The Oleander Sword (The Burning Kingdoms, #2)

by Tasha Suri

Don’t you realize I want to know everything about you? That even now, when I should have forgotten you, all I desire is to know your heart better than my own?

I have so many debts, Priya. Debts to my men. Debts to you. I never forget my debt to you.

I know you. I know this face, and it is mine.

I am always thinking of you. I think of you in battle. I think of you in the dark of night. When my mind is silent or full, you wait there for me. It galls me that I want you as much as this. That my heart so thoroughly belongs to you. The power you have over me, Priya. Why does it refuse to fade? I think of the way the earth would yield to your hands, flowering for you. I think of what you could do for me, if I put you to use. And I should put you to use. Somewhere, you must wonder why I haven’t. I think of how you could have made a weapon of anything. Do you think of me, in the quiet? I wonder—

“I don’t know how to talk to kings and princes.” “You’ve spoken to at least one prince before,” Bhumika pointed out. “And an empress. Though I suppose you did more than speak with her—” “Bhumika.” “Am I not allowed to make the occasional joke?”

Once, her expression would have been unreadable to Priya—a blank mask, all perfection and stillness. But she knew Malini’s face now—had once watched every flicker of her eyelids, every exhale from her lips, and learned them like language.

“You summoned me,” Priya pointed out. “Yes,” Malini said. “I did. Because I am on precarious ground. Because I need someone I can trust. And because…” She stopped, and then said, carefully, “Because you are you. To me.”

You are like ink, Malini thought helplessly. Ink, and all I want is to make poetry of you.

“Lata will find you a new place to sleep,” Malini said. “And we’ll make sure you’re reunited with any of your men that survived, I promise you.” “What if I stay here with you?” Priya asked. She gave Malini a watery smile, a teasing edge to her smoke-strained voice. “Just like I did when we were Ahiranya, and I was your very own maidservant? I could sleep on the floor. You wouldn’t even notice me.” “Priya,” Malini said, a tug of desperate fondness beneath her breastbone. “I always noticed you.”

Because I need her. Because she saw me once, for everything I was and could be, and wanted me anyway. And she sees me and wants me still, over the chasm that should make enemies of us. And yet it does not. Cannot.

You were not so spellbound by love for my brother then, Malini thought. And not so led astray.

I fucking knew it!!!

“I told myself I was doing all of this for Ahiranya—my family’s sake, my country’s sake, my sake—but I was lying to myself, lying, lying—” “Priya.” The name came shakily to Malini’s lips. “It was for you. Maybe all of it or maybe part of it but you, you—I can’t—” A flutter of broken words, little shards of words, blooming as the roses twined from Priya’s skin onto Malini’s steadying hands. “I barely understand it, the way I would willingly kneel for you, anywhere, for anything. The way I would fight for you. The way I want to be at your side. Is that what love is, Malini? Is that how awful love is? Because if it is, then I love you, the way that roots love the deep and leaves love the light. It’s—the way I am. And no matter how much I try to be good, to do right—I’m all flowers in your arms, for your war, for you—”

“Do you still want to see if I’m capable of breaking you?” Malini asked. “Do you still want me to try?” Something hushed, almost reverent in her voice, in the shape of her mouth, the look in her eyes. It made Priya feel dizzier than any wine; made her body feel like something alchemized. “Yes,” Priya said. “Always. Yes.”

“I am tired of wanting and not taking,” Malini said. So honest and clear. It felled Priya, just a little. Made her breath catch inside her. “Then take,” Priya said. Wanted and wanted, with an ache that ran right through her. “Take, Malini. I’m here.”

You want so much, and all I want is for you to have whatever you desire.

“Let me show you how to break me,” Priya said.

PRIYA!!!!

“I’ve learned my lesson,” Malini said, low. “I know how to break you now. Let me show you.”

Priya shook her head. “All that matters,” she said. “Is. Is if you want me in battle…” She trailed off. Malini’s fingertips were light against her mouth. Silencing her. “I don’t want to talk about battle anymore,” said Malini. “Don’t you?” A smile. “Aren’t you always thinking about how you’ll win?” “Priya,” Malini said. Laughter in her voice. “You’re here, aren’t you? I’ve already won.”

“If I can’t hold on to you, then I can hold on to no one,” Malini said quietly. “And here. Now. What else can I do?” Ah. Priya swallowed. How lonely it was, to have power. How lonely.

“When I am alive and I am empress. When you have everything I’ve vowed to you and Ahiranya…” Silence, as Malini cupped Priya’s waist with a hand; as she stretched her fingers wide, as if she could encompass it, hold Priya and keep her. “I’ve dreamt of garlanding you,” Malini confessed. A small, secret thing. “Flowers around your throat, and you garlanding me in turn. The two of us making our own promises to each other. I’ve dreamt of naming you my own. My heart. My wife.”

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.

“Tell me,” Malini said, placing her hand over his own. He could not feel her fingers. His skin was tingling, growing leaden. “Does it hurt?” He opened his mouth. Nothing but a rasp left it. He felt something dribble from his lips. She nodded as if he had spoken. His sight was beginning to go gray. He could not breathe. And the twisting nausea in his stomach was growing, gouging him from the inside out. He was being clawed open. Eviscerated. The ground beneath him was ash, and what lived in the ash was eating through him, heat and cold and bitter, scrabbling finger bones. Surrounding him were faceless brides, their blood-red saris brushing his writhing body. Flames leapt from their clothes to his skin as they laughed and hissed his name, watching him from beneath crowns of molten kindling and starlight. He was burning and burning, his skin peeling from the inside, fire blistering his soft flesh, his organs. He could not run from it. The fire was him, and he was the fire, and in the void that yawned before him there was only more fire still. Yes, it hurt. It hurt, and he would have paid any price to end it. Anything at all. “Good,” Malini said, from a long distance. Her voice was an echo. “I’m glad.”

She closed her eyes and let herself feel everything: Her fear of fire. Her grief. Her rage. Her relief. The bloodied, vicious weight of her own joy. She smiled—one smile so bright and fierce that she felt like her whole body was shining with it. She had done it. Finally, she had done it. She had truly won.

Would it comfort you at all to know that I wanted to love you forever? That I wanted to be yours for the rest of my life? That I chose hurting you over letting you and everyone I love die?

Hate me, Malini. Hate me and live. I can love enough for the both of us.