded by loyal priests willing to die for our empire, and soldiers with heart’s shell to control her.”

“Should she turn traitor, her land will burn,” Malini said coldly, and the dissent in the room quelled.

One man stood.

“Forgive me, Empress,” Ashutosh said. His eyes were cold, his chin upraised. “But you have been misled by the Ahiranyi before.”

Malini smiled at him, a diamond-hard smile.

“I have her on my leash,” she said simply.

“At the lacquer gardens in Srugna, you allowed priests to die,” he went on. “Do you fear your own death so thoroughly that you will allow holy men to die for you again?” He did not speak of his dead liegemen—the ones who had tried to murder Priya—but she saw the feeling in his eyes.

She wanted to laugh.

“You remember wrongly, my lord,” Malini said. “I did not kill the priests at the lacquer gardens. They died willingly for me, to save my life. You have heard the prophecy that named me heir to Parijatdvipa. Theirs was the fire that made my crown and placed it on my brow. I do not kill priests now, but I ask them to heed the will of the mothers and the nameless god alike: They must burn.”

She leaned forward, ferocity in her voice. “The mothers and the nameless god have taught me this, through their visions and their guidance: I am not a mother of Parijatdvipa. I am not a son of flame as my brother Aditya is, forever beloved and eternal. I am an empress, and like the emperors before me it is my duty to hold the empire whole, and the duty of good men to die for me, and for Parijatdvipa. I am Divyanshi’s scion, but I am also the scion of Emperor Sikander, and I will not betray my duties to the empire.

“The priesthood,” she said finally, “will not dispute this. They know my purpose.”

She rose to her feet, ready to depart.

She had said her piece. Hemanth, she knew, would come to her.

She was seated when he arrived upon her veranda. A peaceful position, overlooking Harsinghar, with the scent of flowers sweetly perfuming the air. Hemanth joined her, his face thunderous. He sat across from her.

“I and my priests speak for the mothers,” he said, his voice controlled. “We were not involved in this. We know this will not save Parijatdvipa.”

“You disagree with a scion of Divyanshi? The mothers spoke to me directly, High Priest.”

He knew she was lying. His expression grew darker.

“I think you seek to save yourself, Empress. That you are reneging on the vow that won you your throne. You said you would burn willingly and save Parijatdvipa. You know in your heart you must.”

The table was bare, and today she had no chaperones. No Deepa, no Lata. Just her personal guard beyond the door, each woman with her hand on her blade. That was enough.

“Lady Varsha was led astray by a priest,” she said, and saw reflexive panic and shame flicker across his face. “He offered her power. A regency upon my death. He broke beneath torture, High Priest. He assured me strenuously that you supported his every move.”

One beat. Another.

“Everything Mitul did, he did for Parijatdvipa,” said Hemanth. “Just as everything I have done has been for our empire. Emperor Chandra’s son must rule when you are gone. And you will soon be gone. You understand this.”

“I understand that you betrayed your empress.”

“It would mire Parijatdvipa in war if you called me a traitor,” Hemanth said with utter confidence, his shame forgotten. “The priesthood answers to me.”

“My brother gave you too much power. You have betrayed me, Hemanth,” said Malini, forgoing his title to make sure the blow would without a doubt find its mark. “You conspired with my brother’s widow. What did you hope to accomplish? To force me into a corner, to make me obey you?”

“You assured us you would only burn if you had your throne, Empress,” Hemanth said, his eyes cold. “I would not take your throne and have you renege on your vow. But your death—if you spoke true—is imminent. It made sense to plan for your successor.”

“Ah,” she breathed. “You only sought to hasten my death. How much better that is. But now, of course, you see I need not burn at all.”

“I know that an Ahiranyi man and woman arrived with Prince Rao,” said Hemanth. His lip curled faintly. “This offer, this knowledge, is not a gift of the nameless god—which would still be lesser than the true will of the mothers, but acceptable to us—but a trick of the yaksa. How can you not see it? Does your desire to survive blind you so thoroughly? They seek to mislead you, Empress Malini. They lead you away from your true purpose. Your fate.”

“You speak again and again of my fate, High Priest, because you look to the past through narrow eyes,” said Malini. “You do not see what I see.”

“Enlighten me, Empress,” he said, his voice bitten off, sharp. “What do you see that I, High Priest of the mothers of flame, do not see?”

“Divyanshi was a woman of great faith,” said Malini. “All the mothers were. They prayed and reached for a greater power—and the power served them and obliterated them. I have no such faith .” She leaned forward. “My blood would be far less worthy than the blood of priests who believe in their gods. Priests who have opened their souls to a greater power. I have never done such a thing. I am not even sure I love the mothers. Divyanshi gave me her blood, but she also condemned me to always be a sacrifice in waiting—no more than my organs, my bones. I do not thank her for that.” She kept her eyes fixed on Hemanth, unblinking. “Does that fill you with revulsion, Hemanth? It should at least make you pause .”

He closed his eyes. A look of grief flickered over his face. “You are wrong,” he whispered. “Wrong to turn your back on your fate.”

“I know my fate,” she said. “I know what will save us. You have choices now, High Priest. You can turn upon me and proclaim that I am misled, and the priests of the nameless with me, that Prince Rao is wrong. And we will all die at the hands of the yaksa. Or you can yield to the truth and my will.”

“Would you ask me to burn, Empress?” He leaned forward. “If it is dying alone you fear, then I promise you that my priests will die alongside you. You will not go alone. You will have the priesthood—you will have handmaidens at your side also, if you wish it.”

“No.” She thought of Narina and Alori and swallowed back rage. “You may plead ill health, if you wish,” Malini said. “You’re an old man, Hemanth, and I have no love for you. But you may fade now, with my permission. I have arranged guards for you, good Parijati men who will watch over you and see to your comfort until the day you die in your bed, forgotten.”

He raised his head.

“You ask me to hand over the priesthood willingly,” he said thinly. “To allow someone loyal to you to rise to my place. Someone who will allow you to destroy Parijatdvipa.”

“To save it,” Malini corrected.

“You think little of me, Empress, to believe I would save myself before Parijatdvipa.”

“If you turn against my will,” Malini said, looking down at him, as cold as he was cold, “I will ensure that everyone knows of your betrayal. I know it will cost me support of the priesthood. But I am no longer afraid as I once may have been. I have something greater than you. I have an answer to our war.” The secret of sacrifice. The priests of the nameless who would follow Rao and Bhumika with light fervent in their eyes. “I have the truth .”

She stood. “Mitul will be executed,” she said. “Any priest of the mothers who wishes to join me may do so. But your journey is at an end, High Priest.”

She stood before a court of priests. Priests of the mothers. Priests of the nameless.

Hemanth stood at the edge of the court, silent.

He could, she knew, have chosen to take the priesthood down with him in disgrace. But she had made a catalog of his weaknesses. Weighed him up. He loved the priesthood and the mothers above all else. What made him a dangerous ally and a dangerous foe was that he believed utterly in his own righteousness.

But this he valued more than his own ideals: the order of priests, garbed in their simple robes, their foreheads ash-marked, who arrived as a group into her court. Who bowed as she looked down upon them, Divyanshi’s scion on her throne.

As she told them what the nameless god had taught his followers in Alor. And what now they must do for all of Parijatdvipa.

Five willing deaths were enough to save the subcontinent in the Age of Flowers. Now they faced the yaksa reborn, greater, powerful. Would they face the threat? Would they die to defy it?

Slowly, surely, one by one men came forward and bowed and offered themselves. And Malini watched them, banked fire and hope growing in her heart.

Of course you saved yourself , she thought, looking at Hemanth, who stood at the edge of the court, his eyes fierce. Hemanth, who would give up his title at first light. Who would be High Priest no more.

We are alike, you and I. We’ve tasted true power.

There is nothing worthwhile for us after death.