Chapter 36 Priya #2
Malini had told her to use her gifts if the situation became hopeless. And this did seem—somewhat hopeless, didn’t it? Oh, they were in the shit.
“Prince Rao,” Priya said urgently. Next to her, Sima was breathing harshly through bared teeth. Priya pressed a hand to Sima’s spine. Reminding her she had a spine. Reminding her to breathe. “Prince Rao. Rao. Listen to me—”
“Don’t wade in after them,” yelled one of the Aloran men, so loud that it drew Rao’s attention away and made Priya’s own voice falter. There were Saketan soldiers who had still been on the bank desperately trying to go deeper into the water, to reach the bodies of their fellows.
One of the Saketan men, up to his knees in the river, turned back. “They’re not all dead! We can’t leave them! Please!” His voice cracked on the last word.
Concentrate, Priya told herself harshly.
“Prince Rao, listen to me. They don’t have mothers’ fire,” Priya said through gritted teeth; they didn’t have time for this.
Loud enough for Rao to hear her, and turn his head again.
“False fire, magic fire—whatever it was they used at the High Prince’s fort, they don’t have it here or they’d be using it against us now. ”
“No doubt Chandra is saving the fire for the defense of Harsinghar itself,” Rao said. He was not panicked any longer. He was flushed with the knife-sharp focus of a body in danger. “He clearly doesn’t require it to murder us all here. We need to retreat.”
“But we must cross the water if we want any chance of success,” Narayan groaned out, as one of the soldiers clumsily bandaged up his leg. He tried to bat the man away. Sweat dripped from his hair. “If we do not cross, they will turn on the empress, massacre her forces—”
“We’ve lost any possibility of surprising them. The gambit’s failed,” Rao said.
“It has not failed,” Priya said. Her words startled the men, who turned to stare at her with panicked, suspicious eyes.
“They know we’re here. We can’t pincer them.
But—but they believe we can’t cross,” she went on, not allowing her voice to waver or her confidence to falter.
And why should it falter? She was about to hand them the key to their own success.
She had to believe that. “They’ll soon turn all their might on the empress’s forces at the ford.
They won’t expect an enemy at their back. ”
“Because they have no enemy at their back,” Rao said. “Their enemy lies dead in the water. We lie dead in the water.”
“Ashutosh’s men lie dead,” Priya corrected, knowing she was brutal in her honesty.
“Not all of us.” She swallowed. Soldiered on, despite the sounds of dying and screaming.
“Draw back, my lords, as if you’re retreating.
Draw back and let them think this crossing is lost to us.
Let those men of Emperor Chandra’s turn all their attention on the empress and then—then I’ll get you across. ”
“Priya,” Sima said in a low voice. Her face was gray. “Pri.”
“You said you don’t know everything I can do,” Priya told Rao. “But I know what I can do. And your empress knows, or she wouldn’t have summoned me. Let me do what I’m here for.”
A few warriors obeyed the summons to retreat, making their way back to the shore. Some stayed in the water. Bleeding, or unconscious, or unwilling to leave the wounded or dead behind.
Narayan had been carried away by a handful of men. But Priya waited, beneath the cover of the shield, Sima and Rao beside her. Rao held the shield steady, expression grim.
“They’re moving their archers forward again,” he said quietly.
“They don’t think we’re retreating?” Priya asked, cursing inwardly. They were dragging back so obviously. If not for Priya—for the foolish plan she was holding fast to—this would be a true retreat.
“No, they believe it.” His voice was tight. “But they can afford to leave a force of archers here. I assume their forces are extensive enough at the ford that they think they can defeat the empress without a handful more arrows.”
Well, they were wrong. They had to be wrong, or this battle was already lost.
Another whistling thud of arrows. A horribly strangled shout from the water. Priya didn’t even let herself wince this time. The men were withdrawing behind her in a jangle of armor and hooves and the unsteady creak of chariot wheels.
Priya tensed her muscles, rising to a half crouch.
“Guide Sima back to safety,” she said. “Please.”
Rao gave her a jerky nod.
“I’d rather go with you,” Sima said. She was still shaking, still terrified—but there was a fierceness in her eyes that blazed.
“Sima—”
“As your advisor,” she said deliberately, “and your fellow Ahiranyi, as your friend, I would rather be your protector. I’d rather carry a shield to keep you safe than—than simply leave you, running like a coward.”
Priya shook her head.
“I won’t risk you here.”
“That isn’t your choice to make.”
“I will accompany you also,” Rao said.
“You have men to lead,” Priya said.
“That is one of my responsibilities,” he said. “But what I must do is make sure this battle is won, Elder Priya—and I will play any role required of me. If you must live long enough to do what Malini requires of you, for this fight to end in our favor, then I’ll do all I can to defend you.”
She focused on the lessons of her childhood. Hollow out weakness. Move forward.
She would not allow Sima or Rao to die.
Ah, spirits, she could not watch Sima die.
So she’d leave her weaknesses—leave them—behind.
“The three of us will be more noticeable to them,” she said, gesturing roughly at the opposite bank, “than I’ll be on my own. And you’ll just get in my way. So you’ll both move back, or I’ll make you move back. Understand?”
Priya was not sure how seriously Rao took that threat, but Sima’s mouth thinned. “Priya,” she said. “Please.”
“There are going to be other battles,” Priya said. “Sima. When this ends—when we win. Later, there are going to be other fights where it’s not going to be about… about what I can do. And I promise when they come, you’ll be by my side.”
They held each other’s gazes. One beat. Then Sima exhaled, her grip on the shield loosening.
“Fine,” she said. “Fine, Pri. I’m going to hold you to that.”
“When you move,” Rao said. “We will move.”
He meant, of course, that he and Sima would wait to see if she made it to the water unharmed, before they left her back undefended. But she couldn’t argue any longer. She turned her focus inward.
Slow, deep breaths. Guiding her back into her own magic.
She kept breathing as she crawled from behind the shield and made her way toward the water.
She moved with painful slowness—back bent, ready to throw herself flat to the ground, as she tried to be an uninteresting target.
She was unarmed, small and dirtied, her hair unraveling.
She was nothing and no one of consequence.
She reached the water. The arrows didn’t find her.
She hoped Sima and Rao were leaving now, retreating as she had asked them to. But she couldn’t look back.
Feet in, first. The water was cold, dark with blood. Someone was floating facedown near her. Fingertips skimmed the edge of her tunic as it billowed when she waded deeper.
She kept on moving. The bodies of Lord Ashutosh’s men lay around her, the water barely buoying them up.
She could let herself sink now. Could reach for her magic. Could try—
Not yet, some instinct inside her said. It had a sibilant voice—rich, slithering, coiling through her blood and softening the panicked fire in it. Not quite yet.
It was hard to swim, weighed down as she was, shoving rafts and bodies and weaponry out of her way.
But she was at the curve of one of the islets now.
And there—there was Lord Ashutosh, turning his head and groaning, blood in his mouth but alive.
He would have been submerged, if not for one of his men holding him up.
The soldier was struggling, his left arm wounded.
She swore, half under her breath, and grasped Ashutosh under one arm. He blinked at her.
“Get out of here, you unnatural witch,” he groaned.
“I’m trying to get us all out of here,” she hissed, her mind working frantically. First, to get Ashutosh and his men from the water. Then, to deal with the archers. Could she do both? Was that even possible?
She looked back at the bank. Too far. It couldn’t be done.
“You,” she said to the soldier. “Romesh. How badly are you hurt?”
He shook his head, even though she could see the blood matting his sleeve. “I won’t leave him,” he said stubbornly.
“I’m not asking you to. Do you have the strength to drag him out of the water?” Priya asked, gesturing at the island with her chin.
“I’ve been trying,” he said. “But every time we move the damn arrows—”
As if on cue, there was a whistling noise. Priya ducked her head reflexively. The arrows, thankfully, landed nowhere near them.
“I see,” she managed. Water sloshed coldly over her; her fingers were pruning, her body trying to shiver for warmth. “I’m going to need you to try again.”
“We’ll be hit,” he said flatly.
“I need you to do it,” she said.
“I won’t die because of your fool orders—”
“Don’t try right now,” she said hurriedly. “In a moment, I’m going to do something. When I do, drag him up here and you’ll stand a chance.”
He gave a choked, incredulous laugh.
“And what are you going to do? Murder them with your yelling? Stupid woman.”
Priya ground her teeth together. As insults went, it wasn’t her favorite. At least unnatural witch implied she had a certain level of skill and ability, even if she wasn’t being lauded for it.
“I saved your life, didn’t I?” She bared her teeth into a smile; sank deeper into the water, drifting carefully away from him. “I can do anything.”