fired, and Mandakini would sit on her back, close as the shell on a tortoise, making sure she meditated and flexed her body in yoga every single day—and once again the High Tantrika would be a slave in her own home.  

The mendicant returned to her in the dead of night, stealing past the guards who were sleeping off the effects of the palm wine so easily available right outside the palace walls. She had been waiting impatiently for him right outside her chamber, and when she first glimpsed his tall figure slipping through the trees, her heart had leapt like a hungry fish. With a finger to her lips and a tantalizing smile, she led him to the arka grove and showed him the secret path that Ketaki had once pointed out to Inanna and herself. While sections of it were exceedingly narrow, i...

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