Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
M y body is on fire.
The heat pours from him as he sits behind me on the horse. Above, rain splatters but does not strike us because of his transparent protection. I am alone with the sage, Lord Indra himself removed from witnessing this. Desperately, I hold on to my mission, telling myself that this is my one and only chance to break through his shield. But even as I think this, the images of Kaushika’s seduction form and die behind my eyes. I am reminded that I still know nothing about this man.
My muscles grow tense. I sit rigidly, trying to breathe. Behind me, Kaushika is still, too still. A chill clambers up my spine as I sense the hard shape of him. The way his legs press lightly against mine. The way his arms rest inches away from circling me. My hair is still undone, and he has not insisted I tie it back again. I imagine him towering over me now, his gaze lingering over my unbound tresses. I imagine him considering the words I said about Shiva and Shakti, about freedom and sex.
What is he thinking? Did I truly try to teach him about Shiva? Lecture him on the divinity of pleasure? I have given too much away. Shown him my true nature. He will know I am an apsara. He will act on it. This ride, this lesson, it is but a performance, one that undoubtedly trapped my sisters too.
Kaushika leans forward to take the reins in one hand. I inhale sharply as his breath tickles my skin. I glance down to his fingers curled around the rope. They are open in offering.
“Take the reins,” he says quietly.
My voice is raspy. “You want me to guide the horse to the hermitage?”
“I want you to take control. I will guide us back.”
His legs move against mine, his knees twitching. My body jerks involuntarily at his touch. Under us the horse begins a slow trot. I remember suddenly Kaushika was once a prince. He has no need of the reins. He has been on horseback since he could walk.
“If you are leading us back, then why am I holding this?” I ask.
I can hear his smile. “Because you need to learn trust in yourself, and this will give you the illusion of that trust until you truly find it.”
My heart thuds. The illusion of trust. He is playing with me. Surely, he knows.
“Maybe we should walk?” I suggest hoarsely.
“Why? Does the horse make you uncomfortable?”
You do , I think. My throat is dry. Suddenly, I cannot tell who is the seducer and who the mark.
“No,” I reply. “But I think you are trying to trick me.”
“I am trying to teach you. That is what you wanted. Here, I will even give you a token of my sincerity. Something I carved myself.” His body shifts, and I turn in my place to see him detach his own topknot and remove a comb. I am too arrested by his hair rippling to his shoulders, framing his chiseled face, to fully notice that he is holding the comb out to me.
When I take the ornament, my eyes widen. Shaped like a wooden crescent, it pulses gently with mortal magic. It is almost as powerful as some of the jewels from heaven. How could a mortal create something this potent? How many chants and hours did it take to consecrate this amulet? I pick it up gingerly, and a blaze of power rushes through me. Lights shine behind my eyes, a ringing in my ears, and for the first time I see beyond my breath into an energy pulsing through my body. Prana.
I gasp, and though the blaze subsides, the power still courses through me. Amaravati still connects to this prana, feeding it through the tether behind my navel. Yet I detect another path into the power too. An opening into the world inside me, instead of the one beyond.
I straighten, pulling back from Kaushika. My heart skitters in my throat. I totter on the precipice of something terrible, something beautiful.
“Do you remember what I said about prana?” Kaushika asks.
“A conversation with myself,” I whisper.
“Yes.” He leans forward and his cheek brushes against mine. His breath washes across my skin. “Close your eyes. Focus on yourself. The will to know who you are. The knowledge to accept it when you see it. The action to transcend what you see and unite it with the greater whole.”
“Where do you go when you leave the hermitage?” I blurt out. I would hear it from his lips. The admission that he hates Indra, one that will allow me to probe him further, and force me back to my senses right now.
His voice is impatience sheathed in a whisper. “I might tell you if you end up staying beyond the next few hours. Now, do not make me repeat myself.”
His fingers gently nudge my lower back. I hold myself utterly still. Slowly, I close my eyes, clutching his comb with both hands. I forget that I must find the shape of his seduction. I forget this could be my last chance. Instead, I am mesmerized by what I saw inside of me when I clutched the amulet.
“Breathe,” he instructs. “Follow your breath. Hold your prana with your mind.”
I know this exercise. I have practiced it with Anirudh and Kalyani. Unlike those times, when I only saw the one single tether leading from swarga into my prana, this time I see—
“Dewdrops,” I gasp. “Shimmering within me. Trickling into my very soul.”
“An unusual image,” Kaushika replies softly. “But yours to own. In my hermitage, yogis often view prana as sparks of tapasvin fire, but others have viewed it as air too. I have never encountered someone who views it as water, but prana is simply the universe’s magic, more subtle than any imagery we can give it. If this image serves you, follow it.”
A dozen thoughts crowd into my mind. The wonderment at the impossibility of what I’m doing. How I am able to view prana directly when my only connection to it should be through the City of Immortals. My mission, and his closeness.
The horse moves rhythmically forward, and the rain feels distant, Indra himself banned behind a shield. Amaravati’s magic surges in me, alongside the dewdrops of the prana, two sources that connect me to the universe’s power instead of one. My nature asserts itself, clinging to the familiar path of Amaravati. My fingers rise from the comb, curling into a mudra, Moon’s Reversal. Dangerous , Rambha whispers, and my eyes fly open. My hand drops.
Kaushika leans forward. “Hold on,” he says, and his fingers interlace with mine, curling both our hands back around the comb. “Stay focused.”
“This was a mistake,” I whisper. “I can’t do this.”
“You can,” Kaushika whispers back. “Give yourself the permission you need. Converse with yourself, Meneka. It is the only thing that matters. Feed who you truly are into your devotion.”
My eyes flutter shut again, hypnotized.
Give , I repeat, and my fingers tingle. The wild prana blooms in me again, radiant, while Kaushika’s warmth submerges me. Magic flares inside me. In desperation, I pray to Indra, asking him to intervene somehow. I try to focus on the raindrops I hear beyond the shield. I try to focus on my breath, a deep inhale. The scent of camphor and rosewood. The golden tether of Amaravati. The dewdrops of my own life force.
My focus shifts from Amaravati into my own heart.
My breath transforms.
Power races through my veins, so sharp, so shocking, that I cry out. It is more power than I have ever felt before, as though what I have been receiving from Amaravati has been only a trickle. I am flooded with the universe for a single, terrifying instant.
My back arcs into Kaushika. My head drops back onto his chest. His arms close around my shoulders, keeping me steady, but I am barely aware of him. All I sense is my own self, and my fingers rise to sketch a shape, the rune of delight. It shimmers and undulates like water, not just an imagined construct in the air but a rune, a true rune. I am creating that which should be impossible for me as an immortal, yet here it is, sparkling with truth, radiating its strength out to me and Kaushika within the air shield, infusing us.
Kaushika gasps, then laughs, a rich, deep sound. His arms squeeze my own in sudden affection and triumph. I twist in my seat to see the delight in his face. The serious lines on his forehead disappear, and he looks younger, no longer formidable. Dimples pop on his cheeks and I have a sudden hysterical desire to touch them. To taste them.
Reveal your lust , I whisper recklessly, pushing. His shield sparkles at me, but I nudge the edges of it, consumed by my own magic. Reveal your lust.
My command locks into something. An image pours into my mind. I am straddling him, pushing his muscled chest down. His eyes glitter in anger and satisfaction. Will you be influenced? I whisper, trailing kisses up his neck as his pulse grows erratic. Will you obey?
Will you ? he replies. But his eyes shut in ecstasy, his hips bucking as I grind atop him, and it is not in the pleasure I am giving him, not only, but in the pleasure I am giving myself.
I gasp, and the crescent comb falls from my hands into Kaushika’s. I release my hold on the dewdrops—on my own prana—and the world steadies, no longer sharpened and awake. The image of his seduction falters, then disappears as I release Amaravati’s magic as well.
Stunned, I stare at him. Thoughts circle me, too chaotic to make sense, birds swarming in my mind. Kaushika’s eyes meet mine, intrigued, unaware of the apsara magic I’ve just performed. My breath is erratic, unable to understand what I saw, how I saw it, what it meant.
Trees undulate, and dark shapes grow firmer. Kaushika’s gaze lifts from mine, and I am shocked to discover we have stopped. It is fully dark now, and we are back at the hermitage. Lights glimmer from nearby huts, the rain silencing any chants. How did we get here so fast? I closed my eyes only minutes ago. I cannot breathe. I am dizzy, reeling with everything.
Kaushika sweeps off the horse and helps me down. His skin is warm on mine, but too soon, he steps away. A tilted smile forms on his mouth.
“I will admit I didn’t really think you could do it,” he says. “I may have been wrong about you.”
There is a hidden meaning behind his words, but I am too unmoored to make sense of it. I latch on to the most important thing.
“Does this mean I can stay?” I whisper.
“For now. Until the Initiation Ceremony. You will still have to pass that. But your training should go easier. You are stronger than you realize. Your power will only grow now that you’ve unblocked your path to it.” Kaushika nods to me, then leaps back on the horse. He pulls the reins and turns away to return the way we came.
“You’re not staying?” I call out.
“No. I have business to attend to.”
“What kind of business?”
“Our roads may align,” he says, smiling slightly. “You might find out on your own.”
“You said you would tell me if I managed to stay,” I remind him.
“I said I might ,” he says. “I’m exercising my choice not to.”
I make a frustrated sound in my throat. Light from a nearby lamp falls on his face, shadows and darkness, a glint of amusement, laughter in his eyes. He waves his hand, and the air shield over me dissolves. I am drenched in seconds, and so is he, but he does not seem to mind the rain any more than I do. His kurta clings to him and I try not to stare at the shape of his body, still shaken by the image I saw in seeking his seduction.
“Better go inside, Meneka,” he says, grinning. “Unless you know the rune to block this downpour?”
I shake my head, and he laughs. Thunder crashes, and the horse turns, the splashing sounds of horse and rider receding.
I stand in the rain for a long time.