Chapter 3
I REMEMBER WHEN…
Sleep came slow, and my dreams were fitful, filled with images of the past. Of Araz.
Of his heat and his smile and his body against mine.
I woke on a sob, tears fresh on my cheeks, and buried my face in his pillow where his cranberry scent still lingered.
My chest ached as if a ten-ton weight had been laid on it, and for a moment, it felt impossible to breathe.
I rode the wave of suffocation, waiting for the vise around my chest to slacken.
This was how it would be from now on.
This was my life now.
I dressed, packed a small bag of essentials, and crept out of Dharti barracks. There was somewhere I needed to be, somewhere I needed to go before I left Prashikshan domain for what might be the last time.
The world was gray as I made my way to my destination, and it wasn’t long before I sensed that I wasn’t alone. I stopped and looked back in time to see a shadow duck behind a tree.
“Who’s there? Come out now!” My voice rang with an authority that surprised even me.
Keyton stepped onto the path, his expression sheepish.
“Keyton? Why are you following me?”
He walked a little way up the path toward me and stopped. “I…wanted to make sure you were safe.”
It hit me that I hadn’t seen him last night at Dharti house. “Why didn’t you come join us for supper last night?”
“I’m no longer in Dharti house. I’m a drohi with no demigod. I’ve been placed in the complex with the unbonded.” He shrugged. “I’ll be assigned to a troop soon.”
I was an idiot. How could I have forgotten about Keyton? Priti had died to save my life, leaving behind the drohi she loved. She’d believed in me that much, and he…He was now mine to protect.
“You’re coming with me.”
His shoulders relaxed. “Thank you.” He closed the distance between us and looked up the path. “Where were you headed?”
“What? No, I mean you’re coming with me when I return to the royal domain.”
He blinked sharply. “I…what?”
“I need a retinue, and you’re going to be part of it…I mean, if you want to, that is.”
He let out a soft exhale. “You’d do that? Claim me?”
“Claim you? What?”
His brow furrowed, and then his shoulders slumped. “I’m an unbonded drohi, Leela. Only bonded drohi are permitted on the royal domain. You would have to claim me as yours to take me with you. Not in a bond, but in service.”
Service? A flicker of heat licked at my chest. This was bullshit. “No.”
He exhaled and nodded. “I understand.”
“No, Keyton, you don’t. I’m taking you with me as you are. No servitude. No bond. And you know why? Because I fucking can. Now go pack and meet me at Dharti in a couple of hours.”
His eyes lit up, and he stood taller. “Thank you. I…I should accompany you to your destination now.”
I placed a hand on his arm. “No, Keyton. This is somewhere I have to go alone. Trust me. I’ll be safe.”
He looked torn but nodded and backed away. “Very well. I will see you in two hours.”
I turned to the path that would lead me to my destination.
To Lake Pari.
The underwater chamber greeted me with the soft ambience of hidden nature, the walls of the cavern glittering as if a billion diamonds were embedded in the stone.
The world said that Araz was gone, but here, in his secret place beneath the lake, he was eternal.
Was that his cranberry scent in the air?
Did the lingering heat on the rock by the pool belong to him? Was I breathing him in now?
Heat pricked at my eyes, and the chamber blurred.
How was it possible to have more tears? How had I not run dry yet?
I exhaled shakily and slowly lowered myself to one of the sitting rocks around the pool.
The waterfall gushed into it, sending ripples outward.
I dipped my feet into it. Warm. Like him. Like my Araz.
I closed my eyes, allowing the tears to slip down my cheeks that were still raw from grief. There was a hollow space inside me now, a pit carved into my soul. The absence of him.
Being here in this place felt like being in the heart of him.
It felt like being in his arms. Like being home.
I imagined him beside me, his arm brushing my shoulder, and for a moment it felt like he was here, standing right beside me, that if I opened my eyes and looked up, I’d see him there.
He’d smile, reach out, and run his knuckles down my cheek.
The scent of cranberries filled my nose, and a warm pulse lighted behind my sternum.
“Leela?” A female voice snapped me out of my reverie.
Chaya stood in the arch, dripping wet, her expression soft with concern.
I stifled a pang of annoyance. “How did you find me?”
“I guessed,” she said. “If I were you, this is where I’d come too.” She walked over to join me by the pool and sat, dipping her legs into the water. “He loved it here. I didn’t come often. Maybe two or three times because even though he’d shared it with me, it was his place.”
“It hurts, Chaya. It hurts so much sometimes I can’t breathe.”
“I won’t tell you that the pain will ease. I don’t know, but I do know that you’ll become used to it. That it won’t hurt as much…in time.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “The whole time heals thing?”
“I know, it sounds prescribed. Like something people say to make grief seem finite, but there is truth in it. The soul is resilient. It has the capacity for great healing if we allow it. If we open ourselves to it. But we cannot heal if we do not tend to our wounds. Tears must fall for healing to begin.”
Her words resonated inside me. I’d cried so many tears, and yet there were still more waiting in the wings to be shed. Grief wasn’t done with me yet, it seemed.
“The only thing keeping me going is my vow to free my nani and Pashim and to avenge Araz by locking the primordial evil inside flesh. That’s my goal now, and I’ll do whatever it takes to achieve it.”
She smiled at me. “I believe you will, and Dharma and I will be with you all the way. I swear to you that you will not have to walk this path alone.”
I blinked away fresh tears and lifted my chin. “Thank you. For coming to find me and for your kind words.”
She smiled slightly and nodded. “Come now, we should go. The sun is rising, and the others will have questions if you’re not at the house when they wake.”
I stood slowly and gave the cavern a final sweep before following Chaya to the arch.
“He’d be proud of you, you know,” she said.
“I know. He believed in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself.”
We’d had a deal. He’d help me ascend and I’d free him.
He’d planned to raise an army and wage war on the Asura, and I’d hoped to change his mind before ascension came, but our time together had been cut short.
Our chance to be together stolen. But there was still hope for the other drohi.
Freedom was still in the cards for them.
It was time to tell my friends the truth about the demigod and drohi bond.