The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3)

Chapter 78 Arahli Ara

ARAHLI ARA

“I won’t die for them,” Vata Ara said raggedly.

“The Parijatdvipans have a weapon once more that can destroy us,” Arahli said. “Priya is in the flames. We have nothing.”

Vata Ara shook his head, blood pouring from his wound. His face was pale. “We will find a way to survive. If we wait here, when the forest is all burned, we may walk free.”

“The fire seeks us,” he said. His gaze swept over them. “Not them. You remember how it was last time.”

“Better than you do,” Taru Ara said thinly. “I didn’t stumble about believing I was mortal. I remember clearly what we were. The fire…” Her hand trembled in his own. “The fire felt like emptiness,” she whispered. “And the emptiness was long, and our sleep was dark. I did not dream or think for so long. Maybe not until you freed me from the tree where my bones grew.”

“Sleep isn’t so terrible,” said Arahli.

“Brother, you will not turn to wood and soil and earth,” Taru said to him, grasping him by the arms. Her eyes were wrong, terribly wrong—leaking salt water, red-veined, her cheeks flushed with mortal blood. “You are more flesh than green now. Do you understand what may become of you? A permanent death. Something we can never rise from again.”

The fires were rising below.

He knew what Mani Ara would do in his place.

She was not a creature of gentleness or sacrifice. She was pitiless and strong and she did what was necessary to survive. She would fight to the bitter end. In the sangam, she was fighting. She loved them. He knew it.

In his place, she would let Ahiranya burn to cinders before she accepted her own death, or theirs.

He should not have cared if the Ahiranyi lived or died. But Ashok was a sickness in him. As long as Arahli lived, Ashok would live in him too, and he would grieve for this rotten land.

“I won’t die,” Vata Ara said roughly. “I won’t do it. I won’t.”

Vata Ara was still bleeding from his chest, sluggish red blood. Taru was holding her clothed stomach, holding in her wounded innards—flower, intestine, vine.

“The fire will kill us,” Arahli rasped. “But we can spare the mortals. They are all that remains of us. My kin. My family. Please. If anything can survive us, our death will have worth.”

“They do not even care for us,” Taru Ara whispered, and now she wept. Sap trickled from her eyes. “If they did, they would die for us .”

He clasped her face. Her face that had once belonged to a thrice-born temple elder: a girl who had laughed, and grown leaves on her sister’s skirt, who had been sweet and cruel and mourned by her brother Ashok all his short and unjust life.

“Some of them did,” he said gently. He looked at his other surviving kin.

“I know you dream as humans dream,” he said quietly. “I know how it hurts you. I know how your bodies ache and twist around you. I know the agony of being mortal.” A breath. “I miss the stars. I yearn for the great void. But I will accept the quiet of death, if it will spare me the pain of living. Will you join me?” His voice broke. “I do not wish to die alone.”

Silence.

It was Bhisa Ara who finally stepped forward, placing a hand against his cheek.

“Yes,” she said gently. “We will go together.”

Avan Ara hid his face against her skirts, as overwhelmed as a real child. Vata Ara closed his eyes.

“Together,” he echoed. “Yes.”

He went to Bhumika. Kneeled down beside her.

He placed a hand against her throat.

She held very still under his hand. Waiting for death with grim, fierce calm.

“I do not envy you,” he murmured. “I know what it means to be mortal now. It is grief and pain and love that destroys you. I will be glad to be free of it. But you—you may have it. For Ashok’s sake. My last gift to him.” He tightened his grip upon her throat. “Remember,” he said. “And grieve, sister. Grieve us all.”

He dragged her into the waters.

He felt the sangam around them, her spirit and his. He felt her become whole again. Then he dragged them free once more.

He heard her gasp, and spasm, and fall. Someone yelled and ran for her, grasping her before her skull touched stone and splintered.

A simple thing. It was done.

He turned his head.

“Taru,” he said. “Can you walk?”

She shook her head. She was weeping, furious and miserable. But she allowed him to lift her. She gasped with pain, then went quiet.

The echo of Ashok was in him still, and with it the animal terror of running for his life. Of holding another child and running from fire. Now he ran toward it.

They made their way down the Hirana, where the flames waited, gold and furious. He held Taru tighter, even though Taru Ara was not a child. “Don’t look,” he whispered against the fronds of Taru’s hair. “Don’t look, don’t look—”

And even though Taru Ara was not a child, she let out a hitched and human breath. She closed her eyes. He exhaled and closed his own.

At least they would be spared humanity.

At least there would be peace.