The Jasmine Throne (The Burning Kingdoms, #1)

by Tasha Suri

What a big void there was, between the knowledge within her and the person she appeared to be, bowing her head in respect to a petty man who still saw her as a street beggar who’d risen too far, and hated her for it.

“The worthy are always safe on the Hirana,” Priya said. “That’s what they used to tell pilgrims. And you’re worthy, Sima. I’ve decided it. So you’re going to be fine.”

Salt, some thought, helped keep the rot at bay.

We need their strength to free ourselves from an empire that has always hated us, from rulers that want us to roll over like dogs for the crime of being better than them.”

Oh, I passed through the waters, I am once-born, but when I watched my siblings and elders burn, I lost everything. I’m damaged goods. My mind—

Does this mean reincarnation?

She felt old memories clamor like bells, each one chiming against the next: an older temple sister testing her tolerance for pain, dipping her hand in hotter and hotter water, as the elders watched; little Nandi, her temple brother, helping her lay flowers and fruit in a shrine alcove, and filching one juicy segment of fibrous golden mango; pilgrims falling prone before the masked elders, begging for a memento of Ahiranya’s old glory. All things she’d lost. Pieces of herself.

Priya was once-born, she was, and the small tangle of memory she’d regained was enough to make the Hirana move with her,

Finally. Finally. The Hirana was speaking to her once more. The response the Hirana had given her when she was on its surface had been the rumblings of a thing asleep.

“Who was the temple son who gave you a taste of the deathless waters? Who condemned you to die?”

As if a choice, carefully bred into your nature by grief and training and hardship, was any choice at all.

Sentimentality had its place when it served a function; when it helped achieve the greater ideal of an Ahiranya free and powerful, as it had once been. But his love—no. The blood tenderness of it was nothing but weakness.

A shame that he’d found a new faith and left his duties behind.

Sounds familiar

Subtlety was cultivated out of necessity, by people who knew that power needed to be treated with care—who understood how easily it could be stolen or taken.

Santosh had the emperor’s ear, and the emperor’s crude belief in the supremacy of Parijat and Parijati blood. He had no need for such things as subtlety.

“I am saying, General Vikram, that Emperor Chandra is changing Parijatdvipa.” His breath was sweet with aniseed. “He thinks that because the mothers forged his line and the city-states remember their debt, we’ll kiss the hand of any inbred Parijati he favors. But we Saketans don’t forget that he’s not the only scion of the mothers with a right to that throne. And I don’t think you forget either, General Vikram. There is another way.”

Oh, mothers of flame, protect me. I cannot survive here, alone and unloved!”

Obsessed w her and her dramatics

What would be enough justice—enough blood, enough death, enough suffering—for an emperor who sought to burn his own sister to death?

In the past they had even allowed their men to marry men, and their women to marry women.

what he and his friends had blushed over as lewdness was a source of faith and defiance to the Ahiranyi, who joined stories of seductive beings of flower and flesh, of two men lying together, and of world-conquering glory on the same lyrical breath.

The poet and his followers were rebels, though, of a kind. In this room, he’d heard them speak of secession and resistance through the medium of Parijati poetry—the metaphor of rose and thorn, of poisonous oleander, of fires and honey, turning Parijat’s own language against itself.

“He wrote that there is no meaning in the universe: no fate, no high blood, no rights of kings over land. Everything is emptiness. The world only has meaning when we give it meaning.”

And it angered her that she felt anything at all—that she wasn’t strong enough to feel nothing.

“Power can be looking after people. Keeping them safe, instead of putting them into danger.”

The way he saw her was far, far from the way she saw herself, and she didn’t know how to respond.

“They want to maintain their empire, and they know that there is a greatness in us that they must suppress. They belittle us. They control us. They let us die of rot.”

But I could still have chosen to make a home with a nice girl, marriage or no marriage,”

I would not know what you are if I hadn’t seen you, Malini marveled. If you hadn’t moved as you did on the Hirana. I do not think you are used to being seen, are you, Priya?

Someone powerful who looked at her and looked at her, as if Malini—sick, unkempt, her curls in a snarl and her mind liquid—had the sun inside her. Someone she could use to set herself free.

Malini had seen this one kill a woman without hesitation and with seemingly no remorse—seen her move with shocking agility and brute strength. But there it was, clear in her words. A soft heart.

She marveled at the uselessness of highborn women, her scorn for the lot of them curdling in her.

“And what will you do if I’m not well, in the end?” Priya asked. “Nothing,” Sima said. “I could do nothing. But I’d still want to know. That’s what friends want.”

Priya did not know if she would ever get used to the strangeness of being seen, really seen, by someone who had power over her.

Because he thinks the only way a woman can truly serve the empire, the only way a woman can be good, is through the sacrifice of her life.”

“We should not do what powerful people tell us, simply because they tell us,” he rasped. “You know that.”

You think you haven’t bartered your body for your own ends? What do you think pouring death down your throat is?”

Vikram was master of his mahal, but the first loyalty of the majority of maids and children, the soldiers and serving men, those who cooked the food and set the fires, and held arrows and swords against the dark, was to her.

Oh, Priya knew an infatuation when she was in the middle of one.

“And there are such tales,” Malini said, “about women too?” There was something hesitant in her voice.

How can you be this soft? Priya thought helplessly. How can you know what I am and look at me with eyes like that? How can you be so stupidly trusting?

Malini raised a hand, brushing her knuckles against the swelling of Priya’s cheek. Her fingers trembled, still. Priya could feel the sting of the touch. It burned through her blood, sang, and she thought, Oh. Oh no. This was more than simple fascination. This was attraction and it was… not remotely convenient.

After all, power makes everyone monstrous. At least a little.”

Malini wanted Priya’s pity. She wanted to bind Priya to her. She needed an ally. She had already been vulnerable in front of Priya, drawing her in, making a confidante of her.

“Why did he wish to remove you?” Priya asked. “Your brother.” There were many things Malini could have said. I betrayed him. I tried to remove him from his throne. I saw him too clearly, and he hated me for it.

Ask me, Malini thought, not looking away from Priya’s gaze, what makes me impure. If you’re brave enough, ask me.

Malini had peeled her heart open and poured her heart’s blood out before Priya, given her everything ugly and tender, metal and sweet about her past. And Priya… Priya did not touch her, but she kept her hand near Malini’s own. She kept her eyes on Malini. Steady and sure.

“The methods of each rebel group are different. But it is a vision that unites them all, not rage. A dream.”

“I learned long ago the limits of a vision built upon faith and ideals. And the dangers.”

Weep enough, and your nature becomes like stone, battered by water until it is smooth and impervious to hurt. Use tears as a tool for long enough, and you will forget what real grief feels like.

I do not want you to hate me, she thought. I want you to like me. It’s absurd, but why else would I ask you to imagine me in my finest saris? Why else would I ask you to imagine me beautiful?

She wanted Malini to care for her—wanted to bask into that caring, melt into it. But the rest of her was wary. The rest of her wanted armor.