Chapter 61 Malini
MALINI
She woke in pain. That was no surprise. The surprise was waking at all.
The light filtered in, muted by silk screens drawn over the lattices. Rao was largely in shadow, but ah, what a relief for him to be there at all: sitting at her side, when almost everyone else she had trusted was gone.
Her heart felt deadened: Priya. Priya. Priya. It was not a howl but a muted grief that twisted through her, throbbing dully with her wound.
Kartik had told her it would kill her. But she had seen, at the end of a thorn blade, the exact limitations of what Kartik had known.
She sat up.
“Malini,” Rao said. Leaden. Then he corrected himself. “Empress. I’ll call the physician.”
Rao’s eyes were strange, almost fathomless. For a moment, as he leaned over her, she stared into them and saw no pupils, no sclera, only blazing fire—
Then he blinked, and his eyes were his own again.
A trick of the light, surely. A trick of her grieving heart.
“Rao,” she whispered. “Tell me. How long have I slept?”
An exhale.
“Weeks,” he said heavily. “Weeks and weeks. Your generals have been running the city. Lady Raziya, Lady Deepa, Lata—they’ve spoken for you. You woke, a few times. But you don’t remember.”
“No,” she said. “No.”
She looked at him. His tired, pinched face. The tremble of his jaw.
“Tell me,” she said. “You have something to tell me.”
He bowed his head.
“Malini,” he said. “I’m so sorry. Your brother is dead.”
“I know,” she said dully. “I know.”
“Not Chandra,” said Rao. “Not only Chandra. I…” He swallowed. Lowered his head. “I’m sorry.”
Malini stared at him, uncomprehending.
“No,” she said.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.” She did not want to accept. Did not want to contemplate it. Ah, by the mothers, did she really have room for more grief in her? “No.”
Rao’s eyes were red, his voice scratchy.
She had never seen his face like this before.
Haggard beyond his years, and full of a grief so palpable it made her whole body want to recoil, to curl in on itself as if it could ward off the pain of that look, the pain that was seeping through her own blood and bone.
“It was—fire.” He stumbled. “In battle. He made. Mothers’ fire. True fire. He chose it.”
He was still speaking to her, but she could not hear it. Noise. Nothing but noise. She turned her face away.
“The priest,” she said thinly.
“The priesthood will want to speak with you eventually,” he said. “They’re demanding war with Ahiranya.”
Of course they were. Malini did not think it would be difficult to give them what they wanted. Ahiranya, it seemed, wanted war with them too.
“Leave me, please,” she said. He was silent for a moment. “Please, Rao,” she said.
She would be herself tomorrow. She would don all her lies and armor tomorrow.
He touched his fingertips against her own. The lightest, kindest touch. And then he departed.
Her chest was bandaged. It hurt to move. And still, she pressed her hands to her eyes, her mouth, and wept.
She had never cried like this, guttural, full-throated sobs with nothing sweet or soft about them, nothing that would engender pity.
She was howling like a beast. She wanted to rip apart the room.
Rip apart her skin. The empire was hers, Parijatdvipa was hers, a pearl in her hand.
She was empress of Parijatdvipa. And it was not enough. It would never be enough.
She’d wash her heart clean with grief. Wear it down to stone. And then tomorrow, and ever after—
A true war awaited her. She intended to meet it.