The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3)

Chapter 85 Malini

MALINI

She woke alone.

The temple was in rubble, Lata was telling her in a low voice. A careful voice. The Hirana had crumbled. Elder Bhumika had allowed a few chosen members of Malini’s council to see what remained of it—to examine the dirt and the stone and find nothing in it, no yaksa, no Priya. No life at all.

She is not dead , Malini thought. She grasped the thought like dust, like sand, ash trying to drift through her fingers.

She is not dead.

Priya.

Priya.

“I will meet with Elder Bhumika,” said Malini. “I offered her the safety of Ahiranya if she and Elder Priya helped us, and she kept her part of the bargain. Parijatdvipa will keep its vows.”

No one argued with her, even though she spoke from her sickbed, surrounded by court officials and scribes and highborn—a scene so like her father’s own death that it would have made her laugh, if she’d had the strength for laughter.

She saw her life stretch out before her. She would be a great empress. A living mother of flame. She would be alone, friendless and powerful, as Raziya had warned her she would be. She would die alone, mourned but truly loved by few. She would never hear Priya’s laughter again.

She felt no pain at the thought yet. She knew now from experience that a grave wound was often painless when fresh because the hurt of it was too great for the mind to grasp. The agony would come later.

It was weeks before she dreamt of darkness, and fingertips against her lips.

The yaksa are gone , she said—or tried to say. Reached out, and felt Priya’s smiling mouth beneath her palm.

The yaksa are gone, agreed Priya.

But I’m not simply a yaksa.

She woke and allowed Swati to brush her hair, and looked at her own face in the silvery glass of her mirror. She was not golden carved, or a living mother of flame. She looked mortal and tired.

But in the night, a flower had grown at her chest. A black bloom.

A promise.