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Sometimes grief was pain, and sometimes it was simply absence—the wound in the shape of things that could not be felt or touched or comprehended.
I am a good liar, Malini thought. It is not my fault you see through me, as if every mask I wear is nothing but gauze, and my love for you a lamp.
“You have always been life to me,” Malini said quietly. “Always all things living and good.” “Even when you hated me? Even when we dreamt of each other?” “And even then you were life,”
She would choose now to be monstrous enough to let an enemy live, for the sake of keeping what was hers. She would choose love over goodness. Let future generations face the yaksa once more. Let the rot continue. Only, let me have her.
“What does it matter,” Malini said, her voice splintering. “If I don’t have you? If you are gone where I cannot see you or feel you or dream you again, then what is any of it worth to me?”
“I have faith in your humanity. In all of you that is broken and hurtful. I have faith in all of you that is mortal. You have many faces, Priya. The mortal one, the flawed one, and the one with power, this immortal one—they’re all mine. If you will allow it. They’re all mine.”
The same griefs and joys live everywhere, Malini, he’d told her. But I find peace in seeing that we all rise and fall on the same waves. Maybe you would, too.
