Chapter 19
CHAPTER 19
I do not intend to chase after Kaushika, but my feet track the aura of his magic on their own, following the strong afterimage that burns on the leaves and stones. I weave through birdsong and breeze, wondering at how this forest seems so peaceful even though it has witnessed such fury. My wild prana surges in me, a river of radiance, and I meet it in my mind, trying to capture some of its peace.
It takes me nearly a half hour, but when I finally stumble upon Kaushika, it is within the trees by a small pond. Rocks encircle the pond, a smattering of gleaming sunlight, the tinkling of a nearby brook. I expect to see him by the grass nearby, meditating to calm himself, yet Kaushika contemplates not the beauty in front of him but a strange stone obelisk rising from the forest floor, almost as tall as he is. He glances toward me, hearing my approach, but his eyes are devoid of any expression.
“My greatest shame,” he murmurs, nodding at the obelisk. “A reminder of what a loss of my temper can mean.”
There is something eerily familiar about this stone column here in the woods like a shrine to a forest deity lost to time. A deep magic strums in it, pulling at my tether, reminding me that immortality can come in many forms, just like magic itself. I do not ask Kaushika to explain what he means, and he doesn’t volunteer either. But he turns to me and his face is hard.
He is bare-chested, and I know he has washed himself at the pond, trying to contain his anger. Perhaps he has even prayed for peace of mind. Beads of water linger on him, and his hair is undone from its topknot, still damp. Waves of heat radiate off him, showing how futile this attempt at calm has been.
“I am still angry,” he says, confirming this. “You should not be here.”
My heart pounds like a battle drum. I want to tell him that his anger does not scare me, but it would be a lie. Still, it is my fear that gives me momentum. I reach out to him and touch his arm. I expect to be scalded, so hot is his aura, but his skin is cooled by the water, and my fingertips trail up his forearm to his bicep, until I feel the pulse on his neck thrumming below my thumb. Slowly I begin to stroke the tense muscles of his neck. Kaushika does not stop me, but neither does he react.
“If you are angry with me for what I said …” I begin hesitantly.
“Yes, I am angry with you, though it is not rational,” he says, frowning. “I brought you to the Mahasabha knowing I have not convinced you about Indra and his involvement in the halahala. That was my decision, and I stand by it. Nothing you said changed anything anyway. These events were predestined, set on course with my own actions. Vashishta had made his mind up before the gathering, and I worsened it all with my loss of temper. Even Agastya, who has been willing to listen to me so far, will not countenance my audacity now. Yet I cannot waver from my path, even for them.”
“Your path, or your vow ?” I ask slowly.
“My vow,” he affirms, lips thinning. “One that Indra obstructs. I have not told you about it.”
I shake my head, and he exhales roughly, as though speaking of it is painful. He takes my hand away from his neck and puts some distance between us. His mouth draws into a frown, and he turns to stare at the water. In any other man, I would expect the tension to reveal itself in nervous movements, perhaps pacing the small clearing, perhaps fists slowly clenching.
Yet Kaushika holds himself utterly still, and it is this stillness that mirrors his strain. He is silent for so long that I wonder if he has forgotten my presence, if he intends to tell me any more. I stir, grass crunching under me, and he looks up at the sound. His mouth pinches—but I know him enough now to see it is not for me; it is for what he is about to say.
“You remember what I told you before,” he begins, and his words are stiff. “There was only one king who responded to my pleas for help when Lord Indra abandoned my kingdom.”
“I remember,” I say quietly.
Kaushika nods and looks away again. “His name was Satyavrat. It means one who has taken a vow of truth.”
Again he pauses, and I watch the shadows on his face. I imagine him, a child-prince, suddenly faced with defending his people. I think of him and the choices that brought him to this moment now, the choices that brought me here to be the one to learn of his story.
Kaushika’s eyes glint, reflecting the water. “King Satyavrat knew that in helping me and my people, he invited Indra’s wrath. But the king was powerful in his own right. Though he was no sage, he was fueled by his dedication to dharma and the righteous path. He was a man who lived the values of his name, beloved within his kingdom, though he was no less a politician than any other royal. His magic was great, and he knew that should Indra move against him, the other devas would protest. He knew the risks of angering Indra, but he took them—for me and my people, and for the future of his own kingdom. It is why I have never felt resentment for his desire to fold my nation into his own. What use do I have for such petty emotions? He was honorable, and it was only my good fortune that brought him to me.”
Each word is taut like a nocked arrow. I raise my hand, trying to ease his anger with my touch again, but magic sparks between his fingertips, molten fire that races over his body. My hand drops. I dare not touch him, not right now.
“For years, there was no retaliation from heaven,” Kaushika continues, and a soft scoffing sound huffs out from him. “We all thought that Indra, caught in his drinking and his dancing, simply forgot to enact revenge or chose to ignore us, as gods are wont to do. I left to follow my path to Shiva. I thought Satyavrat would be safe, his dynasty shielded. None of us accounted for the patience of the devas.”
Kaushika pauses to withdraw a small parchment from his pocket. He does not show it to me, but I recognize it nevertheless. The very same letter folded over and over again, one that I saw when I broke into his hut what seems like so long ago.
“Satyavrat’s sons wrote to me when the king passed.” Kaushika’s voice is deathly quiet. He tucks the letter back into his pocket, unread. “The missive came to me when I was training in Agastya’s hermitage. The king’s sons performed the last rites as per their tradition, asking Indra to permit their father’s soul to rise to heaven. Yet despite Satyavrat’s karma of goodness in this life, despite his piety, Indra denied him his right to a peaceful afterlife. The princes prayed to the other deities; they even prayed to Indra’s queen, Shachi, to intervene. Yet Satyavrat’s soul still wanders the mortal realm, punished to find no peace, unable to reside in swarga or become part of the cycle of rebirth.” Kaushika’s eyes flash as he finally looks toward me. “The sages would think that my meadow is a crime against nature, but what about Indra’s own conduct? Is that not a crime? How can I rest until Satyavrat does? I vowed that I would see him ascend to heaven, come what may. It is the one thing that defines my tapasya now, the one thing all my magic is aimed towards. Indra needs to be tamed, and I will be the harbinger of his ruin.”
The words are so dispassionate, yet so angry, that I recoil. Indra is not perfect, but never before from any mortal or immortal have I heard such venom against my king. Not even from Anirudh and the rest.
“This is unwise,” I whisper. “Indra is the lord of heaven. He is the protector of amrit, the very essence of immortal life. He has a sacred duty to protect Amaravati, and it is his duty to do what he believes to be right.”
“And it is my duty as a sage to do what I think is right,” Kaushika answers. His stillness finally leaves him, and he begins to pace. “What do you think I should do, Meneka? Simply behave like the other sages intent on their impassivity? You are the one who told me about participation. About the path of the Goddess. How can you believe that this is not my fight?”
“The other sages are older than you. They have been rishis longer. If all of them counsel that this challenge is wrong, then how can you dismiss them so easily?”
“I am not dismissing them. They have dismissed me. I know you are devoted to Indra, but I am asking you to see what you can with your own eyes. I am asking you to think for yourself.”
“I am thinking for myself, and I know that this path is going to only end in your destruction. Indra has one of the most powerful weapons in the universe. His vajra is stronger than a diamond, sharper than a thunderbolt. Many have come and gone, trying to challenge him on his throne—and what you do here—”
“It is not his throne I am interested in,” Kaushika interrupts, and anger fills him again as he paces. “I have no patience to explain all this to you, if you do not already see why this is necessary. I do not deny your importance to me, Meneka; every one of us needs a counselor who would oppose us. It is why I brought you to the Mahasabha today, but perhaps the timing of it was unwise. Advise me a different time. Today, I am fraught, and I have no disposition to listen. I have already demonstrated I have no reserve.”
I step closer. “I like you with no reserve.”
His eyes gleam. He glances at me over his shoulder, pausing in his stride, and his look is full of heat and promises and fury. “A foolish thing to say, if you only knew what was on my mind. Do not push. Now is not the time.”
“Why?” I challenge. “Are you scared?”
“No. But perhaps you should be. Do you understand what you are asking?”
“Do you understand what I am offering? What will you truly look like when you’re free? I would like to see that, but your imagined feud with Indra blinds you. Maybe you are the one hiding from yourself. How ironic that a lesson you tried to teach me, you yourself have failed. How tragic, a yogi afraid of the idea of liberation.”
Laughter erupts from him, grim and raw. “Provocation, Meneka? You’ll have to do better than that. If I reacted that easily, do you think I would be called a sage?”
A torrent of curious challenge goes through me that he should call me out on my plot this way. That he should see the obvious manner in which I am trying to distract him. No easy mark , Rambha’s voice whispers in my head, but instead of fear, I feel excitement that he is not a mark, not anymore, that he is here, fully, as am I. A current rushes through me, hot and tempting, and though I turned the conversation this way to diffuse some of his rage, I suddenly want to see him unleashed with me.
“Sage,” I say quietly. “Nonreacting, wise, fully in control. That is what it means, does it not?”
“You know what it means,” he replies. “Do you think I find your feigned ignorance amusing?”
He turns around fully to face me, his back resting against a tree trunk. His arms cross over his bare chest, and he raises an eyebrow. I utter a small laugh, never taking my gaze off him.
“Feigned?” I say. “We are all ignorant, rishi, even the wisest of us in some ways. Who can claim utter knowledge of everything? Even Shiva closes his eyes to the world in order to see beyond the veil of prakriti’s illusion. Even he deliberately wraps himself in one kind of ignorance.”
Kaushika blinks, then his eyes narrow. He doesn’t say anything but does not move, either, as I slowly walk up to him, each step emphasizing my curves. A thrill of terror laces through me, to speak so blatantly to him, skirting the line of discovery and danger now when he is angry, now when I have betrayed him in front of the other sages with my defense of Lord Indra. Still, I come closer, and his gaze flickers to my hips just for an instant. That is the only indication of his lust, but it is enough.
A lazy smile forms on my face. I stop when I am a handsbreadth away from him, but I do not touch him. Instead, I lean forward and slowly place one arm by the side of his head, inches from his neck. My other hand curls gently, not quite a mudra but not far off either. Magic rushes through my body, and in this moment I cannot tell if it is Amaravati’s golden power or the wild prana of tapasya. I am so close to creating an illusion that my fingers quiver.
A muscle ticks in his jaw, but already I can tell the heat of his anger is cooling into amusement and curiosity. “Are you calling me ignorant?” he asks softly.
“Would you like to choose a different word?” I reply.
My words are barely a whisper and his head dips down, his mouth inches from my own, to capture my breath. The movement brings his skin in contact with my hand, and I startle, not expecting it, but Kaushika’s lips curve into a smile. His eyes glint, and suddenly I cannot tell which one of us is in control. My breathing grows faster, my chest rising and falling.
“Oh, there are many words,” he says quietly. “I’m not sure you should say them, though.”
His hand comes up to my own, though he does not touch me. He simply moves his palm back in a smooth, lazy gesture, and the sleeves of my kurta fall back, goose pimples rising on my skin. It is a small thing he does, to control this without making any contact, but my eyes widen.
I lift my chin. We are still not touching, but the air between us crackles , the heat of him sizzling with the water of my own power. I feel parched, and my tongue flashes out to wet my lips. Kaushika watches me, and his own tongue mirrors the movement.
My thighs clench and I swallow. I am finding it hard to keep track of the conversation, but I cannot let him win this easily. The both of us know what we’re doing, this quiet challenge to see which one of us is going to give in first, which one of us is going to reveal our secrets fully, or relent when it comes to battle. It is dangerous, this game, but I move closer. The fabric of my kurta brushes against his bare, muscled chest. Kaushika inhales deeply, his eyes never leaving me. His pulse quickens as his breathing becomes a beat uneven.
“If you disapprove of what I say,” I ask softly, “why do you keep me close to you?”
His other hand rises toward the crown of my head, and of its own accord my topknot unravels, hair cascading down my shoulders. I blink, not understanding, but then as he drops his hand I see the crescent comb— his crescent comb—spinning between his fingers. A sudden gust of wind, either natural or created by him, surges around us. Strands of my hair sweep against his cheeks.
His eyes gleam in hot desire, and slowly he brushes my hair back from his face. His fingers twirl around the locks, his touch so gentle that it might as well still be the wind.
“Because I need you,” he says quietly. “Except for me, you are the most powerful within the hermitage. Despite how much prana you use, it continues to shine inside you, barely requiring replenishment.”
I tilt my head and study him between my lashes. “Then you intend to use me.”
“I intend to use you,” he agrees. “If I can convince you.” He moves slightly, once, and I feel that male part of him stroking my belly, the feeling so very subtle that I cannot tell if it is his movement or the magic still crackling between us.
“Tell me,” he whispers. “Are you convinced?”
My mind reels. My legs tremble, and dampness grows between my thighs. The heat from him leaches into me, or perhaps it is my own heat. I do not know; I can’t make sense. The pure thrill of our positions reversed rushes through me. That he should ask me this when I am the one trapping him with my body. That he understands me in a manner hardly anyone does and perhaps always has. We are here holding this moment close yet not holding each other. What would giving in to him mean? Would it be so awful, when we have already been intimate? I want him so desperately that all my own rules feel meaningless. I made decisions to never get involved with a mark, but I made them for others, not him. He— he— is not any other ; he is … closer.
His mouth forms in a smile, and I know that I am going to break. That I am too enraptured to play like this anymore. The realization torments me, shattering my own bonds with myself, and a rough, outraged sound bursts through me, because of how little I care, and how I know I will have to come to terms with this later—but not now. Not now.
My movement is harsh. With one hand, I capture his chin between my sharpened nails. With the other, I pull him forcefully toward me. My tongue flashes out to lick the hollow of his dimples, and a strangled sound grows in his throat as I begin to strew kisses over his jaw, down his neck, licking the dampness still lingering on his chest, nipping at his skin none too gently. His hand reaches to cup my bottom, but I thrust him back into the tree trunk, and he grunts, anger and shock flashing in his eyes, combined with deep hunger. The look on his face is pure torture, and sweat coats me, surging with his heat.
“I told you I enjoy commanding,” I say, my voice clipped.
“Is that what it will take?” he breathes. “To get you to see my point of view?”
“I make no promises.”
“I expect none,” he says, amusement in his eyes. He leans closer, and his hand drifts to my wrist to stroke it. “Go ahead, Meneka. Command me.”
My control slips and I surge up on my toes. Our mouths collide, and another growl escapes him, like relief and frustration. He grips me, fingers tight in my hair, almost painful against my scalp. My hands are everywhere, over his chest, grazing his hard stomach, tugging at his hair. This is unlike the first kiss. This is raw and immediate, and his anger pulses beneath his magic, both of them curling through me, enflaming me.
Power replaces the blood in my veins—and my own magic sings like a hymn. I am certain he can hear it too, the waterfall rush overtaking every other sound, the chanting of both our powers braiding.
He lifts me easily, and I wrap my legs around his waist, never breaking the kiss. My back arches and the tips of my breasts press against his chest. Kaushika groans, his tongue skating into mine. I bite his lower lip, and he clutches me harder, moving his body. My nails score the bare skin of his back—so jaggedly that I am certain I have drawn blood. He gasps, then pumps his hips harder, rocking the both of us almost painfully into the tree trunk, and I know that there will be no going back from here, this is it, we will both cross a line, but the hunger in me is too much to ignore, and I do not know which one of us has been seducing the other all this time—
“I beg your pardon,” a small voice says.
I freeze, then jerk away immediately, but Kaushika does not release me.
His eyes are heavy, his pupils dilated. His chest rises up and down, and for a long moment he only stares at me, fingers still tight enough to leave marks on my skin. I feel the rumbling in his chest, like he is about to rage at being interrupted, and my eyes widen as I realize I have not truly understood his potential. That this is but a small taste.
I stare at him.
Slowly, taking all the time in the world, he sets me down. He waits until I am steady on my feet, until I have adjusted my clothes and have retrieved the crescent comb to retie my topknot.
Only then does his gaze move to Romasha, who stands amidst the trees, her eyes averted, a blush on her cheeks.
“The sages are leaving,” she whispers to no one in particular. “Perhaps you should offer apologies and try to repair some damage of the Mahasabha, guruji.”
Kaushika grunts. Glancing at me, he strides over to where his kurta lies. He pulls it on himself and reties his hair in a deft topknot. In an instant, he has returned to being a rishi, but underneath his controlled movements roars the hunger for the release we both seek.
“We will stay the night,” he says to Romasha. “I must discuss our plans with you and Anirudh before we head back. Tell the others they can return to the hermitage now if they wish it.”
He squeezes my hand, and his mouth opens, on the verge of saying something—but he shakes his head. With a rueful, apologetic glance at me, he leaves the way Romasha came.
She does not follow, not immediately. Her face is withdrawn. I know pining when I see it, but with what I’m doing kissing him, feeling his hands on my body, the impressions of him still stamped on my skin … Who am I doing this for? I wonder again about her feelings for Kaushika and their relationship. Guilt swallows all my excuses. I have no words for her.
Romasha gives me a weak smile as if to say, He chose you. What is there to say? Then with a small nod, she disappears behind Kaushika.
I pull myself to my full height. Enough. It is time for a decision.
I DO NOT BOTHER RETURNING TO THE CLIFFTOP .
This time when I call for an emissary, Rambha materializes a few feet away from me by the obelisk statue. She has been waiting for my summons. Perhaps she was in the mortal realm already. Her beauty still staggers me, and I cannot help but note the sensuous green sari tightened around her waist, the spicy star-anise of her skin, the large doe eyes that watch me even as she moves closer. Still, it is sobering to realize that she does not affect me the way she once did. Only a few weeks earlier, we were on the path to becoming something more. What I have with Kaushika, and what I’ve learned about myself, seems to have obliterated any possibility of that.
A part of me feels sorrow at this, and my forehead creases as she glimmers with the blessings of heaven. Yet it is a sorrow not of a thing lost but of understanding finally how unrealistic my dream with her had always been. Suddenly I can see why I never made a clear suggestion to her despite all the opportunities. Did my mind always know what my heart refused to believe—that Rambha and I were ill-fated? I watch her as she approaches, noticing a beaded parcel slung around her waist like a belt, but I do not embrace her.
She does not attempt to touch me either. Light coats her like armor, and her eyes are unreadable, almost cold, like she senses the change in me. “Well, Meneka?” she asks quietly.
I raise my chin. “I know why Kaushika hates Indra. I know the manner of his challenge.”
As clearly as I can, I tell Rambha everything this time about Kaushika’s history as a prince, his vow to send King Satyavrat to heaven, the incident with the halahala, even the events at the Mahasabha. I try to be as dispassionate as a sage, reporting only the facts, but I wonder how much of my true feelings regarding Kaushika I am hiding from her. I cannot come to tell her about my intimacy with him—not her who, despite her decree that I should do exactly that, would never understand why I did it. My voice is hoarse by the time I finish, but Rambha simply stares into the water, not saying a word. I stiffen my resolve and speak without flinching.
“If Indra wants to end this,” I say, “then all he has to do is allow this mortal king’s soul into heaven. I am certain Kaushika will stop if the lord only relents, and we can put this behind us. It will all be over, and we can achieve this without any escalation. Lord Indra would not be in any danger, nor would Amaravati, and nor would Kaushika. The sages of the Mahasabha will be pleased—and for all we know, grow more favorable towards Indra in their own hearts.”
At that, Rambha jerks toward me. The rest of my words wither in my throat. I don’t move a muscle as she begins to circle me, as though seeing me for the first time. I try hard not to move or show my discomfort, even though the aura around her grows spiky, menacing. It is ironic that in this moment of uncertainty I am relying on my training from the hermitage.
She finally stops in front of me, her face inscrutable. “You kissed him. I feel his touch on you.”
I nod once. Tightly.
“And what changed your mind, after all these years of abstaining with a mark? Surely not my instruction, if you make such utterances.”
I still don’t reply, but a muscle in my jaw ticks and it is enough for her. She knows my expressions too well.
Her mouth thins into a smile, and her brow arches cruelly. “Ah,” she says, breathing out a humorless laugh. “So you would not break your foolish rule for the lord, but you would do it for your own desires. Is this also why you think the lord should debase himself to this Kaushika, negotiating with this odious mortal, letting him decide who should enter the lord’s own home? How easily you have forgotten who you owe your devotion to.”
I straighten myself, sudden anger cascading in me. “I have forgotten nothing. My devotion has kept me believing in Indra’s innocence regarding the halahala. It is my devotion that demands I find a solution, that I speak the truth.”
“The truth?” Rambha’s laughter rings out, sharp and pitiless. “You know nothing of the truth, foolish girl. You were sent here to do your duty, not to question the very deva that gives you your magic. Look at what can occur—what is already occurring—in Amaravati because of your precious Kaushika.”
Her wrists curl into unknown mudras, and suddenly I am back in the City of Immortals. Planets churn and stars glow over and under me. A wave of homecoming washes through me, and I blink, my love for the city taking over any other thought, but before I can truly inhale, the air turns to ash. The great mansions of the city wither, and the golden sparking dust turns gray, fizzling into smoke before righting itself again. In the change of the dust’s nature, I see its effort. Amaravati is dying, and with it so is Indra. I stare in horror around me, spinning in small circles. I am in his throne room again, and instead of a lord hale and handsome, there is only a terrified deity, contemplating his own demise. Queen Shachi raves, growing incandescent and bitter, and Indra becomes more desperate, the wine flowing freely as he and the other devas attend one conference after another to discuss the growing irreverence in the mortal realm.
Above, the stars whirl in a passage of days, of months threatening to become merciless years, their alignment falling into that of the Vajrayudh, when Indra will become weaker. For millennia, Indra has survived, an essence of water evolving into a god. Will this next Vajrayudh destroy him completely? I hear this thought, and it is my own, but it is Rambha’s, too, and I blink, Amaravati whirling around me, chaos in my heart.
I know that this is an illusion. That Rambha is carving all this just so I can feel what I’m feeling. Yet I know, too, that there is no artifice to this. The images are pulled from Rambha’s memories and her fears of what will come to pass. Not all of them are true—not yet—but angry though she is, she is not lying; she is merely afraid of what will occur should Kaushika not be annihilated.
I sway on my feet, unable to breathe, willing my knees not to buckle. The images of Amaravati rush one into another, damning me, punishing me, weakening me. The orchards, the dance halls, the festival grounds, all of them decay and burn. I cannot think straight; Amaravati merges with the hermitage in my mind, and my will crumbles in the face of Rambha’s magic. Nausea rises in me at witnessing the destruction of my city so clearly when I have been so bereft of it, when my desire to save it and return to it one day has not diminished, no matter what I share with Kaushika.
I can look no more, and my hands come up to cover my eyes. “This cannot be,” I whisper. “I—I—Kaushika cannot do this. I will make him see reason.”
I feel Rambha dispelling the illusion with a subsiding of her power. “Reason?” she scoffs. “You have other tools at your disposal, and you would waste time with reason when I have just shown you what will occur?”
I shake my head, denying her words. “It has to be reason,” I stammer. “With Kaushika—he is a sage—reason is the jnani’s path, an intellect ’s path, and that is what he responds to—” My voice chokes. I look up at her through tear-filled eyes. “What about the halahala?” I ask desperately. “Surely you must want to know who has done it?”
“It is enough for me that Indra has not,” she replies. “ That is the mission. That is devotion. To quote a sage’s path at me—” Rambha’s mouth twists with disgust. “You truly have forgotten who you are. Your sisters are dead because of this man. Have you forgotten that too?”
“We—we do not know this for sure,” I stammer. “The Kaushika I have come to know … I cannot believe he did that to Nanda and Magadhi and Sundari. Just like I cannot believe that Indra was behind the halahala. Rambha, they must follow the same reasoning.”
“Then you truly have strayed far beyond redemption,” she spits out. “If you think the two are the same, then you are lost to all sense, dancing around the truth.”
My mouth trembles in hurt and anger. “And what is the truth?”
“That you care for this Kaushika,” she says. “That you have fallen in love with him.”
The blunt declaration is so bizarre that I am shocked into speechlessness. My tears dry. A denial bursts to my lips. I am not in love. I simply understand the mortals better now. I want to hurl this at her with coldness and certainty.
Instead, I freeze.
Because I cannot lie to Rambha.
And I cannot lie to myself.
She’s right. It’s ridiculous that her icy words have finally made me see it when there was so much other evidence, but this finally is the truth I have been looking for.
I’ve come to care for Kaushika.
I’ve fallen in love with him.
My eyes grow wide, and a dozen questions flood in me. Is it truly love when I am sent here on a mission from Indra, with little choice about what I am to do? Is it love when Kaushika has responded to my despair, when he doesn’t even know who I truly am? When I do not know all of him ? Freedom pounds in me with her declaration, a secret finally out in the open. A prison clutches that freedom, at what this love means and what it is showing me about myself.
Rambha watches the churn of emotions on my face—the horror, confusion, and sorrow. Her own expression grows pitying. “I knew you weren’t prepared for this,” she mutters. “This is why I volunteered to do this mission instead of having you sent. You are too young. Too inexperienced. Too na?ve. Meneka, sages have intrinsic power. This is why they are such daunting enemies to seduce. It is not just their magic that rivals ours, it is their ability to veer us from our own path that truly makes them treacherous. I thought I warned you. I thought you were stronger. That I gave you enough reason to want to return.”
Her last words are nearly a whisper. I glance up at her, and just for a second, I catch a flash of deep hurt on her face. It sends a pang through me. I have seen that expression on her before. I caused it when I accepted the mission.
Her lips tremble, and in my mind’s eye I remember the shade of a promise she gave me. I feel the brush of her lips against mine. All the emotions it stirred in me had kept me hopeful for days, but was she simply being Indra’s most devoted apsara even then? During our last meeting, when she told me to lay with Kaushika … Did she seduce me ?
“Was it real?” I ask quietly.
“Does it matter?” she shoots back. “For heaven’s sake, Meneka, I told you to sleep with him, not love him. I thought you were wise enough to see the difference. I thought you were an apsara .”
Her words score my skin like blades. My heart clenches in tight pain. I move slowly like I am taking ill. With effort, I curl my hand into a mudra: Heart’s Desire, an attempt to know what shape it will take, to see if it will tell me my own mind. A faltering illusion forms at my fingertips, a broken butterfly that dissipates. I catch a sob in my throat, seeing my own longing for freedom in the creature, seeing how I am not ready for it, not worthy of it.
Rambha’s mouth thins, watching the cracked illusion. “Your celestial magic is already suffering. You do not see that Kaushika is simply another seduction of the mortal realm. You have fallen for a man who would destroy you if he learnt of your true nature. You have said yourself how Kaushika is attempting to rile other sages against Indra, attempting to usurp Indra’s rule in the lord’s own city. You have his admission from his own lips. I thought you would be clearheaded, rejoicing that he is smitten by you and that you have nearly finished your mission, yet you stand there talking of reason when a single dance, a final few illusions, could cinch everything. You could get your freedom from future missions. You could come home, honored as a devi. You could become Indra’s most celebrated apsara. Why do these things not matter more than this childish love?”
I lift my eyes to study hers. “Then your advice to me is to deceive Kaushika?”
Rambha meets my gaze levelly. “My advice is to think of what will happen should you disobey Indra.”
Tears blur my sight. If I refuse to dance for Kaushika, Indra will exile me from Amaravati. He will force me from my home, my power no longer fueled by the city except in inconsequential drips that would barely make a full illusion. Without my magic, I would become a wraith, neither of the mortal realm nor of the immortal, a wisp on the wind, an unheard whisper, forgotten until I can prove my devotion to the lord again. For such an egregious blunder … what form would my redemption need to take?
And what if I do dance for Kaushika? My mission with Tara drove me to desperation. Knowing I have destroyed Kaushika, this man I now understand I love, will ruin me.
Rambha glitters at the edge of my vision, and I look up at her wretchedly.
“If you want peace,” she says quietly, “you will seduce Kaushika using your magic the way you were meant to. I will have to report to the lord everything you have told me, and he might consider Kaushika’s very actions at the Mahasabha an act of war. He will be compelled to attack him. Who do you think will win in such a battle?”
I do not have to think. I know the answer. Indra would win any battle if it occurred now. Kaushika is powerful, but he has no support from the other sages. He has only his hermitage, and after the halahala, everyone is sorely depleted, including Kaushika himself. He could renew his magic again, it’s true, but that would take months of tapasya, if not years. What havoc would the lord of heaven wreak in that time? Already, Indra has tried to flood the hermitage, if Kaushika’s account is true. The sage would not be able to keep himself safe, let alone any of the others. Sobs lock in my throat, and Rambha nods as though I have said all this aloud.
“If you want Kaushika to live,” she says, her voice soft, “then you will use the full force of your power. You will carve such a deep illusion for him that it will last through his lifetime, that he never again thinks to trouble Indra. You will avert a battle from happening, and you will save both your lord and the man you love. And then you will come home to your freedom.”
I stare at my hands, but they shake through the prism of my own tears. My mission, my emotion, my very identity trap me. I love this man, but what does that make me when he is so wrong? I cannot help but be devoted to Indra in my own way, a compulsion even I fail to fully understand. What does that make me, when my lord is cruel and unjust?
The truth is that regardless of Indra’s injunction, I want to dance for Kaushika. I’ve wanted to since the first time I saw him. I want to control his desire, but more than that, I want to test it—to see if he is as strong as I am made to believe. What does that make me ?
My hands tremble, the mudras I want to create unborn so far. The last time I was in Amaravati, I bent under the kalpavriksh in Indra’s garden, seeking to stay true to myself. This is who I am, then. A fool, caught in this trap of my own making.
Rambha moves, and I blink rapidly. Tears fall down my cheeks and I watch her as she removes the beaded parcel belt from around her waist. She holds it out to me wordlessly, and I take it out of habit. I open the silk packages contained within only to see that she has brought me the same things she gave me when I first embarked on this mission: clothes I buried near the hermitage, which I told her about the last time, the jewels I disguised by the forest floor, and among them, a crown unlike any I have seen before sparkling on a small cushion.
I do not have the will to question her. She brought these to me before hearing my latest report. Whether she did this in order to please me, bearing me gifts, or to remind me of my duty matters little. She gives them to me now for only one reason—to use them.
My fingers brush over the crown, the only jewelry within these packages that did not accompany me from Amaravati. It is a simple crown wrought with the most delicate gold. It is too big for me, but even as I watch, it begins to shrink until it becomes exactly my size, a headpiece that would sit like a deva’s halo, like sunlight made molten. The gold membranes of the crown feel liquid to the touch. They glint in a thousand colors, catching the moonlight and Rambha’s jewelry, turning gold into turquoise, emerald to sapphire.
More power than I have ever felt before radiates from the ornament, filling me. The tug behind my navel grows into a sharp pull, telling me this is no ordinary circlet. This belongs to Indra.
I look up at Rambha, bitterness entering my mouth.
It is the same crown she once said she wanted to see on me.
“I won’t tell you what to do,” she says quietly. “But for your own sake, think of what you can live with for the rest of your immortal life, and what will haunt you forever. I will be back at dawn tomorrow to see how you have fared. Make the right choice, Meneka. Once I tell the lord everything you have told me, he will wish to act. He has been waiting to use his vajra to behead this mortal. This could be your last chance. Kaushika ’s last chance.”
I open my mouth to speak, but she has already faded away on Amaravati’s wind, and I am alone again in the forest.
For a long moment, I stare at the package in my hands, the circlet winking innocuously, bidding me to obey her and my lord. I close my eyes, trying to block its power, but the tug behind my navel is too strong, a tether and leash tying me to Indra.
Make my choice? There is no choice.
A shudder passes through me.
As though in a dream, I approach the pond and begin to undress, carefully folding my garments from the hermitage and stowing them behind the stone obelisk. I walk into the water, the coldness bringing goose bumps to my skin. A small part of me hopes that the chill will wake me up from the horror of what I am about to do, that it will clear my mind. But everything seems to occur in a frozen shard of nightmare. I bathe in the manner of the apsaras, praying to Lord Indra, cupping the water in my hands and pouring it over my head as I murmur, but the prayer is by rote; the words do not incite any devotion—not right now when I act out of coercion. Instead, my heart beats rapidly in terror and shame. The instant I create my first illusion, Kaushika will see me for who I am. He will despise me, he will destroy me, and I will be unable to do anything about it, lost in my chaos. And if I do not go through with this … if I do not attempt to seduce Kaushika now …
A choked sob builds in my throat as I imagine the vajra slicing his head from his body. Isn’t life—even life as a thrall—better than no life at all? If I truly love him, isn’t this the only way to save him? My face grows warm with tears, and I feel paralyzed, unable to think of an alternative.
Slowly, I emerge from the pond, my skin glistening. From the package Rambha brought, I remove the oils and the perfumes. I massage them into my hair and skin, each action slow, knowing that no matter what occurs, I will never do this again. A small mirror accompanies the cosmetics, but I cannot bear to look at myself, so without its assistance I line my eyes with kohl and paint my lips red with creamy hibiscus dye. I do not need the mirror; I can do these things in my sleep. The sob finally escapes me, for I know that what should be a move of empowerment is really just evidence of my shame.
When I remove the clothes from the package, my hands tremble hard enough to almost lose my grip on the silk. I don my blouse, and it hugs my breasts tightly, constricting me. I wrap the glinting silver sari around my waist, and though it is trapped moonlight, its texture delicate, I cannot breathe. Indra’s presence chokes me, tightening with every ornament I place on myself. The pearl necklaces. The crystal armbands. The light-as-air jhumkas. At one time these reminders of Indra’s own power would have given me joy and peace. Now everything is a leash, pulling me toward inevitability. Amaravati’s power burgeons in me and my heart shrinks.
Celestial magic sparkles on my fingertips. It electrifies my skin.
I am a prisoner of my own making. I am a stream of starlight. I am ethereal, otherworldly, dreamlike.
The woods churn around me, responding to all the magic in the jewels. Leaves stir, the trees themselves creating their own music. Indra’s circlet glimmers on my head, sinking into my hair. Kaushika’s wooden comb presses against the circlet, and though my celestial magic is too powerful to compare with my prana magic, the wild prana waits too.
I use it now, uttering first a whispered call to Kaushika, then the chant for strength and movement. I draw the runes, and fallen logs lift silently from around the pond. They create a bridge that leads me to the center, where water solidifies into shining ice.
I do not feel the cold under my bare feet. I kneel at the center like an offering, breathing the forest in, bathed in moonbeams. I am a gleaming figure in the middle of this silent pond. I am a dream, a secret. Mudras tingle on my fingertips, wanting to form, but I hold them back. Not yet—I won’t start my illusion yet.
Kaushika will be here soon. My call to him demanded urgency and privacy. Desperation beats its wings inside me, needing him to be close to me, but there is fear there too—for the both of us and our lives. At least, there will be no more deceptions. I will finally let him in on my secrets, with all my shame and glory. He will do what he will, just as I will do what I must.
I close my eyes, listening to my own heartbeat. I wait.