The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3)

Chapter 84 Rao

RAO

He staggered through woods on makeshift crutches, through throngs of screaming people, wounded soldiers. But he found Sahar near the Hirana, as he’d half feared, half hoped. He hobbled to her, sweating with the effort. Kneeled down beside her with a hiss.

She was bleeding. Her clothes were sodden with the blood. His stomach lurched at the sight. But she was awake, conscious, alive. There was still hope.

“Tried to staunch it,” Sahar gasped. “I grabbed… a cloth…”

“You need more than a cloth wadded against your side,” he said grimly. “At least tell me it was clean.”

“I can’t promise that.”

He tried to help her up, and her hand clasped his arm, her grip like iron.

“I waited for her,” Sahar said. Pain had made her vision hazy, but she was clearly trying to focus. “Went back. Waited and—went to look for her. In the end. She’d gotten out somehow from that fucking temple.”

“Did she go to burn?”

“I don’t know—what she went to do,” Sahar said slowly, painfully. “Only that—she did it. They’re gone, aren’t they? The yaksa.”

He breathed carefully, slowly. Nodded.

“Was Elder Priya with her?”

Sahar’s gaze darkened.

“No,” she said. “No. She’s gone.”

He tried to assist Sahar up again. She gave an awful, wrenching cry.

“I’m getting help for you,” Rao said. She grasped him tighter.

“The empress first,” she said.

“You deserve to live,” he snapped. “Sahar, I—I’ll protect her myself. I’ll make sure she’s well.”

“You don’t understand,” Sahar said. “She’s—behind the rocks. Go. Look at her.”

It was clear Sahar wouldn’t be dissuaded. So he released her. Went to look.

He understood immediately.

Malini was alive. Unburned. Lying unconscious, soaked to the bone, on a bed of black flowers. When she breathed, they moved with her. A heartbeat of life.

He took a step back. Another.

“She burned,” said Rao.

Sahar stared at him. “What?”

“She burned,” Rao said again. “That’s what you saw. And she stepped out of the flames unharmed. She saved us all. That’s what we’ll say. When you survive this—and you will —that’s what you’ll say. She’s a living mother of flame. A living goddess. You understand?”

Through the pain, Sahar’s expression cleared. She nodded.

“Yes,” she said, more firmly. “That’s what I saw.”

No one would have power over Malini again.