Chapter 4 Chandra
CHANDRA
The first bloom had sprouted in his mother’s garden. After the first trees were felled—after fires burned day in and out, painting the sky black with smoke—he had sifted through the ash and found it:
A flower of fire. Proof of the rightness of his rule. An assurance that the bone-deep certainty that had carried him this far was entirely correct.
He was the rightful ruler of Parijatdvipa. And his cause was just.
But his mother’s garden had not been enough. As his sister defeated his army in Dwarali, Chandra tended carefully to his flowers. Fields were cleared, and pyres planted with women tied to them, and set alight.
His sister murdered his men at the border of Alor.
He built more pyres and watched his flowers bloom.
He sent men to Ahiranya. The two soldiers who returned came to the imperial mahal with hollow expressions and horrified eyes.
They spoke of thorns as large as swords that could run a body through, and vines that could choke the life out of a man.
They told him temple elders ruled in Ahiranya.
Monsters, they said. Monsters with the faces of women.
Chandra gathered ash from his fields. Flowers needed soil, and his flowers of flame needed the gristle and bone-dust that had made them.
He stood in a room of carefully stored fires, each preserved in its own carved chest of stone on a bed of ashes, and told himself grimly, My sister must die first.
When she is dead and gone, I’ll show the Ahiranyi their place.
Now, he stood in the heart of the imperial temple. He could smell the pyres even from here, the smoke wafting in through the windows, settling a patina of gray on the flowers that lay at the feet of the mothers, wrought in gold.
In an alcove, veiled by a partition curtain, were two more statues. Mothers Alori and Narina, who had burned before Chandra’s eyes. He had visited it today and laid flowers at their feet. Jasmine, for his sister, who had worn it so often in her hair. His sister, who should have burned with them.
It comforted him, being here. Calmed him.
He had come to the imperial temple often as a boy—walked through its gardens, his heart and his bones aching with fury at the injustice of the world.
To be born a prince of an imperfect empire—to be born second, and never able to change it for the better—had galled him.
His brother Aditya had been a beloved crown prince.
Born first, and born perfect: a friendly, smiling creature, good at making allies and fighting with sabers, playing with dice and drinking himself sick.
These were the qualities valuable in the heir to Parijatdvipa.
Drunkness and frivolous charm. It was no wonder, then, that Chandra had not been admired as his brother had been.
Ill-tempered, Chandra had been called, by his father’s court. Arrogant. Unwilling to bend.
For a time, he had believed it—had hated himself for being unworthy of his blood and his status and power.
Whenever his father had offered Aditya praise, or a seat alongside his advisors, and dismissed Chandra without a word or a thought, Chandra had burned with that hate.
And still, he had done all in his power to try to improve the world, and received nothing in return for it.
When he had punished his sister for ill-bred behavior, she had fled from him in bitter disobedience.
When he had reminded his brother’s friends of their place with his words and his fists, Aditya had shoved him so hard he had fallen to the dirt.
Chandra had been punished by the sages who educated him after that.
This is not how a prince treats his allies, they’d said, as they had taken a rod to his palms.
They are not my allies, Chandra had thought, remembering the way those boys with their flawed Saketan and Aloran blood had laughed and talked with Aditya, as if he were their equal.
There was an insurmountable chasm between their actions and the reality that they were lesser, by blood and by nature, than a mother-blessed imperial prince of Parijatdvipa.
When his brother had come later, with salve for his hands, and tried to speak to him, Chandra had turned him away. Aditya was not his ally either. Aditya, who allowed others to debase him.
Chandra’s only comfort had been the High Priest.
You have strength your brother does not. Faith, a righteous heart, obedience to the will of the mothers—these have a value beyond all else. He still remembered the words. Remembered walking around the temple with the priest’s hand at his back. A soothing weight.
You will be a great man one day, Prince Chandra. Wait and see. I see the light of the mothers in you.
And Chandra had learned to recognize his own worth.
Aditya—smiling, perfect Aditya—had no room in his nature for the unyielding, fierce weight of true devotion to the mothers of flame.
Aditya was shallow and empty. He had never felt the same writhing anger that Chandra felt constantly in his own heart.
It was that anger that made Chandra strong.
Chandra’s so-called ill temper and arrogance were fire and pride, honor and vision.
His brother was pitiful and weak and saw only goodness in a world that was rotten to the core.
But Chandra—Chandra had the mettle to be merciless.
Chandra was better than him in all the ways that mattered. He always had been.
“Emperor.” The voice came from behind him. He turned, and saw the High Priest approaching. Hemanth was a slight, white-haired figure with gentle eyes beneath his ash-marked brow, and an air of serenity about him. His mien of calm never failed to calm Chandra in turn.
“Priest,” Chandra said in return. “You asked to meet with me.”
“Your wedding approaches.” The priest’s tone was neutral. “Have you considered quenching the fires before your bride’s arrival?”
“My bride should understand,” said Chandra. “My fires are burning to save her father, after all. My priests, trained for war, carry it as gifts to his door. Won’t she be glad to know that more will come? That her father’s reign is secure?”
“I do not believe all women consider practicalities on their wedding days,” the High Priest said. A faint smile touched his mouth. “Or so I have been told.”
“Some women,” said Chandra, “do not understand the price of leadership. She’ll learn.”
A breeze wafted through the temple again, scattering garland petals at the feet of the mothers, making the oil lamps flicker.
Chandra closed his eyes and tried to force thoughts of the war away.
His sister, seizing Alor’s and Srugna’s support.
His sister cutting a swathe through Chandra’s allies.
His sister in Saketa, turning her avaricious eyes on the High Prince, the one ally who had remained true to Chandra through all the hard months since his sister had taken up a false title and ruined herself all the more.
“Emperor,” the High Priest said. “There is one more thing we must discuss.”
Chandra opened his eyes.
The High Priest’s expression was grave.
“You have striven valiantly to save Parijatdvipa from itself,” he said.
“From foolish men, led by greed and pride. From your brother, who turned his face away from his blood-given faith. From the collapse and decay that comes to all nations that forget their vows and their purity. But I fear that your quest demands a price you do not wish to pay.”
“Speak,” Chandra said.
“Princess Malini,” said Hemanth. “She must burn.”
“I promise you she’ll die,” Chandra replied, feeling that pang of fury again—that desperate hunger to see his sister dead.
If there is anything of you that hears me, mothers, he prayed with love and fury, then let her die.
Let her die in pain and suffering, knowing she is a disgrace to her name.
Let her die by my hand. I will push her into the flames myself.
I will watch the skin shrivel from her bones, and I will dedicate the flower that blooms from that death to your names.
“She must burn,” Hemanth said, with careful emphasis that pressed upon Chandra’s anger like a finger to a bruise. “And she must do so as the mothers of flame did: for all our sakes, willingly and selflessly.”
“Not all my women burn willingly,” Chandra said. And even the ones who had risen to his pyres with glad hearts, sure in their faith, happy to follow in the footsteps of the mothers, had regretted it when the fire began to eat through their flesh. “And still, their deaths bless us all.”
“A willing death of a daughter of Divyanshi’s line would be a different magic entirely,” Hemanth said. “I know you recognize this, Emperor.”
The chiding note in his voice galled. If anyone else had spoken to Chandra that way—as if Chandra were a mere child—they would have died seconds later, gutted on the end of his sword.
But Hemanth was different. Hemanth had always been different.
“You believed once that her burning would cleanse her,” Hemanth said, pressing onward. “Free her. That it would, in turn, give you the strength to change Parijatdvipa for the better. Has that belief altered?”
He thought of Malini’s bare neck, bloodied under his hands. His sister baring her teeth at him like an animal. Ruined beyond repair by her own will, her own choices, even though he had offered her a path to immortality, a meaningful death.
I will never burn for you, his sister had vowed.
“I have my weapons,” he said. “I have my marital alliance. I have pyres that will give me gifts, mother-blessed gifts, no matter how the women who die for them may scream and claim to refuse me. I have my soldiers, and priestly warriors, and I have you.” He looked at Hemanth, suddenly clutched by a desperate fear.
“I will not beg her to burn,” he said raggedly.
“I cannot do it. She cannot—I cannot think of her without wanting the world to wither to dust, you understand? I will not give her the satisfaction of my pleading, when I know she will refuse to do what is right. I will save Parijatdvipa by my methods. By my own glory and strength.” His hands stung from the bite of his own nails against his palms. He stretched them open and said, “You told me yourself, many years ago. The mothers destined me for greatness. The crown fell into my hands, because Parijatdvipa is rightfully mine. To rule, and to save. Will you stand with me? Will you guide me, priest, as you always have?”
The High Priest’s gaze had softened. He touched a hand to Chandra’s cheek, and Chandra’s shoulders finally released their tension. He sagged. Small with relief.
The High Priest had always been more father to him than his own. Always. At least this, he could rely on.
“Chandra,” Hemanth said quietly. “Emperor. You are more than a son to me. If this is the path you wish to take, I will follow you upon it. And I will be glad to be beside you, and proud indeed, when you change the world for the better. When you save us all.”