Chapter 19
NINETEEN
“What happened?” Vikas asked, carefully probing the skin around his neck.
“Do you have a mirror?” she asked. Again, someone jumped up from the table, retrieved one from a drawer, and handed it over.
Zarya held it up for Vikas, and he stared at himself, still touching his throat.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, and he slowly shook his head.
“It burned a little bit, but I’m fine.”
He examined his reflection for several long, quiet moments, twisting his head left and right. Zarya held her breath, waiting for his reaction.
Then tears filled his eyes and spilled down his cheeks.
“You did it,” he sobbed, falling to his knees and clutching the mirror to his chest. “It’s gone. It’s really gone. I didn’t really believe it could actually be done.”
The other men seated around the table rushed over, circling Vikas and wrapping their arms around each other in a huddle as they wept. Zarya backed up, giving them space.
She looked at Yasen, who was giving her a proud smile. He walked over and draped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close and planting a kiss on top of her head. “Well done, Swamp Girl. I knew you could do it.”
Zarya felt her own eyes fill with tears. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what Vikas and his friends must be feeling right now. After they all spent a few minutes celebrating, they pulled away from each other.
“How do you feel?” Zarya asked Vikas, crouching down in front of him. “Any different?”
Vikas shook his head. “I’m not sure.”
“Do you feel a presence?” she asked, flattening a hand to her chest. “It might be in your heart or your mind. Something that feels…alive?”
She tried to describe the sensation when she also sensed her magic for the first time. Was it a coincidence that Zarya had also once been blocked from accessing hers too?
Vikas rubbed the top of his head and then his chest.
“Something here,” he said.
“Hold out your hand,” Zarya said, recalling Rabin’s instructions in the forest. “The fire anchor is the most common. Think of directing that thing in your chest here.” She pointed to the center of his palm.
Vikas stared up at Zarya, worry crossing his expression. “What if I can’t do this?”
“You can,” she said. “This is what you’ve been waiting for. You can do this.”
He nodded and then pressed his mouth together in determination.
She watched as he focused on the spot in the middle of his hand.
His brows scrunched together as he concentrated, and then it happened.
A tiny flame ignited above his palm. He was so surprised he leaped back, knocking into the chair behind him before toppling over.
“Are you okay?” Zarya cried, but he wasn’t hurt. He was laughing. He was lying on his back, clutching his stomach, tears streaming down his face as he laughed and laughed, the sound filling every corner of the room.
“I did it,” he cried through his tears. “I did it!”
She smiled and laughed with him, feeling all the weighted sides and angles of what she’d just done. The lightness of this accomplishment and the heaviness of everything this could mean.
Had any vanshaj in history ever been freed from their collar? Had they just accomplished the unimaginable?
What repercussions might follow now?
Zarya touched the necklace around her neck, thinking of her mother’s words. This was what she’d come here to do, and she would die trying to fulfill this promise. She didn’t care what it took.
After another minute, Vikas sat up and stared at her, his mouth open as if waiting for further instruction.
“One more time,” she said, and he did it again, concentrating before a flame burst above his hand.
“Me next!” another of the men said.
“What’s your name?” Zarya asked.
“I’m Suni,” he said, and she pointed to the chair.
“Have a seat then.”
Over the next few days, Zarya freed them one by one. She discovered that the process required careful precision and was also draining on her magic. She could only manage about one per day. But she returned with Yasen multiple times until she sat in front of the final one. A soft-spoken man named Ashok.
She started again, taking her time to carefully peel away the collar as everyone watched. She was already feeling more comfortable with the process, though she didn’t dare go any faster.
She freed Ashok from the tattoo with that same blaze of fire before it melted away, leaving smooth brown skin. They cheered as he lifted his arms overhead and once again took to celebrating. Though she’d tried to hone her technique, the process wasn’t getting any faster, and it was nightfall by the time they finished each day.
It was a step on a winding and precarious path because thousands of vanshaj lived in Gi’ana, let alone the entire continent. At this rate, she’d never live long enough to free them all. Or they’d be caught long before that happened.
But this was a start.
Once she had broken all their collars, Zarya worked with them to discover who had magic and helped summon their anchors. Suni had no magic but didn’t seem to care at all. He reveled in his freedom, touching his neck constantly while watching his friends work with their new gifts.
Yasen left to buy food and returned a short while later, laden with samosas, papri chat, and mounds of jalebi that he set on the floor where they all sat cross-legged, passing dishes around the circle.
Zarya helped them tap into their other anchors as they ate. As far as they could tell, Charun only had a fire anchor, and Ashok had both a fire and water anchor. He practically vibrated with excitement as he drew up a drop of water from a glass, pulling it to the ceiling before releasing it in a tiny burst.
She loved watching how encouraging they were with each other, and every win, big or small, was celebrated with equal enthusiasm.
Vikas had more anchors. She helped him discover and recognize each one in turn.
Fire. Water. Earth. Air. Spirit.
Their gazes met, and she sensed he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure how.
“What is it?”
“I feel something else,” he said, rubbing his chest.
Her breath caught. Could it be? Had she been right all along?
“Itmight be the sixth anchor,” she said, and his eyes widened.
“But it is forbidden,” he whispered, and she nodded.
“So they say. But remember that I have it, too.”
He expelled a breath, his shoulders caving in. “You don’t seem like a monster.”
“Only before I’ve had my tea in the morning,” she joked, which earned her a rueful smile.
She decided now wasn’t the moment to bring up what had happened in the forest the other day. Nor the fact that she might have caused the blight in Dharati. She saw those fiery eyes and those horrible visions in her mind’s eye again and again. What if she was a monster?
She explained her theories about the Jadugara and what she’d learned about the ink and its magic. When she stopped speaking, she was met with stunned silence, edged with a bitter taste of betrayal.
Vikas nodded with his jaw hard. “They’ve been lying to us. Not that I should be surprised by that.”
“I’m quite sure they have,” Zarya said. “They’ve tried to villainize all of you for something they’re hiding and using to their advantage.”
“Why?” Suni asked.
She shook her head. “I’m not entirely sure other than the obvious desire for power and status.”
Their expressions all turned to anger and confusion, and she exchanged an uncertain glance with Yasen. Zarya might still not have much experience with the world, but she wasn’t too naive to understand the consequences of the thread they were slowly unraveling. She had no intention of keeping the Jadugara’s secrets, but rumors such as this would catch like wildfire, taking so many people down with them, and they had to be careful.
“If I have it, then could I help, too?” Vikas asked, already connecting the dots.
“That’s what I’m hoping,” she said as the seeds of an idea started to plant themselves in her head.
What if she didn’t have to do this alone? What if she was only the catalyst, and her purpose was to discover what was possible? What if the vanshaj could free themselves with the sixth anchor? She envisioned an entire network of freed Aazheri, all of them helping one another. Eventually, it would have to be enough to make a difference.
Zarya looked over at Yasen, again touching her necklace.
This was her destiny. This was her fate. And it was calling.
For the first time since she’d escaped the seaside cottage, she had a clear sense of the direction she was heading.
Looking around the room at these men who’d spent their entire lives punished for something they had never done, she felt her resolve harden into shards of unbreakable iron. Sharp and jagged and deadly.
She would free them all if it was the last thing she did.
She would free them all even if it cost her everything.