Chapter 24 Deepa
DEEPA
When the conches sounded and the fires struck again, Deepa was far from the danger. Not as far as she would have liked, of course—not home with her mother and sisters, with the comfort of her books and not a single rheumy-eyed war elephant in sight—but still in relative safety.
In her father’s tent, she crouched on her knees, and placed her head on her own knees, and struggled to breathe.
She could smell smoke. She couldn’t run.
What good would it be to run? And she was being foolish.
If the fire came, she would burn, and if it didn’t, then curling up on the floor would make no difference either way.
She forced herself to straighten. Wiped any stray tears from her eyes. Sat herself down—and yelped like a scalded cat when the tent flap was flung open, and a figure entered.
“Calm yourself, Lady Deepa,” said Lata. She looked as stern as she always did when Deepa was in her company. “Wipe your face.”
“I—I was trying. I’ll do it now,” she corrected hastily, when Lata gave her a look. She dabbed her eyes with the edge of her pallu. “Do you need me for something?” she asked.
Deepa had taken her responsibility of assisting Lata very seriously.
She carried stacks of books and paper after her, checked her ledgers, and wrote correspondence on her behalf.
Lata was exacting, and never seemed to rest. The only time Deepa had seen the sage smile had been when Prince Rao came to speak with her.
Lata had actually teased him. Deepa had never seen anything like it.
She wondered, sometimes, if the sage loved him. How tragic if she did—a prince would surely have no place in his life for a wife who was a sage with no highborn blood in her.
It was hard to think of Lata as a romantic figure when she was looking at Deepa as she was now. Lata’s jaw was tight, her brow furrowed. “Lady Deepa,” she said. Then stopped. She crossed the room and sat down next to her. “It’s time.”
“Time for what?” Deepa asked stupidly.
“Your father,” Lata said, “has failed in his duties. He ordered that the fort be sieged, against my better judgment, and the judgment of the empress. And now men are dying. You can hear it, can’t you?”
Lata went silent, and in the silence, Deepa heard the hiss of the flames—smelled the smoke of them again, all anew, on the air. “Yes,” she said, voice small. “I can.”
Lata nodded.
“Your father cannot remain the general of the empress’s army. But your family need not suffer. Plainly, you have a choice to make, Lady Deepa: your father, or the empress?”
Deepa felt suddenly dizzy.
She thought of all the secret things she had told the empress about her father. All the things she had heard said in his tent. Everything she had read when she rifled through his correspondence.
“I made my choice a long time ago,” Deepa said, with more steadiness than she’d known she was capable of. “I made a promise to the empress. I wasn’t planning to break it.”
“I know,” said Lata. “But choices so large must be made and remade over and over again. That’s how paths are carved, Lady Deepa. That is how you decide your future.”
Deepa nodded. She thought of her mother and sisters, and thought, finally, of herself. Of the life she wanted and had never been offered. Of being something more than invisible, something better than not good enough. Of taking something for herself.
“I’m loyal to the empress,” she said. “I’ll always be loyal to the empress. Tell me what I need to do.”