The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3)

Chapter 66 Priya

PRIYA

They were all not quite allies to Parijatdvipa and not quite prisoners, so Priya willingly joined Bhumika and Sima in the same veil-walled chariot, with one of Malini’s guards to steer their horse, and a retinue of soldiers in a perimeter on horseback to keep an eye on them.

Priya looked at her sister: at Bhumika’s tangled hair, at her solemn face. At the distant way she stared through the curtain gauze, not seeing the world around them. Seeing something, instead, inside herself.

“Would it help if I told you who you used to be?” Priya asked once. “Bhumika, if I told you about Ahiranya, about—about our family. Would that help?”

The chariot jolted as it wheeled over a dip in the road.

“No,” Bhumika said. “I asked Jeevan not to speak of it to me. I fear…” She shook her head.

“What?” Priya pressed.

“He told me I do not want to know what I left behind,” Bhumika said finally. “And what I do know…” She paused, struggling. “I believe him.”

Silence.

“He’s doing well,” Sima offered eventually. “He’s, uh. More chained than we are. But Prince Rao and Sahar, they won’t let him be hurt.”

Bhumika nodded wordlessly and closed her eyes.

Priya watched her for a long time after that, her heart hurting. Sima leaned against her shoulder and tucked her own feet under her.

“I know,” Sima said under her breath. “I know.”

They clasped hands. The chariot kept on moving.

The sage Lata was the one who came to see them to their night’s accommodation. The chariot had stopped—the army in its entirety had stopped—ready to make camp for the night.

“Come,” she said to Priya when Sima and Bhumika were settled. Sima turned to look, a question on her face. But Priya couldn’t answer it. She nodded at Lata, then followed her.

“I do not think the empress is acting wisely,” Lata said, unprompted. She wasn’t looking at Priya—only leading the way. “But she wants you with her.”

Priya thought it would be wise to say nothing to that.

In Malini’s tent, alone, she found herself restless. Found herself touching the silken bedding, feeling the softness of the rug between her toes. She touched the items spilling from Malini’s trunk, left accessible by Swati: silk saris and boxes of jewels; books wrapped in cloth and boxes of attar.

She should not have looked at Malini’s jewelry box, but she did.

Should not have found the gap at the base, where a little paper peeked out, but she did—and pried it out gently with her fingertips. And read.

And read.

“Priya.”

Malini wore white, great chains of silver at her throat and moonstones at her ears, white jasmine a corona in her braided hair. She was every inch the empress, and she looked luminous in the darkness of the tent, bright as moonlight as she crossed the tent to where Priya sat on the bed.

“Every time I’m here, alone or with you, I find I can’t stop searching. Looking, touching…” Priya’s voice trailed off, a wisp of smoke, as she turned the letters over in her hands.

“Those are private,” Malini said, after a beat.

“They’re addressed to me.”

“You tore the lining of my jewelry box to get them,” Malini said, in a dry tone that did nothing to hide her feelings from Priya—her nervousness. The sharpness of her. “You know they weren’t for you.”

“You wrote me letters,” Priya said softly. She couldn’t defend herself, so she didn’t try. Her fingers traced over them—the spidering ink was like dust under her hovering fingers, an imprint of lost time that could be destroyed with a brush of breath, a touch. “You wanted to reach for me. Over and over again, you thought of me.”

“I did,” Malini said. She sat beside Priya back on the bed. The silk of her sari rasped.

“You loved me,” Priya said, voice thick.

A pause.

“I did,” Malini said finally.

Priya nodded, slowly. Looked back down at the letters.

Malini’s voice broke the silence.

“If you had written me letters…” Her fingertips touched Priya’s on the paper. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me what you would have written.”

“‘Dear Malini,’” Priya said after a beat. “‘I’m shit at writing letters.’”

A low laugh.

“A good start,” said Malini. “But I know you have more poetry than that.”

“You told me I’m no good at poetry.”

“Did I?” Malini’s tone was light; a leaf leaving a ripple on waters. “How well I lie.”

Priya looked down at those words, her vision blurring a little. She closed her eyes.

“‘Dear Malini,’” she began again. “‘I’m afraid. I can’t protect everyone. And serving gods, no matter how long you’ve worshipped them, is—cold, pitiless, ugly work. Whenever they ask me to change for them, to grow stranger and stronger, I think of how easy it was to become what you needed. You wanted to be saved, and even though I was angry I also… I said yes.’” She smoothed the paper down. It was that or crumple it. Her hands were restless. “You asked me to fight your war, and I said yes. You asked for me , and it was always yes. I wanted it to be yes.” A breath. “And then I couldn’t say yes any longer. I…”

A tear splattered on the page.

“Shit,” said Priya with a laugh. “I’m an ugly crier.”

Malini clasped her face then. Fingers gentle on her skin, wiping the tears away.

“Priya,” she said gently.

“You shouldn’t wipe my tears,” Priya said, her voice wobbly. “You should hate me.”

“You’ve said so before,” Malini replied, following the shape of Priya’s cheekbones tenderly with her thumbs. “I do hate you. As I hate myself. Perhaps I always will.” Tender touches, fanning over Priya’s skin. “Not because you left, Priya. But because I had so much faith in you that I did not see you, your pain, or the choice you faced—and you did not have enough faith to trust me.” She spoke in a low voice. “I wasn’t clever enough to keep you.”

“Malini—”

“I won’t be so foolish again.” Malini’s voice was determined. “I won’t lose you.”

“You put cuffs on me,” Priya said, her tears turning into a smile.

“I did.”

“Chained me. Insisted I was yours.”

“I did,” Malini said. Her hands were still holding Priya’s face. “Will you hate me for that?”

“I’ve never been so sensible,” said Priya. She turned her head, shifting from Malini’s grip. Malini released her.

Carefully, Priya reached up to Malini’s hair.

“I gave you a flower once,” Priya said. “And then I took it from you. I took my heart from you, or tried.”

She reached into Malini’s crown of flowers. The flowers were strung on a thread wound through her curls. A few blossoms came away easily. They unspooled, growing tendrils in her hands. She lowered her hands, placing her own wrists together. Those tendrils curled in a tangle around her wrists, binding them together.

“This is my vow to you,” Priya whispered. “Garland-strung. You can hold me here. I want you to.”

Malini traced the line of flowers, the vulnerable skin of Priya’s arms, above her joined wrists. Then she took Priya by the arms and dragged her in, and kissed her.

It was a firm kiss, a kiss that knew her; a kiss that demanded . It wasn’t gentle, but Priya didn’t want it to be. She thought of the way Malini had touched her in a water-swept dream and felt a hot ache in her belly, between her thighs.

Please , she mouthed, and Malini was pressing her down onto the bed, Priya’s face to the blankets, her hands beneath her; Malini was sweeping Priya’s hair aside and fastening her teeth to the nape of Priya’s neck. Priya cried out soundlessly.

Hands under her blouse. Hands touching her, owning her.

“I’m not very human anymore,” Priya said as Malini’s hands mapped her skin: the vulnerable backs of her arms, the skin of her back, flushed with traceries of leaves and flower.

“You are life,” Malini said, hushed. “There’s nothing shameful in that.”

She moved Priya, turned her until she was on her side with Malini behind her, looking at her and touching, cupping the curve of her hip, the softness of her stomach, the swell of her breasts. When Malini brushed her thumb over a nipple, as cruelly and tenderly as she’d brushed away Priya’s tears, Priya felt a want so painful she thought it would drive her mad.

“You have always been life to me,” Malini said quietly. “Always all things living and good.”

“Even when you hated me? Even when we dreamt of each other?”

“And even then you were life,” said Malini. Priya could feel the flowers at her arms winding tighter, drawing her elbows closer, raising her into Malini’s hands. That wasn’t her doing. It was all Malini’s. She did not know if Malini was doing it on purpose. She didn’t care.

Malini’s fingers studied her, mapped their way down beneath the folds of her skirt, pushing them aside. She swept a hand over the tracery of vines and leaves at Priya’s thighs, but her mouth was against Priya’s ear, her body was hot at her back, all warm skin and the cold jewels still pinned to her throat, her wrists. “Even then, I needed you. How else could I have reached for you in sleep, in dreams?”

“Malini,” Priya said.

She felt Malini’s slender, knowing fingers slide into her and tipped back into her arms, surrendered, as Malini’s mouth covered her.

Afterward, Malini used her own shivering magic to unwind the flowers. Used her mouth to soothe Priya’s skin.

“Where will you go when the war ends?” Malini asked, in the dark, in the quiet.

“Nowhere,” Priya said. It was the most honest she could be. She felt the sting of her wrists, the echo of teeth at her throat. “Nowhere,” she whispered again.

Malini pressed a ghost of a kiss to Priya’s hair.

“Sleep,” she murmured. “I have you, Priya. I have you.”