The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms #3)

Chapter 89 Malini

MALINI

Priya,

Think of my delay as my love letter to you. My final love letter. If I find nothing of you and cannot seek you out—I have nonetheless done what you would have wanted from me. I have made sure Ahiranya is safe, and it will survive. I have made an ally of your sister.

I have counted each year. I remember your arms around me in the Hirana. The smell of you—water and lotus flowers, the things that reach through the darkness and survive.

I know you live.

You will never see this, or you will. I wrote you letters once that you were never meant to see, and still you did. So I must trust that you will find a way. You were always stubborn enough, my love.

Priya, the world is vast and strange, and it is mine. I have the kind of power men die for, and yet I tire of it. I remember a dream of garlanding you and I think—

—I think it is more powerful and strange than any crown. To live without masks. To swim through rage and grief and rise, alive, on the other side.

Priya.

I am coming.

In the night, she woke and found flowers growing through the walls of her chambers. She lifted a lamp and saw them—the black of them, the way they bloomed joyously at the sight of her. She lowered the lamp and laughed and wept, smiling.

She knew it was time.

She had ruled as well as she could. She had built her court around her, and filled it with clever, cunning women. They would give Vijay wise counsel if he was willing to accept it.

She met Lata now, once again, on a veranda as the sun rose. Lata watched the light thoughtfully. Then she turned her eyes onto Malini.

“When will you go?” Lata asked. Lata had always known her too well.

“This year,” Malini said. “Before the monsoon.”

“You could stay,” Lata said. “Rule until a grand old age. Become a legend. Change the empire entirely.”

“I will not become a grand old empress,” Malini said softly. That she was sure of. She wasn’t entirely human anymore. She had thought herself mortal after the Hirana fell. But in the years since she had not aged, and flowers still turned easily to her grasp, seeking her light. Whatever had happened to her in the waters—deep in Priya’s power—had changed her forever.

In the aftermath of the yaksa and the second Age of Flowers, there were many who still had rot—who lived with the mark of it. Forests of flesh still stretched across Parijatdvipa. Though the rot grew no worse, it grew no better, and strangeness had become commonplace. But Malini was still stranger than the rest.

There had been magic, for Priya, in being Mani Ara’s beloved. Terrible, cursed magic. But perhaps being Priya’s beloved would be a kinder fate.

“The prince is very young,” Lata said with a sigh. “And yet too old for a regent. The throne will be a hard trial for him.”

“He will grow,” said Malini. “All children do.”

And if he was too weak for the throne—if he could not hold Parijatdvipa—then let it crumble. Perhaps the time had come to release them all from old vows, from the ever-turning wheel.

She traveled to Srugna first. This time there was pomp and ceremony. A banquet, and awed eyes upon her. She smiled through it all, impervious. All of it would be done with soon.

That night she slipped away from her guards and walked alone into Srugna’s countryside. Then its woods. Then, without pause, into Ahiranya’s own forest.

People claimed there was no magic in Ahiranya’s woods any longer, but she felt it. She could have followed it with her eyes closed. It was a beckoning. A tug beneath her breastbone. A calling.

Come home.

She found her way to a waterfall. Beneath it, a pool rich with lilies.

She unbound her own hair.

Maybe there was no Priya to be found here. But it was a tenderness and blessing that the forest knew her at all. It was enough. It would have to be. She had done everything she intended to do, and now she could sit quietly here in this water, until she was ready to move again. To start anew. To die, all forgotten bones as she’d threatened, or to start again as Rao had—striding over the horizon, gold-eyed, never to be seen on Parijatdvipan soil again.

Even if she was wrong, the world was vast and strange, and she would welcome it.

Rao had written to her at times over the years—thick letters, faded from sunlight, or touched with mold from the ruinous mingling of heat and rain. He’d written to her of golden mountains, and seas the color of emeralds.

The same griefs and joys live everywhere, Malini , he’d told her. But I find peace in seeing that we all rise and fall on the same waves. Maybe you would, too.

She slid into the water. Waded into it, the coolness of it rising to her waist. Closed her eyes, feeling the light on her skin.

“There is a story I once told a girl,” a voice said. It was a familiar voice and also—not. “Of a man who garlanded a tree until it came alive and married him.”

One deep breath. Another. She could not turn. Her heart would break if she turned and found nothing behind her.

“I know that story,” Malini whispered.

A faint sound. Half a laugh, half a sob, so human , and it made tears come to Malini’s own eyes.

“It’s hard, you know? Wrestling a god into sleep. You helped me to do it. I saw the light of you and I followed it and it saved me. It helped me fight her. But even then, I couldn’t remember how to be anymore. I had to learn again.” A sound. The swish of leaves. Of water. Maybe breath. Maybe a body, deep in the water behind her. “I left you for so long. I’m sorry.”

Malini closed her eyes and listened to that voice. Drank it like wine.

“It’s all right,” Malini said. “I gather trees grow very slow.”

Another laugh. This one had no tears in it.

“If I garland you?” Malini asked. “Will that make you human enough to stay with me?”

“If I send you flowers through the soil and through your skin, will that make you magical enough to stay at my side?”

“You know the answer,” Malini said shakily. “I’m here. I had the world in my palm, and I found it wanting. I’m a greedy creature, Priya. I came here for you. There is a flower in my heart, and it grew for you.”

A heartbeat passed, and she was sure now that she could hear a body in the water. A hesitant breath.

“Look at me,” the voice said. It was very close. An entreaty behind her.

“I am afraid,” Malini admitted.

“If you garland me,” Priya said quietly, tenderly, “I will love you and marry you. I will stay with you until time ends, and the green is no more, and there’s nothing but cold stars left.” A pause. A gentle hand grasping her pallu. “Look at me, Malini.”

Malini turned and met Priya’s eyes.