The Jasmine Throne

This was what she had needed. Not forgiveness, not a balm for this strange writhing fury inside her, but the promise of someone to care for--to love--that she could not harm. Even if she had to. Even if she tried.

Malini wanted to explain that being monstrous wasn't inherent, as Priya seemed to believe it to be. It was something placed upon you: a chain or a poison, bled into you by unkind hands.

Power doesn’t have to be the way the regent and your rebels make it be,” Priya said eventually, making do with her own artless words, her own simple knowledge of the way the world worked. “Power can be looking after people. Keeping them safe, instead of putting them into danger.

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

This face. This face right in front of me. The face you've shown me, the fact that you kissed me. I know it. I know you,' said Priya, 'I know exactly who you are. There are other versions of you that I don't know. But this one...' Her fingers were against Malini's lips. 'This one is mine.

When she is crowned in jasmine, in needle-flower, in smoke and in fire, he will kneel before he and name her," repeated Rao, in common Zaban. And suddenly Malini was shivering, every inch of her afire with a mad elation that rose up, up in her blood. "He will give the princess of Parijat her fate: He will say..." He swallowed. Raised his eyes, which were fierce and wet. "Name who shall sit upon the throne, princess. Name the flower of empire. Name the head that shall reign beneath a crown of poison. Name the hand that lit the pyre." The silence was deep; a drumming tense silence, drawn taut as a bowstring. "He will name her thus," finished Rao. "And she will know.

Truth and lies were both tools, to be used when most necessary.

There is power that is showy and fierce. And there is power grown slowly, and stronger for the time spent braiding its ancient strength.

The moment I saw you, I felt a tug. You are the feeling of falling, the tidal waters, the way a living thing will always turn, seeking light. It isn’t that I think you are good or kind, or even that I love you. It is only that, the moment I saw you, I knew I would seek you out. Just as I sought the deathless waters. Just as I sought my brother. Just as I seek all things—without thought, with nothing but want.

If I must burn, then I’ll take you with me, throne and all.

Maybe if I’d been raised gently by people who taught me to be kind and good, I’d know how to do it. But I was taught goodness and kindness, or what passes for it, by other damaged children, so I can’t.

Oh, vows could be broken. Of course they could. And yet Priya was… not entirely a safe person to lie to. And worse still, Malini did not want to break a promise to her. There was a sound, somewhere below them. Priya’s jaw hardened. “Promise me this, or one way or another, you die here.” “You’ll kill me after all, Priya?” “No, you fool woman,” Priya said, eyes blazing. “No. Never me.

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

You think being called a whore shames me? You think you haven't bartered your body for your own ends? What do you think pouring death down your throat is?

I was never lying about wanting you,” Malini said in a low voice. “Never with my eyes or my words. Never when I touched you. All of that was true.

Be careful with your tears,” her mother added, in a voice of cultivated restraint. “They’re blood of the spirit.

It would be foolish to try to take what was not hers to take. Royal sons were the ones who wore the crown. Royal women were... Well. She thought of her fellow princess Alori, and of highborn Narina, and how they had screamed when the flames had touched them. How they smelled as they burned, as their crowns of stars splintered around their skulls, as even the sweetness of perfume and flowers could not block out the acrid scent of burnt hair and silk, or the smell of flesh, fat, marrow burning and burning and burning. Royal women are only crowned in death, Malini thought furiously.

But some men dream of times long dead, and times that never existed, and they're willing to tear the world apart entirely to get them.

A child should not be a chain, used to yoke a woman like cattle to a role, a purpose, a life she would not have chosen for herself. And yet she felt then, with an aching resentment, how Vikram would use their child to reduce and erase her. She hated him for that, for stealing the quiet and strange intimacy of her and her own flesh and blood and making it a weapon.

You and Chandra both believe the right to rule is something that must be given to you, by the mothers of flame, by blood, by the nameless. I'm no such fool. I know there is no higher power that sanctions a king or emperor. There is only the moment when power is placed in your hand, and there is on truth: Either you take the power and wield it, or someone else will. And perhaps they will not be as kind to you and yours.

Symbolism is important. And freedom... You will not understand this, Princess Malini. But there is a subtle pain the conquered feel. Our old language is nearly lost. Our old ways. Even when we try to explain a vision of ourselves to one another—in our poetry, our song, our theater masks—we do so in opposition to you, or by looking to the past. As if we have no future. Parijatdvipa has reshaped us. It is not a conversation, but a rewriting. The pleasure of security and comfort can only ease the pain for so long.

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?

Malini looked at Priya's face. Thought, I do not know this woman at all. And yet that did not frighten her as it should have. She knew how many faces people possessed, one hidden beneath the other, good and monstrous, brave and cowardly, all of them true.

I’ve avoided marriage. I’ll never willingly beget children with a man. And what is more monstrous than that? To be inherently, by your nature, unable to serve your purpose? To want, simply because you want, to love simply for the sake of love?

When you murder your brothers, remember that we loved you once, heart sister," Narini finished. "Remember that we love you still, no matter what you become.

They had saved each other. He'd left her for Bhumika to raise, because he'd loved her. He'd hurt her because he'd loved her. Love. As if love excused anything. As if the knowledge that he was cruel and vicious and willing to harm her made her heart hurt any less.

I am not thorny," Malini said. "I cried." "Weeping does not make you any less yourself," her mother replied. She touched her fingertips to Malini's shorn hair. "Be careful with your tears," her mother added, in a voice of cultivated restraint. "They're blood of the spirit. Weep too much, and it will wear you thin, until your soul is like a bruised flower." Her mother had been wrong, though. 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. That was some small mercy, at least.

I don’t know anything about birthing,” Priya confessed, holding Bhumika’s hand tight. “Oh, good,” said Bhumika. “Well. Neither do I. A shame that we’re going to need to learn like this.

Malini laughed—a glorious laugh like the sound of a blade unsheathed.

We should not do what powerful people tell us, simply because they tell us