Chapter 50 Malini
MALINI
Her first thought, on beholding Harsinghar, should not have been I’m finally home.
But it was.
Almost her entire life had been spent in Harsinghar—in its white marble and pale sandstone, its sweet-smelling flowers and streets lined with trees laden with green leaves, golden blossoms. But it was fitting that the Harsinghar she beheld now smelled of flames held upon swords.
It was fitting that she wasn’t sure if today she would live and succeed, or die.
She had surrounded herself with some of the strongest warriors in her army. But the press of men around her ebbed and swelled as Chandra’s forces pushed forward, forward—all their strength aimed at getting to her.
Men fell around her, caught in the press of boots and weapons. She heard so many voices crying out that it was like a roar. She tried not to listen to it. The wind was sharp on her face. Her back was straight, her hand clenched against the chariot’s edge.
She’d been right not to allow Raziya at her side.
Her men did not know how to respond. They had expected Chandra to behave by reasonable rules of warfare—to defend his city, his home, before all else.
But his army was pressing toward her with single-minded focus, and Malini could only hold herself steady on her chariot, as the thing jerked with the movement of the bodies around her, caught in a violent sea.
Either Malini would be captured as the priest had told her—or soon an arrow would go through her throat, or her chariot would be upended, and she would be dead.
I have Priya, she reminded herself, through the cloying haze of her own fear. What use was fear? How could she face what came next with anything less than all the bravery she had in her?
Her chariot was as carefully defended as she could have made it, ringed on all sides with soldiers and cavalry.
But Chandra’s men cut down the foot soldiers.
They barreled forward with their horses.
Sabers wreathed in flame cut a swathe through the men around her, and the smell of fire and dying struck Malini sharply, like a blow.
Raziya had spoken, sometimes, of what it took to hunt prey on Dwarali’s mountains. As Malini’s chariot ground to a halt within the press of bodies—as her charioteer begged the men around him to take the empress, to carry her to safety—Malini thought of that tale and did not move.
You must close in on the animal. Circle it with a dozen men, drawing in closer and closer, ensuring that it has no means of escape. If it finds a gap, it will take it, Empress. That is the way of things that want to live.
But once you have it caged, a simple net is enough to contain it. And then, the knife.
She wasn’t prey, born to leap into the crush of the battle below her chariot and be felled with a horse’s hoof to the skull, or a sword of fire to the chest. She would not run. She would—despite every instinct in her—have faith.
Faith was submission. Faith was obedience to a higher power, a baring of the neck to a knife, a step into absolute darkness with no light but the heart’s own foolishness. She had set in motion all that she could. It was time to take one final risk.
“Cut the horses free,” Malini forced out. The charioteer protested, and she said, “Do it. Now.”
He grasped his saber and sliced the reins. The chariot fell still.
“Go,” she said to the charioteer. “You. Go to—”
It was too late. Quicker than she could understand, someone swung onto the chariot, and in the next moment, a blade had sliced through the poor charioteer’s neck.
The man wielding the blade dropped his weapon. Turned to her.
“Princess Malini,” the stranger said; blood and ash matted to darkness on his forehead, his priestly hair loose at his shoulders. “You must come with me.”
In that moment, the obedience Kartik had asked of her demanded the same thing as her pride did: to not fight or scream or panic as Chandra’s soldiers closed in on her. The fire-swept wind ran over her skin, hot and cold all at once.
She removed her own saber and held it before herself.
“Take me to my brother, priest,” she said. Her own voice was a stranger’s in her ears. She thought, absurdly and achingly, of Rao kneeling before her on the road to Dwarali. Her voice sounded like his had, she thought. Like a hollow thing with a fate in it, a conch calling forth a war. “I’m ready.”
Malini was led to a horse; lifted and carried away before she knew it.
She was dragged from a horse to a gate, and from a gate to a doorway, and from a doorway though an underground tunnel, and from there into the walls of the mahal itself, and she thought of Priya.
If all else fails and I die, she will fight my brother. And she will see him dead.
Malini had not expected to survive this long and rise so far.
The fact that she still wanted to rise—the fact that she deserved to rise—meant nothing.
If she fell, at least she would take her brother with her.
At least she had found the kind of love that would break the world for her sake, and make it into something that would always wear her mark.
The corridor she was led through was dimly lit and flanked by soldiers dressed in imperial armor. They clearly recognized her—she saw contempt and respect warring on any number of faces. Some men sneered. Many lowered their eyes.
Malini looked straight ahead and went to her fate.
In the court of the imperial mahal, a fire was burning.
A pit had been prepared to contain it, lined in clay bricks.
The clay was an ugly, squalid thing in comparison to the sandstone and marble of the court that surrounded it, but at first glance Malini thought someone had made an effort to beautify it.
There were flowers clustered at the edges of the pit, spilling onto the floor.
They were bright, marigold oranges and yellows, the flicker of the fire making them move strangely.
Beyond it stood a line of priests. They were solemn faced. Waiting for her.
As she was led closer, she realized the flowers were not flowers at all, but flames. Blooming and growing and withering, with all the beauty of real blossoms.
“Sister.” Malini saw a shadow across the floor. Felt a soldier’s hand at her back, pressing her down.
She kneeled, and looked up, and faced her brother.
He had not been on the battlefield outside his city, she was sure of that.
The armor he wore was unmarked, shining, more decorative than practical.
He wore prayer stones at his throat, bound with elaborate gemstones and darts of silver-gold.
Threads of pearls surrounded his neck. He looked every inch the emperor.
His boots made a heavy noise against the ground as he approached her. He stopped before her. He was close enough that she had to tilt her head to meet his eyes, which were just as she remembered. A mirror of her own.
“Sister,” he said. His voice was low, rumbling. “Welcome home.”
She had thought often of what she would say to him when they finally met again. So many eviscerating, clever words. But now that she was here, she could only laugh soundlessly and watch his expression darken in response.
“Brother,” she said. She let her gaze flicker pointedly from the soldiers behind her, to the fire, to his face. “Is this how you welcome your sister, Chandra? By pushing her to the floor to crouch like a dog?”
He swallowed, visibly. Already trying to control his temper.
“You are kneeling,” he said, “because I am emperor. And you are my sister, my responsibility, and my subject. You kneel like a princess.”
“I am not a princess,” she said. “I am an empress. The empress. You should be kneeling to me.”
To her surprise—and unease—he slowly lowered himself down to his knees, until they were almost level. She could feel the heat of his breath on her face. She forced herself not to flinch. Instead, she took him in: The exhausted circles around his eyes. The lines of tension bracketing his mouth.
“You’re lying to yourself,” he murmured.
“You know that. You’re not an empress. You are impure and broken and worthless.
In your heart you know I’m telling the truth.
” He took her chin in his hands. Revulsion ran through her at his touch.
He had no right to touch her. He never had.
“You have one chance at redemption,” he told her.
“Only one. Rise to the pyre, sister. Accept your fate and the mothers will forgive.” A beat. “I will forgive you.”
“Beg me,” she whispered in return. “Grovel with your face to the floor. Cry. Maybe if you’re pitiful enough, I’ll consider rising to the pyre.” She cocked her head to the side in his grip. “Go on,” she urged.
His hand on her jaw tightened brutally.
“I want to kill you so very much,” he rasped.
She smiled through the pain.
“I know,” she said. “It’s been a long time, brother.”
He released her.
Slapped her, openhanded around the face. Her ears rang. Her mouth tasted of blood.
“Emperor,” the High Priest said, alarmed. “You cannot—”
“She’s barely hurt,” Chandra said, eyes cold. “She could take more. I could break her legs and her arms, and she could still burn. It would be no less than she deserves, wouldn’t it?”
“If you want me to burn for you,” she said, feeling the cut on her lip with her tongue, “this is a poor way to convince me.”
He hit her again. Of course he did.
Another noise of alarm from the High Priest. She raised her head, and for a moment stars danced across her vision. Standing to the High Priest’s left, she saw Kartik. His gaze was intent. Solemn. Very subtly, he offered her a tilt of his head.
“I could throw you in the fire pit now,” Chandra was saying. “The fire there was born from the deaths of thousands of pure, good women. Perhaps it would purify you in turn.”
“Wrong,” Malini said. “Ah, Chandra. You do not see it. Perhaps your priests do. I am pure. I am pure in a way you cannot touch, a way that is inviolable. It lies in my heart. It lies in my blood, beyond the dirt of your mortal ambitions.” She bared her bloodied teeth at him.
“You cannot alchemize me into your glory. I will not allow it. My glory is my own.”
“Your life has never been your own,” Chandra said. “Your life has always belonged to Parijatdvipa. You refused to sacrifice it. I’ve given you the chance to reflect, and repent, and choose your rightful death. So many chances. And you still never learn, never change.”
“Ask your priests the worth of an unwilling death,” Malini said. “See what they do if you try and burn me now.”
He grasped her by the hair hard, wrenching her neck.
“Just like a spoiled boy,” she gasped out. Did he think he could humiliate her? Shame her? She had suffered so much worse. These petty games could not harm her any longer. “You know nothing of true cruelty, Chandra. Perhaps one day I’ll teach you.”
He stood abruptly and dragged her forward.
Her scalp hurt. Her legs were slipping against the ground, hands chained before her.
And still, she refused to be silent, her voice echoing off the walls, as the heat of the fire grew stronger.
“The last time you had me here, I humiliated you,” she forced out.
A jolt of her hip against marble. Her knees.
“I told all your highborn rulers what you are. My words are sharper than any of your swords.”
“Then I will rip out your tongue before I burn you,” he said furiously, spittle flying from his lips. “I will do whatever it takes for Parijatdvipa.”
“Perhaps,” she managed to say. Forced herself to breathe. “Perhaps you wish to. But you cannot. Only I can burn willingly. Only I can do what is needful. And I will not,” she said loudly. “I will not do it unless I have my throne.”
The silence was vast, impenetrable. The fire crackled. And Chandra looked down at her. The same eyes as her own. The same brows.
“Emperor Chandra,” said the High Priest. His voice was distant. “I am so very sorry.”
Chandra froze. A sword tip was at his throat.
“Step away from Empress Malini,” said Kartik calmly. The soldier holding the sword to Chandra’s throat never wavered.
Nothing. Nothing for a long moment.
The sword pressed harder. A bead of blood welled up.
“Step away,” the priest repeated.
Chandra turned his gaze on the High Priest, face painfully still. His eyes were pleading.
“I have always done what was right for Parijatdvipa,” he said. “I did what I was taught. What—what is this?”
The High Priest exhaled. Closed his eyes.
“Release your sister, Emperor,” he said. “With regret. With love. Release her.”
Chandra did.
Malini remained where she was. Hands still chained before her. Watching the look in her brother’s eyes—watched the horror rupture him as his world was upended. All his life, he had worshipped staunchly. Followed the High Priest with the loyalty of a slavering dog, rabid to anyone save his master.
Now his faith had turned on him.
His own saber was taken from him. He stood, suddenly powerless despite his priestly soldiers, his men. His throne.
The High Priest was weeping.
He stepped back. Kartik stepped forward.
Kartik smiled at her, the faintest upraising of the corners of his mouth. For a moment he did not move. Only looked down at her.
One command. That was all it would take, to see Malini’s life ended, or Malini locked up once more, and the priesthood in power.
It was more, perhaps, than Kartik had even imagined he could achieve for himself.
It was enough power to compel a sensible, cunning man to act upon his ambitions, his hungers.
She was entirely powerless. The cold knowledge of that washed over her. She allowed it to show on her face. The faintest weakness—a trembling of her hands as she looked up at him. So he needed to believe he had power over her? Well then, let him. It was not untrue.
That wouldn’t be the case forever. She’d make sure of it.
She either had the measure of him, or she did not.
I will only give you what you want if I have my throne, she thought, keeping her eyes on his. Even if I fear you—if you wish to see me burn, and the yaksa die by my fire, you must raise me up.
His gaze flickered.
Then he bowed low to the ground. All the priests and soldiers around him followed suit.
“Empress,” he said. “We welcome you to Parijatdvipa. May you lead us always to unity and greatness.”
“Priest,” Malini said, holding her hands before her. Smiling, as if she had known fate would carry her here all along. “Free me, and I promise greatness is exactly what you will have.”