Rao kneeled down before her. He did not kneel like a man overcome by grief, or as men in tales kneel before women they loved. He did not even kneel as he had when his sister had burned upon the pyre, with his face blank and his hands in fists, too devastated to move or breathe. He kneeled and lowered his head. Touched his fingertips to the ground before her feet. He kneeled as a man kneels before a king. An emperor. “It’s time,” he said, in a clear voice, to Malini and all the assembled highborn of Parijatdvipa, “to tell you my name.”
