Chapter 7 Malini
MALINI
Malini arrived back to the camp with her lungs full of smoke and her body crawling with sense memory: the smell of burning flesh and hair and cloth.
The sweetness of ghee and perfume mingling with the char of living women burning.
Alori and Narina, on fire before her, the scent of them and the sound of their screams filling her and hollowing her.
She nearly fell from the war chariot—would have, if Raziya had not caught her.
Strong hands. Living flesh. At least this woman lived.
“Empress,” Raziya said, holding up Malini so firmly that her hands would surely leave bruises. “The soldiers are watching. Remember yourself.”
They were the words of an elder to a younger woman who had failed herself. Don’t let them see you weak, that voice said, and the strength of it gave Malini the push to remember herself and the person she had to be.
Malini forced herself to nod and straighten, throwing her shoulders back, holding her head high.
Guards were running toward her. The battle had not lasted long.
The High Prince’s riders had drawn back into the walls of the maze fort swiftly, taking their fire with them—coiling, she’d heard soldiers say frantically, back onto swords and arrows, ready to be used again.
She could see the forces of her army milling about, at loose ends, now that the threat was gone. Whispers of the words mothers’ fire drifted into her ears. Seeped like poison into her blood.
She stepped down from the chariot. “Take me to Lord Mahesh,” she said to the nearest guard.
“Yes, Empress,” he said, and turned, clearing a path before her, his companions moving to guide her.
She expected Raziya to follow. But there was nothing but silence behind her, and when she turned, she saw that Raziya had lowered herself to the floor of the chariot, pale, clutching her skull. Malini began to walk to her—and was stopped by a hand on her arm.
“I’ll take her to Lord Khalil, Empress,” a male Dwarali archer said. His eyes were bloodshot from smoke. “She’ll be seen to. I vow it.”
“Don’t take her to her husband,” Malini said. “Take her to a physician.”
“Empress,” he said again, and bowed. Then he walked to Raziya and climbed into the chariot with her.
Malini watched for one heartbeat, then sucked in a breath and forced herself to turn away.
This was a political crisis in the making.
There was no time to indulge her own finer feelings—to allow herself to worry, or wait, or feel the clawing voice at the back of her skull that howled fire, fire, fire, fire.
Like ghosts, her heart sisters flickered before her eyes.
So she thought instead of what must be done, here and now, to shore up her defenses.
She thought of what actions she could take, in order to see her continue on her journey toward the throne.
She pressed the thoughts into her own skin like a mask, like something that could stop her from flying apart.
She found herself in Lord Mahesh’s own tent.
She wanted to tell him to summon Rao for her.
To find Lata, and her military officials, and any Parijatdvipan lords who could be swiftly gathered up.
She needed Lord Khalil, and Lord Narayan, and beady-eyed Lord Prakash.
She needed to draw her council around herself and plan and strategize and weigh up resources and count the dead. She needed to carve a path forward.
One look at Lord Mahesh’s grimly furious face as he shouldered through the tent’s curtain told her that none of that would be possible. Not yet.
“Empress,” he said, voice rough with smoke. “We must speak alone.”
“We are alone, Lord Mahesh,” she said.
His gaze flicked to the guards.
“Leave us,” she announced, waving a hand at her guards. They hesitated for a moment, but Malini gestured once more, and said evenly, “Lord Mahesh will ensure I am safe. Go. Stand beyond the door.”
It was only when they were gone—taking up posts outside the tent as ordered, of that Malini had no doubt—that Malini allowed herself to inspect Mahesh more closely.
His face was cut—a long line of blood snaked across his cheek.
His clothing was torn. Ash had stained the Parijati white of his tunic a dull gray.
Mahesh stared back at her, his eyes narrowed, red from the miasma of smoke.
Lord Mahesh had served her ably since his appointment. But now she looked at him and thought of how he had not sounded the conch on the battlefield—how she had, in all her helpless panic, been forced to risk her own life to do it.
As if hearing her thoughts, he spoke.
“You should not have sounded retreat, Empress,” he said. “That was a grave error.”
“My men were in danger,” Malini said levelly. “It was a massacre of our forces. They were burning. I was not going to allow it to continue. As my general, you should not have allowed it to continue.”
“I should have and would have,” he said. “I would have let hundreds die, if need be. That is the nature of war, Empress—those men should have died gladly. You should have trusted my judgment.”
“I was not trained in the military arts alongside my brothers, Lord Mahesh, but I know a strategy that results in nothing but wasteful death when I hear one,” she replied sharply.
“You know I sought to end the war for Saketa with minimal bloodshed. Why then, would you choose a strategy—without my say-so—that would see my army burn?”
“A battle is not simply a balance of lives,” he gritted out, looking more furious by the minute.
“Empress, a battle is a tale written in blood. And this is the tale that men shall tell about your retreat before the High Prince’s fort: that Emperor Chandra sent a priest of the mothers, who brought with him blessed fire of the mothers.
Fire that once destroyed the yaksa—fire that now proclaims the emperor’s mother-blessed right to the throne, and condemns you as a usurper.
They will say the traitor empress saw the fire of the mothers, and knowing she was a false claimant to the throne, tainted in the eyes of the mothers she claimed to serve, she fled.
” A beat, as he allowed the words to sink in. “Do you understand, Empress?”
“What a leap to make, on limited evidence,” Malini said tightly. “I do not believe people will make such an assumption, Lord Mahesh. And if they did, they would be entirely wrong to do so.”
“They will think it, Empress. I am sure of that.”
How can you be sure? Malini thought. But she did not ask. As soon as the question came to her, she knew its answer.
He thought it. That was why. Her own general had gazed upon that fire and felt his faith in her crumble.
“That was not the fire of the mothers of flame,” Malini said, with far more conviction than she felt.
“It was no natural fire,” Mahesh replied, his voice quieter now, steadier. “What else could it have been but their flames? That is what the people will say, and believe. They will say the mothers did not choose you for the throne after all. They will say you are not the rightful ruler.”
Righteousness, rightfulness—oh, how she hated those words.
Their sole purpose seemed to be to keep her in her place: a life with narrow walls and standards of purity that pressed her thin, erased her to nothing but her blood and her good bones and the worth of a pleasing face.
A life where she would never contemplate ruling; a life where she would obediently bare her neck for a knife, or gladly embrace the pyre.
“I am the rightful ruler of Parijatdvipa,” Malini said.
“And that fire was not the flame of the mothers. Must I continue to repeat it, Lord Mahesh?” Perhaps if she said these words often enough, with enough assurance, they would wear a groove into reality and become unassailable truth.
“And as the rightful ruler, I had no desire to waste the lives of those who serve me. I could not have allowed more men to—to burn for the sake of obeying laws that Chandra himself does not respect.”
The word burn brought a harshness to her voice—broke the even calm she had so carefully maintained, all through this exchange. His eyes sharpened at the sound of it.
“Empress,” he said. “Malini.”
Oh no, she thought. Familiarity did not bode well.
“I understand if the sight reopened—old wounds,” he said delicately.
“I have led men to many battles, Lord Mahesh,” Malini said, still cursing herself internally. She knew the price of weakness. She knew. “I am not fragile.”
“But fire, of course… it would be understandable…”
“You were there, Lord Mahesh, when I burned down a monastery,” she replied, with a voice like iron. “I set it alight with my own arrow. Fire does not frighten me.”
It did, of course. Even today she had nightmares. Perhaps she always would.
“You should rest,” Mahesh said, as if he had not heard her. “There will be time enough to discuss what must be done. For now, you must recover from this ordeal.”
As if she could allow herself the luxury of rest. There would not be time enough, as he claimed. The urgency of the work ahead of her made it difficult to look at him without anything but incredulous anger.
“You acted as you did in error, Empress, but we may still be able to right it. We can move forward on this when the camp is more—peaceful.”
As if to underscore his words, there was another crash from beyond the tent’s walls, and indecipherable shouting.
“I would rather summon the other lords now,” she said, controlled. “I would rather discuss how we must proceed.”
“And I,” he said, with more steel, “think it would be better for you to recover. That is my advice. Respectfully. Empress.”
Silence fell.
This was defiance. Oh, Lord Mahesh could speak of respect all he liked. But he knew his worth to her.
She thought of standing taller. Thought of saying to him, I am your empress, and you will obey me. She thought of all the things her father would have done in her position, or her brothers, or any emperor, any faceless man garbed in power.