Chapter 36 Priya
PRIYA
Priya and Sima traveled together in the juddering chariot along the edge of the Veri, which roiled and glimmered in the rising sunlight. Priya made a point of ignoring Low Prince Ashutosh, who was riding ahead alongside Prince Rao.
It was Rao who went to the village by the riverside and paid a woman to show them the way to the crossing. As she guided them, she looked back nervously every few footsteps. Priya couldn’t blame her.
The crossing she led them to was not quite a ford—not shallow enough to be easily passable by horse or foot—but was a curve in the river where the water was broken, slowed, and softened by small islets emerging from the waves like the vertebrae of a great spine.
There were boats on the shore—light contraptions with oars, but properly made, with enough space and strength to carry across a horse at a time, or a handful of men, or some of their heavier weaponry if they balanced it with care.
Priya, glad to be free of the chariot, moved to stand at the edge of the water.
It was dark even here, frothing as it rocked against the bank.
Sima came to stand beside her; knocked her shoulder lightly against Priya’s.
“The owl head over there looks like he’s going to cause trouble again,” she muttered.
The owl head in question was Ashutosh, striding over to Rao’s side.
“If one of us moves closer, we should be able to hear them,” said Sima.
“Are you curious?”
“Of course I am,” said Sima. “Aren’t you?”
Of course she was. But Priya had to bite back a laugh at the thought of her and Sima inconspicuously shuffling toward the two men. Their days of being invisible were long gone, unfortunately.
“Let’s just approach them,” Priya said. “I need to speak to the good Low Prince anyway.”
“Alor is known for its rivers,” Rao was saying with barely feigned patience.
Ashutosh snorted. “Forgive me, Prince Rao,” he said, in the kind of voice that suggested he was about to say something that might in fact be unforgivable, but didn’t much care.
“You’re barely familiar with Alor anymore, never mind its rivers.
Raised in the imperial mahal as you were, who can blame you?
Whereas my estates are surrounded by lakes.
My men are trained for this. We will go first and secure the opposite bank. Your men will follow.”
“And what does Lord Narayan think of this plan?” Rao asked.
“Narayan does not outrank me,” Ashutosh said sharply.
“He’s the empress’s Saketan general,” Priya said. She couldn’t help but enjoy the glare Ashutosh turned on her, even as he bowed his head stiffly in a gesture of respect, which she returned with a smile. “I’m sure he’d like to help.”
“Shall I call him here, my lords?” Sima chirped.
“That would be helpful, thank you,” Rao said with a nod, and Sima turned and left. “Low prince,” he went on, once again meeting Ashutosh’s gaze. “If you are willing to take the risk of forging ahead before my men, we are grateful.”
“It’s no risk,” Ashutosh said. “My men are well trained. And you, elder,” he said, turning his attention abruptly on Priya. “What will you be contributing to our efforts?”
“I am here under Prince Rao’s protection,” Priya said, knowing he’d interpret that as nothing. “Are your men recovering well, my lord?”
Ashutosh’s throat worked. “Yes,” he bit out. “They’ll be joining me in the crossing.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
He gave her one more nod. Said, gruffly, “Prince Rao.” Then he stalked off.
Rao was watching her. Priya met his eyes, feeling oddly defiant.
“Prince Rao,” she said. “Is something amiss?”
He shook his head slowly.
“You’re friends with Malini,” he said, voice lowered.
Friends. Was there special emphasis on that word? She wasn’t sure, but she nodded. “Of a kind.”
He hummed in acknowledgment. “You’re not very like her,” he said. “That’s all. You’re very—forthright.”
Oh, I am like her, thought Priya, even as she said nothing, even as she stared at the opposite bank—at the spindles of distant trees, and the lush fronds dipping into the eddying water. I just wear my anger on the outside.
The water was definitely less turbulent here—one of Ashutosh’s men had dived in and confirmed there was no hidden undertow to concern them.
One small islet, barely large enough for a handful of men but covered with vine-draped trees, acted as a natural resting point and a place where they could conceal themselves.
If they moved slowly, with care, they’d be able to cross more or less invisibly.
Priya stood by the water’s edge for a long moment, feeling the humming song of the green around her, the weight and motion of the water against the riverbed and the things that grew from it.
She began to reach out subtly to reshape the world around them.
But the water here didn’t have the stillness of the Ahiranya marshland, or the strange magic of the deathless waters it was—it was powerful, full of energy and its own will, and trying to shift it made her head pound.
Priya left Rao with Narayan, who had arrived with a throng of archers.
They waited, watchful, as Ashutosh and his men stripped off the weightiest parts of their armor, tying the metal into oilskin sacking.
They waded into the water until they were chest deep, dragging the boats full of supplies in deeper after themselves.
Priya was reluctantly impressed to see that Ashutosh was as willing to enter the water as any of his men.
As they moved farther into the current, Priya crouched by the edge of the water.
She let her breathing go slow and deep—not deep enough for her to slip into the sangam, but far enough for her to stretch the limbs of her magic.
It took her an embarrassingly long time for her power to drift across—to feel the weft of living things growing from the silt of the riverbed, and the tangled fringe of plants breathing on the shoreline.
To feel what was waiting on the opposite bank.
Oh. Oh, shit.
She jerked up and stumbled over nothing. Over her own feet.
“Sima,” she said. Gripped Sima’s arm. “You need to get back. Find somewhere to hide.”
“Why?” Sima’s eyes were dark with concern. “Pri, what’s happened?”
“There are men waiting,” she managed. She forced herself to let go of Sima. Turned. “Hide, please.”
“Priya, wait!”
But Priya couldn’t wait. She ran to Rao and Narayan, forcing her way through the throng of men surrounding them. “There are enemies waiting to ambush us on the opposite bank!”
Rao gaped at her.
“What?”
“There are—”
“I heard you,” Rao said. “Show me.”
She swung an arm wildly out, and Rao crouched a little, following the line of her finger. Behind him, Narayan was murmuring to the men, directing them to draw their arrows, to ready their shields and line the bank, and signal to Low Prince Ashutosh, if they could. Just in case. Just in case.
“I see nothing,” said Rao.
And perhaps he couldn’t. Perhaps there was nothing visible, there, to the naked mortal eye. But Priya could feel the soft grass crushed beneath the boots; the shift of their feet just slightly beyond the reach of her strength.
“Look again,” she said. This time she watched him.
She saw the moment his eyes widened. His expression went suddenly tight. Priya didn’t have to know him particularly well to read that look as panic.
“Signal them back,” he bit out. “Narayan. Signal Prince Ashutosh—”
“He’s too far already,” Narayan said. He was dragging off his armor, clumsy with panic. “I will follow him, tell him—”
“Don’t be foolish,” Priya said, shocked to hear her own voice—to feel her lips move. “Your men need you here. Light a torch, set a fire, draw their attention.”
Narayan shook his head. Rao said, “We can’t risk drawing attention from the enemies across the water if we haven’t yet.”
“But you have,” Priya said. The distant thud of feet. Dozens. Hundreds? They were waiting. “Rao—Prince Rao—you have. Get them back here now.”
But it was too late. Priya was still speaking, mouth moving, when she raised her head and saw the arrows flying through the sky.
A hush. The arrows met the water with a crash.
She felt Rao grip her roughly by the arm, forcing her behind him as if he could protect her—as if she needed protecting—and shit, where was Sima? She’d told Sima to hide, but had she? Had she got far enough away?
In the water, she saw the figures of men and horses sink through a haze of arrows and blood, their screams cut short.
There was another volley of arrows, so thick the air was black with them.
The water churned, frothy with blood. Around her, the Alorans and Saketans who’d grabbed shields on Narayan’s orders raised them to the sky.
She heard a scream. She turned—and saw that it was Narayan, with an arrow through the thigh.
She took Rao’s arm and pulled him down. “Stay low,” she said.
“You know this, you must stop shielding me!”
“Priya!” Sima’s voice. Sima dropped to her knees beside them—and dropped a heavy shield with a clang.
Rao muttered something that might have been a curse or might have been thanks, and dragged it up in front of the three of them.
He braced it with his arm, and Sima did the same, the two of them holding it up between them.
Priya looked around as she heard a bitten-off noise of pain. An Aloran and a Saketan soldier were shielding Narayan between them, as a third hastily tore at Narayan’s trouser leg, seeking out the arrow shaft.
With some effort, Priya dragged her gaze away from the blood.
“I told you to hide,” Priya managed.
“I did,” Sima said. She was trembling but every inch of her coiled with tension, her arm flexed to keep the shield up. But she met Priya’s eyes steadily. “And then. I came back.”
There was a thud in the soil behind her—a clang as wood met metal, and Rao and Sima jerked back from the force of the arrow meeting the shield.