The Lotus Empire (The Burning Kingdoms, #3)

by Tasha Suri

“I couldn’t leave her,” he burst out. “And I wanted to know if you—I hoped. I had to know if hoping was stupid. And if you’re one of them, if you’re a yaksa that looks like Priya, then nowhere’s safe from you. And if you’re Priya, then nowhere’s safer than with you. So.” He swallowed again, and she saw the tears streaking his face, miserable. “It’s all hope. That’s why.”

She could break the earth with a casual breath, but carefully bowing trees to carry the weight of a domed ceiling, or closing the fractures in the columns that held up the roof with thick sap and root, was work that required absolute focus. When she wasn’t working, her brain was full of Bhumika, and the hungers of the yaksa, and the heartache in her own chest, and all those feelings like rot-riddled roots knotted her up until she couldn’t breathe through them. Focusing on the mahal pushed it all away. Sometimes, after a day spent at work, she felt nothing at all. Just calm so vast it was like the deathless waters, shaping her into something hollow and new. It was bliss.

But Varsha had spared Malini from the task of ensuring that Parijatdvipa would have an heir. The very thought of begetting a child made Malini’s skin hot and cold all at once with horror.

“Starvation would drain us much further,” Malini said crisply. “We do not need perfection, my lord. Only willingness. Only bravery. All of you claim you would die by the sword for Parijatdvipa. If you are willing to do so, you can take on the smaller sacrifice of sharing food.”

She managed to coax him into telling her about his grandchildren, first—in her admittedly limited experience, even men who thought very little of their wives and daughters were soft for their grandchildren, and this man was no exception. He told her about his four granddaughters and his five grandsons proudly.

Nimisa Monastery was ancient. Five hundred years had shaped its gray stone, erasing any human-made flourishes of beauty, making it one with the soil and the green that surrounded it. Its vast entrance arch, set above steps that curved like a crescent moon, shone as if emeralds had been carved into its walls. But lichen and vines were what bejeweled it, not gemstones. They were so oddly, beautifully lustrous that Bhumika had to pause momentarily in her walk toward the monastery’s steps simply to stare up in awe.

“I managed that badly,” Bhumika said. She was angry—with them, and with herself. “I should not have been so honest or so forthright. Men with power do not respond to it. Especially from women.” She closed her eyes and steadied herself, forcing the fire of her anger to quell. “What was I like before I chose this path, Jeevan? Was I wiser?” “You were careful with your words,” Jeevan said after a moment. “You would cajole. Mediate. For many years men with power did not listen to you. So you placed people in your debt, knowing they would help you not from fear but from gratitude.”

“Do you understand what emptiness is, Rao? It’s a gift. It is a promise. You need no god. Only your own fate, carved by your own hand.”

Sometimes a hollowing was a space where the echo of you remained. It was a place where a new thing could grow, take root.

“There is a story I once told a girl,” a voice said. It was a familiar voice and also—not. “Of a man who garlanded a tree until it came alive and married him.” One deep breath. Another. She could not turn. Her heart would break if she turned and found nothing behind her. “I know that story,” Malini whispered. A faint sound. Half a laugh, half a sob, so human, and it made tears come to Malini’s own eyes. “It’s hard, you know? Wrestling a god into sleep. You helped me to do it. I saw the light of you and I followed it and it saved me. It helped me fight her. But even then, I couldn’t remember how to be anymore. I had to learn again.” A sound. The swish of leaves. Of water. Maybe breath. Maybe a body, deep in the water behind her. “I left you for so long. I’m sorry.” Malini closed her eyes and listened to that voice. Drank it like wine. “It’s all right,” Malini said. “I gather trees grow very slow.” Another laugh. This one had no tears in it. “If I garland you?” Malini asked. “Will that make you human enough to stay with me?” “If I send you flowers through the soil and through your skin, will that make you magical enough to stay at my side?” “You know the answer,” Malini said shakily. “I’m here. I had the world in my palm, and I found it wanting. I’m a greedy creature, Priya. I came here for you. There is a flower in my heart, and it grew for you.” A heartbeat passed, and she was sure now that she could hear a body in the water. A hesitant breath. “Look at me,” the voice said...