The Burning Kingdoms Trilogy

The Parijatdvipan Empire rules over several vassal states, including Ahiranya, whose culture, religion, and language have been systematically suppressed. A disease called the rot — which causes plants to sprout from a person's body — is spreading through the empire. At the heart of Ahiranya stands the Hirana, an ancient temple once fed by the deathless waters: a magical source that could grant power to temple children who passed through it - up to three times to become a full-fledged elder - at increasing personal cost and risk of death. Part of the fabric of the culture and religion of Ahiranya are the yaksa, spirits who could manipulate plants and water, but are thought to be gone. Their downfall was tied to the subjugation of Ahiranya.

Priya was one of those temple children. She survived passing through the waters once. When she was a child, most of the elders and temple children were massacred, and the hirana has been unoccupied and inaccessible, along with its source of power. She has suppressed her memories of that night and her powers and now works as a kitchen maidservant in the regent's household. The regent's wife, Bhumika, is also a surviving temple child. The two have a halting but secret kinship, since only each other knows of their past. Malini, the princess of the ruling empire, is locked away inside the hirana by her brother Emperor Chandra after being accused of treason and refusing to undergo purification — a ritualized death by fire that Chandra uses to consolidate power. Priya, along with many maidservants from the regent's household, is assigned to cook and clean inside the hirana. When Malini witnesses Priya use her forbidden magic to survive an encounter with a rebel posing as a maidservant, she sees an opportunity and arranges for Priya to be her personal attendant. Priya in turn, in consult with Bhumika, agrees to the arrangement as a way to gain leverage over a powerful figure, even an outcast one.

Running parallel: Priya's brother Ashok (another, and the last revealed surviving temple child) leads a rebel faction seeking to weaponize Ahiranya's temple powers against imperial rule. Bhumika also secretly works against the empire from inside the regent's household. Prince Rao of Alor has arrived to Ahiranya and is working covertly to free Malini.

Priya and Malini spend a lot of time together and Malini eventually convinces Priya that they could help each other's goals. Priya, who wants a free Ahiranya, and Malini, who wants to escape and install her eldest brother Aditya on the throne (Aditya previously abdicated in order to become a priest). Priya enters the waters in the hirana a second time and gains more power. During a rebel attack on the city's leaders, Priya helps Malini escape the Hirana. In return, Malini promises that Ahiranya will be free. They meet up with Rao to return to Parijat and the monastery where Aditya is living as a priest. Many of the empire and vassal-states leaders are meeting there to make a plan to overthrow Chandra, who is almost universally hated and feared, even as he holds onto power through his cruelty.

Malini is unable to convince Aditya to take up the mantle of opposing their brother Chandra, but Rao reveals that his own true name is a prophecy of Malini becoming Empress. This is something that the gathered leaders take very seriously and, although she is a woman in an extremely patriarchal society, she is supported and is declared the true empress, although they must still fight a long war to actually take the throne. Priya and Malini, in all of this, begin a covert romantic relationship, but now part ways, as Malini begins her campaign and Priya returns to Ahiranya to help her people. Back in Ahiranya, Priya, Bhumika, and Ashok enter the deathless waters together. A yaksa spirit demands Priya surrender her heart and soul in exchange for her full power. She complies — almost entirely. A piece of her, given to Malini, remains unchanged. Priya and Bhumika emerge as thrice-born Elder priestesses. Ashok drowns.

A year after Malini's declaration, she has taken over most of the continent but has not yet secured complete control. They are trying to take the largest stronghold outside of the capital city, the Maze Fort, which is under the control of Chandra's most loyal general. The campaign turns catastrophic when Chandra's priests unleash supernatural fire conjured from the ashes of women he has burned — a weapon that tears through Malini's forces. Malini sends word to Ahiranya requesting Priya's aid.

Priya, now a thrice-born Elder, and working to curb the rot, agrees to join the campaign despite her people's ongoing needs. She travels with her friend Sima and reunites with Malini. Priya faces hostility and discrimination from Malini's Parijati army, as the Parijati people in general distrust Ahiranyians. Her yaksa bargain is growing darker and more binding in ways she does not yet fully understand. Rao and Aditya have followed and supported Malini. Their bond with each other deepens into something that reads as romantic.

Back in Ahiranya, Bhumika manages Ahiranya's politics and the rot crisis. The yaksa make a sudden return. They have taken on the appearance of the dead temple elders and children, and even retain many of their memories and personalities. While many Ahiranyians celebrate the return of their dead gods, it is quickly apparent that the yaksa are not benevolent. The rot is their doing, and they are using it to manipulate people. The rot, which can also infect plants and land, starts to quickly spread outside of Ahiranya.

Malini takes the main force of the army to the capital city to confront Chandra, while Rao and Aditya lead a smaller force to take the Maze Fort. Aditya sacrifices himself, plunging his hand into the Mothers' flame and single-handedly burning the entire force at the Maze Fort, at the cost of his own life. Rao is left devastated.

Malini herself accepts a terrible bargain with the priesthood to secure their support: the priesthood, aware of the return of the yaksa, believe that the only thing that can stop them is a powerful pyre of fire sacrifice, akin to one made by Aditya (the fire produced by those of the royal line is far more powerful than other sources). She agrees that when the time comes, she will sacrifice herself to stop the yaksa. In return they will support her claim to the throne and help her defeat Chandra. The bargain is carried out and with the priesthood's help, Malini takes the throne and Chandra, who is initially imprisoned, is poisoned by Malini and dies.

Meanwhile, the yaksa inside of Priya fully awakens as Mani Ara, mother and most powerful of all yaksa. Mani Ara demands that Priya stab Malini in the heart in order to reclaim the part of Priya's heart that Malini retains, because Priya's entire being must belong to Mani Ara. With the threat of violence against all of Priya's friends and family, Priya complies and stabs Malini, avoiding the heart. Malini survives, but the wound is unnatural, burning in ways that suggest the yaksa are altering something in her. Priya returns to Ahiranya, leaving Sima behind in the care of Rao.

Aditya and Chandra are both dead. Malini holds the throne, scarred by Priya's betrayal, the pyre bargain still hanging over her. In Ahiranya, Priya has become a vessel for the yaksa deity Mani Ara, surrendering her own agency to protect her people — but she is slowly being consumed, and as the yaksa take more control she begins to understand, with panic and regret, what merging with a deity actually means. The yaksa's plan is to isolate and transform Ahiranya and reshape the entire world in their image.

Malini, whose wound from book two has altered her and given her new abilities in ways she is still discovering, pursues a way to kill an immortal creature that doesn't involve fire and break free of the pyre bargain. She and Priya are separated for most of the book, communicating through shared dreams in which longing, fury, and grief coexist. Priya eventually "turns herself in" to Malini, and they are again reunited, with Malini bringing Priya to the capital city. Bhumika sacrifices her memories — losing her recollection of everyone she loves, including her child — to deliver a salvation message to warrior priests who can help defeat the yaksa. She becomes a husk of who she was, yet remains herself in instinct and manner. Rao, grieving Aditya, is given an assignment outside the empire and finds something resembling companionship with Sima. The relationship between Sima and Rao is platonic, as Sima identifies as gay, and she helps Rao realize that his feelings for Aditya were romantic.

Malini mounts an assault on Ahiranya and the yaksa, but the yaksa have surrounded the entire country with hostile and dangerous trees, so the invasion is stalled. Priya fights for control over her own body and tries to discover her own ways to defeat the yaksa. She eventually realizes that the source of the yaksa's strength is the deathless waters and the Hirana, and that she must destroy the Hirana itself and sever the yaksa's connection to the deathless waters. As the invasion continues to be stalled, the priests become impatient and, en masse, light themselves on fire, planning that the resulting blaze will also cause Malini to burn and fulfill the pyre bargain, thereby defeating the yaksa.

Priya meanwhile carries out her plan to destroy the Hirana, and she and Malini head into Ahiranya, narrowly avoiding the fire which continues to rage on. The yaksa, who did not originally have human bodies but had to assume them in order to return, have become too human to truly fight back, and they all calmly walk into the fire to meet their end — with the exception of Mani Ara, still inside Priya. Priya enters the deathless waters and faces Mani Ara directly. Mani Ara is consumed by grief for her lost yaksa kin and wants to let the world burn rather than bear the pain of her loss. It is implied that Mani Ara could never truly have Priya's heart, because Priya's heart belonged to Malini. Priya reasserts herself and coaxes Mani Ara into an eternal sleep. She breaks the eternal waters down to a small stream, preserving just enough life for the surviving temple children, and brings the entire Hirana down around herself.

Fifteen years later, Malini is Empress. She has not aged at all in fifteen years — implied to be a result of the wound from book two and her connection to Priya. She is preparing to leave the throne to her nephew and seek out Priya, whom she is convinced is still alive. Rao and Sima are travelling the world together. Bhumika has regained her memories and is still leading Ahiranya; she assumes Priya is dead. Priya is alive, though still figuring out her godlike shape and seemingly confined to forests and waters. She reunites briefly with Bhumika and tells her it has taken fifteen years to calm the yaksa inside of her. Bhumika and Priya have a bittersweet goodbye and do not see each other again. Priya and Malini reunite to live their immortal lives together.