Chapter 53 Rao
RAO
After the work was done, they gathered.
“I hate having to trust knowledge gained through torture,” Rao murmured.
“Are your fine morals troubling you, Prince Rao?”
Rao gave Mahesh a tight smile.
“Not at all,” said Rao. “I’m only—concerned—that fear makes liars of people. As does pain. They’ll say anything to put an end to it.”
“I do not believe he was lying,” Mahesh said.
He had good reason to know. He had watched alongside Rao, unflinching, as Kunal was tortured.
As each piece of information was pried out of him, bloody and screaming.
“We have a way to access the fort. A route through its maze. We will face the High Prince and put an end to this.”
Rao was not convinced. But before he could speak, Aditya did.
“We will,” Aditya agreed. “And we will lead the men. Lord Mahesh and I.”
“As you say,” Mahesh murmured, bowing his head.
“Aditya,” Rao said sharply, once Mahesh had departed.
He knew how his own voice sounded. Rough.
A little angry. But Aditya’s eyes on him were tranquil, forgiving him—as if Rao’s anger was not justified.
As if this was not utter madness. “You don’t send princes or generals into a fortress—not in this kind of battle. ”
“Who must be sent, then?”
There were politic answers that Rao could have reached for. Men with the skills for subtle warfare. Spies who could move subtly through a grand fortress city without being caught.
“Men your sister can afford to lose,” he said bluntly. “Who will lead the men here if you die foolishly of an arrow to the throat?”
“We have no such men. We cannot afford to lose anyone.” Aditya’s voice was calm. “In this battle, the life of every soldier has value.”
“Aditya, I admire your goodness, your morality, but—”
“Those are my ethics,” Aditya acknowledged, cutting through Rao’s words. “But I simply mean it in a practical sense. We’ve lost too many, Rao. You don’t need to read any ledgers of rice or grain or weaponry or—or death tallies to see it.”
“I’ve brought myself,” Rao said. “That must count for something.”
“You would have me risk you?” Aditya asked. “Send you to your death, and not myself?”
Rao swallowed. His heart was thudding, his body nauseated with fear for Aditya. And perhaps… perhaps also for himself.
“When my father sent me to the imperial palace as a child, he sent me to build bonds with the crown prince,” Rao said. “He sent me to be yours. As a friend. As a hostage, of a kind. If I must fight for you…” Rao shrugged. “It wouldn’t be so bad. It would be—right.”
“You showed me the sign,” said Aditya calmly.
“The sign I was waiting for. A yaksa’s severed arm with life breathed into it.
A portent placed straight into my hands.
Every dark and terrible thing the nameless showed me will come to pass.
Is coming to pass, right now. And I am here, and I feel it.
A knowing inside me. For once, I’m sure.
” He touched a fist to his breastbone. “I must fight the High Prince. I must go where the war carries me. And if this siege has a tide, Rao, a—a natural order, like a monsoon, like sunrise, like the waning of the moon—then it is guiding me to the fortress. To the end of the High Prince’s defiance, and my sister’s success. ”
“If that’s your path,” Rao said, “then you have to take it. But so do I.” He looked at Aditya and thought of Lata’s words, long ago. He thought of how, in the end, the nameless had brought Rao back here: to Aditya’s side, to share Aditya’s purpose. “Wherever you go,” he said, “I go with you.”
They timed their efforts to enter the fortress city not around any advice from Kunal, wrenched out of him by pain, but by using their own knowledge. Mahesh’s handpicked men had watched the change of patrols on the walls and decided when it would be safest to approach.
Mahesh was a good general when he wasn’t trying to sabotage the ruler he followed. Rao tried not to think of all that Mahesh could have done on behalf of Malini’s cause if he had placed half as much faith in her as he did in Aditya.
Much to Rao’s relief, Kunal’s directions clearly hadn’t all been the desperate lies of a man under duress.
They found the entrance into the fortress just as Kunal had described: a perforation in the stone walls, only accessible from a ledge large enough for a man to carefully approach sidelong.
Rao examined it. Murmured to Aditya, “It’s low in height. ”
Aditya nodded in understanding. Behind him, Mahesh looked grim.
Low doors were a sensible architectural feature in any building likely to be sieged: place a guard discreetly on the other side with a sharp blade to hand, and you could simply wait for your enemy to enter with their neck helpfully presented for the cut.
“You’ll go first,” Rao said to Kunal. He held out a hand to him.
Kunal stared back, gray-faced. He didn’t move.
“No further harm will come to you,” Aditya said with noble earnestness. It wasn’t a promise he could keep, and from the look on Kunal’s face—and the wary eyes he kept fixed on Rao—Kunal knew it.
Rao looked back steadily.
“You are our ally in this,” Rao said. “And the brother of the empress herself has promised you your safety if you help us wholeheartedly. You have nothing to fear.”
Unless a trap lies in wait, Rao did not say. Unless you’re attempting to trick and condemn us. Then you die with us.
Kunal’s jaw tightened. He stepped forward, ignoring Rao’s hand, and slipped through the gap. Rao followed swiftly behind him, no distance between them. He felt a tug of something at his feet in the darkness—a cobweb, or vegetation growing through the ground, he didn’t know—and kept on walking.
The fortress was just as much of a maze as it was famed to be. Each passage was narrow, and opened to multiple other doorways, which led to corridor upon corridor in turn. But they moved forward with confidence—following the path Kunal had set out for them, and guided them on now.
They came to a large, columned room. Doors on each side. There were no windows, but the vast space was oddly bright, so well-lit by hung lanterns that its walls were a shimmering, liquid expanse of gold.
The fear punched its way through Rao’s body a second before the realization struck his conscious mind: Those lanterns did not contain normal fire. The flames were writhing, slow and unnatural, their movement making Rao’s limbs stiffen with instinctual, animal wariness.
Someone swore. And behind the weight of that whisper, Rao heard a distant sound. Booted footsteps.
There was a bark of laughter behind him.
“You’re trapped,” Kunal said, holding his head up at what would have been a brave and noble angle, if Rao hadn’t been viewing it through a haze of fury and panic.
“There was a wire set in the ground at the entrance. When we unbalanced the weight upon it—my father knows. His men are coming. Either you leave here now, or you die.”
“You fool,” Rao said sharply. “You’re willing to die with us? On the ends of our blades?”
“For Saketa’s sake?” His breathing was ragged. “Y-yes.”
“Saketa’s sake? Saketa is burning. Riven with rot. Your low princes have turned from your father and serve Empress Malini. As they should.”
“She cannot beat the emperor,” Kunal said. There was something haunted in his eyes. “I’ve seen him. I know him.”
“Not as I know him. Not as I know her,” Rao said, anger in his voice.
Mahesh gestured at one of his loyal men, and in the blink of an eye the Parijati warrior had Kunal by the throat—was slamming him hard against the wall.
Mahesh looked around—one door, and the next, and the next, a full honeycomb of corridors.
“It’s even more of a maze in here than we ever expected, and the bastard’s made sure we’re entirely lost,” Mahesh said grimly. “All we can hope to do is find the High Prince by some miracle and cut the man’s throat. Put an end to this.”
And lose all their lives in the process. But what did their lives matter, now?
Aditya had a hand on one of the walls. He was gazing up at the stone—the way it curved toward the dome of a ceiling. Kunal, held against the wall, was still making choked, wet noises, hands flailing ineffectually.
Rao should have told the soldier to let Prince Kunal go. But he didn’t. He watched Aditya instead.
He saw it when Aditya’s mouth firmed. When he exhaled—pained, small. Then straightened, lowering his arms.
“The High Prince’s—and Chandra’s—false fire destroyed swathes of our army,” Aditya murmured. He sounded as if he were lost in thought, but his eyes were sharp. “Imagine…”
He paused. There was silence, apart from the crackle of torches, the pained wheeze of Kunal’s fading breath.
“I wonder,” he said finally, “what true fire could do.”
“True fire,” Rao repeated.
“You mean fire of the mothers?” Mahesh asked. Aditya nodded. “Prince Aditya,” Mahesh replied, voice heavy. “We have no such thing.”
“Sometimes you can hear the voice of the nameless even without a basin of water to open the way.” Aditya’s voice was steady. Sure. “Sometimes the nameless speaks clearly.”
“The fire is fading,” said Rao, staring at the flames in their sconces.
“A magic born from an imperfect sacrifice,” murmured Aditya, “will never be anything but a mimicry of what the mothers accomplished for us.”
In his voice—the cadence of it, the surety, the way the men hung on his every word—Rao saw a shadow of Malini in her brother.
“Sacrifice,” Aditya was saying. “A sacrifice not compelled. A sacrifice chosen.”
He closed his eyes. Opened them.
“The lanterns haven’t yet guttered,” said Aditya.
“No,” said Rao, even as the fire twisted and spat, bristling in the sconces. He did not understand. “Not yet. We should go. Now.”
Aditya walked over to one of the flames. Almost close enough to touch.
“Aditya,” Rao said sharply. “What are you doing?” And then Aditya turned his head, eyes wet and shining and Rao knew. He knew.
“You are men of Parijat,” Aditya said, his voice hoarse, cracked through but strong.
“You are men of Parijat and Dwarali and Alor, Srugna and Saketa. You knew when you chose to fight alongside me that this path might cost your life. But you remained for the sake of the empire. Because you believed—and still do—that it cannot be strong in my brother’s hands.
“I am a priest of the nameless,” said Aditya, visibly mustering up his courage.
Rao tried to stride forward, but Mahesh gripped him by the arm, his fist a band of iron.
“But I am also Divyanshi’s blood. I remember and honor the vows your forefathers made to her.
Loyalty to a Parijatdvipan throne. To a shared vision, a shared empire.
And now I ask you for a new vow: I will make my sacrifice here.
I will see the High Prince’s rule ended.
I will wrest control of the fire, and with my sacrifice, turn it against him and his soldiers.
They will burn, and you will walk free, unscathed, unharmed.
And you will return to my sister’s side, and say I died for her.
You will say Empress Malini was crowned by a willing sacrifice.
A new pact between us all.” He swallowed.
Smiled, bright and tear-sharp. “You will honor her.”
Kunal made an awful noise. And Rao trembled and shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Aditya. No.”
But Mahesh was still holding on to him. Mahesh was speaking.
“My ancestors were there, when Divyanshi demanded our vows to serve her sons. My ancestors watched her burn. I can do no less for you, my prince. I will do no less for you.” His expression was somber, and though there were no tears in his eyes, he was swallowing desperately to hold them back.
He touched a fist to his chest and bowed low, dragging Rao with him.
And somehow, the men around Rao were bowing too.
“Rao, will you say goodbye to me?” Aditya asked.
Rao shook his head. No, no. But he couldn’t speak.
“I’m sorry, Rao,” Aditya said, and his eyes were gleaming but he was smiling, smiling like he was full of both joy and hurt too large for his body, so large the feelings had to overflow.
“I know you’ve lost too many people. But you shouldn’t think of me as lost. I’ve finally found what the nameless wants from me. ”
“It’s a monstrous thing to demand a sacrifice like this from someone,” Rao choked wretchedly. “Even from yourself. Aditya.”
He managed to wrench himself free. Strode to his friend. Gripped him by the front of his tunic, drawing him close.
“What kind of god would demand this from you?” Rao wanted to yell but he couldn’t; could only dig his fists into Aditya’s clothes, drag him closer. “What kind of god would demand this from anyone?”
“Our god,” said Aditya. Gently pushed him back. The booted footsteps were getting closer.
“You won’t burn,” said Rao. “It’s not so simple. You have no oil—no lac—”
“The mothers will guide me.”
“You can’t.”
“Ah, Rao,” Aditya said. Soft. “I can.”
The lanterns were flickering to life all around them—flame after flame. The air felt like a swelling wave—a roiling storm, boiling up, up, up.
As if they sensed Aditya. As if they were doing it for him.
“I know now,” Aditya said. “Why I dreamt of you as I did. Don’t forget what stars are, Rao.”
Then he raised up a hand. Touched it to the flame.
It raced over his body like a falling star against the night sky. And Rao held him and felt nothing—only skin. Only his own body untouched, a sacrifice unwanted, a sacrifice unasked for.
“Prince Rao,” Lord Mahesh gritted out. “We have witnessed. We have seen. Now we must survive. Come!”
“I’ll stay with you,” Rao said raggedly. He was crying, he realized. “Aditya, I’ll stay. I won’t leave you alone.”
Aditya could not respond. The fire was climbing over him, darting and arcing, trailing as sweetly as flowers climbing a vine. But it burned, and burned, and Rao could smell smoke. Could see—could see Aditya’s skin—
The fire turned on them with wild life. The chakrams on his arms were spinning circles of gold. And Rao saw light, light, light. A hand grasping at his back.
Then, nothing.