The Oleander Sword (The Burning Kingdoms, #2)

by Tasha Suri

Malini swayed, and then exhaled, turning her body so that she was leaning against Priya. It startled Priya, almost, that sudden yielding—the weight of Malini against her, Malini tucking her feet close to her body, resting a hand against Priya’s arm. “They’ve asked me for another act of faith,” Malini whispered against her skin. The warmth of her breath, the tightness of her shoulders—all of it made Priya want to curl over her, shield her, hold her like a shell around a vulnerable yolk.

“You should negotiate with him then. Get a more reasonable price. It’s so clear you’ve never haggled at a market,” Priya added in a mutter. That coaxed a true, unguarded laugh out of Malini. The sound made Priya’s heart ache.

“I know what you are,” said Priya. “I know you understand people. But Malini, this kind of risk…” An exhale. “I’m going to have to have faith, am I?” “In me? Yes.” Priya closed her eyes. “I don’t think I like faith very much.” Behind the closed lids of her eyes, in that brief darkness, she saw the sangam, and the yaksa, and felt an echo of fear run through her. She pushed it away. She couldn’t examine it now. “And you, a temple elder,” Malini was saying. “An expert on faith!” “Don’t throw my own words back at me, Malini.” “Then don’t ask me to change my nature.” There was a hint of a true smile in her voice now. It made Priya want to see her face,

She moved her hand to Malini’s jaw. Urged her chin up with a light nudge of her fingers. Malini moved easily with her. Their eyes met. If Priya had thought seeing Malini’s face would give her answers—well. Malini had always been good at hiding what she felt. But there was a tenderness in her eyes, her expression so gentle it made Priya’s heart hurt. “What do you need from me?” Priya asked. “If you’re going to be foolish—how can I help you?” “Foolish,” Malini repeated. “Of course you’re being foolish,” said Priya. “But I can’t stop you. I could try to be captured with you, I suppose, but that’s not what you want, is it?” Malini’s smile faded.

“I can’t bring down a whole city,” said Priya swiftly. Her heart was hammering again. She felt almost suffocated by Malini’s weight against her. She could not do what Malini wanted. She could not. “I barely survived bringing down the river. Malini…” She trailed off. Malini was still leaning into her. It was, Priya realized, as if Malini was afraid that if she let go, Priya would vanish entirely. “It would be,” Malini said, “a last resort.” Priya exhaled through an ache in her lungs she couldn’t put a name to. How can you look at me so tenderly, and ask me to die for you? “What would you have done if I hadn’t come?” Priya asked. “What then?” “I would have faced all my battles with everything in me,” said Malini. “I would have struggled with Mahesh’s faith and his loyalties. I would have watched Rao seek to turn from me, back to my brother’s light, again and again. And I would have kept on fighting, Priya, for all that I want, and all that I deserve. And I would have lost.” Her eyes fluttered closed. “I may lose, still. But I cannot let Chandra win. Let Aditya be forced onto the throne, if he must. Let me die. But Chandra cannot have it.”

“I can’t believe we’re having this kind of conversation like this,” Priya said eventually. “Like what?” “With you clinging to me.” “I’m not clinging,” Malini said. “Really?” “‘Clinging’ doesn’t sound very dignified.” Malini’s voice was faintly disgruntled. Even through her fear—even through everything—Priya felt a lance of fondness. Priya placed her hand around Malini’s wrist. Maybe Malini thought Priya wanted to untangle them from each other, because her grip tightened, nails against the skin of Priya’s belly, cloth scrunched tightly in her hand. “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.

“I’ll do it. If it comes to it… I’ll fight with all I have.” Malini’s next exhale was a shudder. She cupped Priya’s cheek. Said nothing, as Priya whispered battle plans to her like they were love stories. “When this ends,” Malini said finally, in a voice like a scrap of silk—like a fragile weft against Priya’s lips, her hands. “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.”

I AM NOT STRONG ENOUGH FOR THIS BOOK 😭😭😭😭

“That’s a cruel thing to let yourself dream of,” she whispered. “Isn’t it?” “It is,” Malini agreed, sounding wretched and yet sweet, sweet because she was Priya’s. “And yet. Women could marry women once in Ahiranya. And in my foolish dreams I can’t forget that.” Priya blinked back tears. Silly of her. They were like children, weren’t they? Wanting things they shouldn’t, when there were bigger things than the both of them shaping the world, and those forces would wash them away without a care. There was something living in Priya’s skin and her soul. There was a throne waiting in Malini’s future. And yet. And yet.

She took Malini’s hand from her hip and guided it up, until Malini’s warm fingers were against the nape of her neck. Until Malini was drawing Priya close, and Priya’s fingers were moving, tracing Malini’s bare ribs, her breasts; the flower at her throat. This is my garland.

“Please,” said Priya. “Don’t follow me into the next battle. The last one was—bad.” “Terrible,” Sima agreed. “This one is going to be worse,” Priya said. She’d seen the look on Malini’s face—haunted, almost gutted by the knowledge that both failure and success were so very close, but failure was closer. “I… I’d feel so much better if you stayed away. Like Lady Deepa.” “I’d rather be like Lady Raziya,” said Sima. “Leading my own little army around.” Sima shuffled closer to Priya. “You made a promise to me, Pri,” she added. A quiet, firm voice. “You promised I’d be by your side in the next battle. Well, it’s here.” “It is.” “And I’m not letting you break that promise.

“If the fire touches me…” “It won’t,” Sima said. “I won’t let it.” Priya closed her eyes. “Just you and your shield,” she said. “Come on, Sima. Don’t coddle me.” “Don’t underestimate my strength,” Sima said. “You and me, we’re going to be okay. We’re going to get through.” “If I don’t—” “Priya, no—” “If I don’t,” Priya said more firmly. “Then I want you to be okay. Don’t die for me. Whatever happens.” “You’re my best friend,” Sima said quietly. “Sima.” Sima squeezed her hand. “You don’t have time to argue with me right now.” She stood, in the shadow of their charioteer. Stared out at the raging battlefield. “The army’s getting closer,” Sima said, and then Priya felt the jolt of the chariot beneath them.

Distantly, she heard the wail of conches. A chorus. The empress had been captured. Malini, Priya thought. It was a helpless thought, like a call into the void. A part of her truly hadn’t believed Malini would allow it. But she had told Priya she would, and Malini hadn’t lied to her for a long, long time.

I AM NOT OKAY

I have Priya, she reminded herself, through the cloying haze of her own fear. What use was fear? How could she face what came next with anything less than all the bravery she had in her?

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.

“Wrong,” Malini said. “Ah, Chandra. You do not see it. Perhaps your priests do. I am pure. I am pure in a way you cannot touch, a way that is inviolable. It lies in my heart. It lies in my blood, beyond the dirt of your mortal ambitions.” She bared her bloodied teeth at him. “You cannot alchemize me into your glory. I will not allow it. My glory is my own.”

“The Parijatdvipans think they know what it means to sacrifice,” she went on. “Grand gestures of self-destruction, they think. They glorify it. But it’s not so. The slow way, fighting even when you know it may have no worth… that is sacrifice.” She thought of all her people in the mahal. And thought of Padma, laughing, Bhumika’s heart clutched in her perfect, tiny fists. Felt her heart turn and break, as she said, “And this? This is freedom. This is escape.”

“Whatever you cannot mourn, I will mourn for you,” Jeevan said quietly. “And when your work is done, I will bring you back. I vow, as long as I’m living, it will be done.

She leaned forward. Pressed her mouth to his. It was the softest touch of her lips to his own. She felt the warmth of his breath; the sudden clench of his hand around her own, holding her as if he were afraid she would vanish if he let go. But he kissed her in return gently, with a tenderness that made her heart ache for what could have been, and what never would be. She drew back. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“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.”

“Needle-flower tincture,” she said. “A dose like this would kill you. Small doses, over time, will destroy you. And there will be doses, brother. To be placed in your wine. Your meals. You will die in slow increments, your mind rotting in your skull. The poison will kill you unhurriedly, and by the time you face the kings and warriors of Parijatdvipa—by the time I drag you before the court—you will be a shadow of your old self.” She leaned forward. “I will allow you your old princely finery, so that all the men who once bowed to you will be able to see how emaciated you have become. You will look a pitiable sight, I promise you, stumbling into the court in your gold and your turban, with your skin sticking to your ribs. I will ask you to plead your case, and all those men will hear you stumble over your words. They will laugh at you, brother. I will steal everything from you, as you tried to steal it from me.”

“Ah, but I’ll burn for my own glory, not yours,” she said, baring her teeth in a feral smile. “And I will be remembered as a mother, a goddess, and you—you will not be remembered at all.”

Priya walked toward where he’d pointed. She saw Romesh and the others, flowers and vines still strewn across their armor, with carafes of wine scattered all around them. They were shouting and laughing, and Raziya’s women were with them. One was rolling up her sleeve. “If a little thing like Sima can beat you,” she was saying, “then what trouble are you going to give me?”

“You’d be better letting her teach you.” The Dwarali woman gestured at Sima, who was sitting with a carafe in her lap, her face glowing with joy and liquor. “She’s got all the patience, don’t you, Sima?”

A pang of grief ran through Priya like lightning. She thought of sitting there with all of them, drinking that wine, laughing with them. Thought of being embraced by all that new trust. By friendship. She thought of how far they’d come, all of them and how rosy the future looked, like something good could be cobbled together out of all the blood and death and sacrifices, the horrors they’d seen.

Love and love. Like two opposite points she was forever reaching for, stretching her thin. Love for Malini and love for home. Love like a future, and love like sacrifice.

“Will you ask me to trust you,” Malini said tightly, “now that you have spoken of yaksa? Now that you have claimed to talk to one?” Priya stared at her. “No,” she said. “No. Though you’ve asked me for more trust than that. Asked me to trust that you’ll keep your vows to Ahiranya. Asked me to risk my life, my magic, everything I am—” “You gave everything willingly.” “You still asked. I won’t do the same to you. Because I. I…” Priya’s eyes closed, and she swayed on her feet. “My power,” she said. “Comes at a price. And if I had known… Malini, I wouldn’t have paid it. But now I have to do this. For my family. For Ahiranya. I can’t betray them.”

“Priya.” She was breathing hard suddenly. Shaking. “Priya, don’t you dare betray me. Don’t. Don’t.” Please, she did not say. Please, not you. Not you.

“Whatever you gave me doesn’t live in that insipid flower,” Malini gasped, furious that she was crying, furious at the salt on her face, the way her heart hammered as she edged back, back, fighting Priya’s magical grip on her, as Priya circled her, the mothers’ fire flickering palely strange in the lamps, in the pit. “Don’t say it,” said Priya. “Don’t.” But it was too late. “It lives in me,” Malini said. Furious. “It lives in me, and you cannot take it.”

love you,” Priya choked out. “I really do. I don’t want to do this.” “That doesn’t make it better,” Malini rasped. “Do you really think I haven’t been hurt by people who love me, who claimed I gave them no choice?” “I know you have,” said Priya. “I know.” “Don’t you know how I love you?” Malini asked. Those were not soft words. She threw them out like a lash. “Don’t you know that I hold everyone at bay, that I cannot stand to love anyone and yet I love you utterly? Don’t you understand?”

Priya took a step forward. Took hold of her. It was almost an embrace; almost like being held tenderly, and it was so cruel that Malini could not stand it. She flinched back, and Priya’s grip tightened.

Malini snarled—a sound she had never, ever made—and twisted. Wrenched. Priya refused to let go of her, and they were both stumbling. Both falling. Both on the marble, the coldness of it jarring Malini’s back, her skull. Priya was above her, fierce and breathing fast, eyes wet. She was beautiful and Malini wanted nothing more than to fling her away, to be free of her. She bucked, pushing at Priya wi...

“You—you did.” Her body crumpled. Priya caught her, lowering her down gently. What a mockery it was, that gentleness. “You won’t die,” Priya sobbed, miserable tears falling down her cheeks. “You won’t die. I didn’t cut out your heart. I didn’t. I only, I only…” Her words dissolved. There was a white-edged silence, as Malini bled, and Priya scrubbed tears from her own eyes. “It has to be enough,” whispered Priya, “that I’ve lost you. That we’re severed from one another. It has to be enough.” Priya touched her own hand over her own heart. “It has to be,” she said. And maybe it was. The fire twisted wildly. And there were flowers, blooming from Priya’s skin. Leaves feathering through her hair. Sap, pearling at her eyes. Priya, she thought. Priya was not human at all. It was awful to still love her. “I’ll never forgive you,” Malini choked out, through a mouth of blood, salt. “I’ll never—I’ll never…” One hand, twined with white leaves, touched her face. Wiped the blood away. “Live, then,” said Priya. “Hate me. Just live.” There was an awful noise. The lattices, entwined with flowers, were cracking. Splintering open. Malini felt lips against hair. The faintest brush. The wound in her chest pulsed in response. Hot, livid, living. Her vision grayed as she was lowered. But she saw Priya walk away from her. Saw the marigolds rupture the ground behind her. A trail of gold. Saw the shadow of Priya, vanishing through the broken lattice, a hollow to the night.

Priya, in his arms. Priya, with only him to rely on. And here before him now, Rukh, a foolish child clinging to an even smaller child, trying to grapple with the cruelty that had been inflicted on the both of them. Trying to survive.

There was a vicious satisfaction in knowing that nothing ended, that all griefs in the world came back over and over again, spinning like a terrible wheel. He’d thought he would be able to forge a better world once. He’d thought he could bring back all of the goodness and joy Ahiranya had lost.

She closed her eyes and let out a sob. If you are told your whole life that your greatest worth is as a sacrifice, inevitably there must come a day when you believe it.

I was foolish, Malini thought bitterly, as her vision began to fade, and her body waver, to ever think I could have Priya and also have this.

I AM NOT RECOVERING

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.

She would be herself tomorrow. She would don all her lies and armor tomorrow.

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.

What is a star, he thought, in Aditya’s slurred, smiling voice, but distant fire, reaching for you across worlds?

Malini, Would it have been better if I had left you answers? Written you one final letter, and folded it into your trunk, or in your bed, in the place where I slept beside you? 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? Maybe not. Maybe it’s better like this. Hate me, Malini. Hate me and live. I can love enough for the both of us. She walked alone.

Priya had never, ever been so utterly alone.