Chapter 23
CHAPTER 23
I am stunned. I am terrified. I can’t think.
The vajra hisses by my neck, the heat of it burning my skin.
It blinds me, and I close my eyes, but tears slide down my cheek. Drip, drip , I hear them, or perhaps it is the torrential rain echoing in my ears. It all sounds like a terrified keening.
My mind feels fuzzy. It was Indra all along. Of course it was. The way my thoughts blurred. The way my tongue slipped. It was because of his aura and power. I should have seen it before. Why is he here instead of Rambha? Was it him earlier too? Does Rambha know the lord is impersonating her? What happened in Amaravati to account for this deception? To require it?
These thoughts form and die in my mind like mortal lives.
I start to shiver. The rain is a hailstorm of arrows, each drop sharp on my skin. It is Indra’s wrath, too powerful. Surely every realm must sense it. My trickle of tears becomes a downpour. I hear a choked sound, and it is coming from my own throat. I realize I am sobbing.
The vajra twitches and vibrates in anger, sparks searing my cheek. I am already on my knees. My hands are already folded in prayer, begging for mercy. Indra does not repeat himself, but his command screams in my ears, and the words fold around my tongue, both a plea for mercy and the information he has asked for. Kaushika’s whereabouts. Kaushika’s plans. When he will attack, and in what manner.
I do not know the answers to these questions, but I see what Indra will do if he finds out. Images of Kaushika, Anirudh, Romasha, Kalyani, and all the other mortals flicker in my head, their bodies charred by lightning. My own exile looms, seconds away. I open my mouth to beg again, to ask for mercy and forgiveness.
Yet instead of the plea, a single word escapes me. “No.”
It is soft and tremulous. For a second, I think that I did not utter it. Rain thunders around me, soaking me but leaving no mark on the lord. I wonder if maybe Indra has not heard. I wonder what possessed me to say this. I wonder if it will be my last word.
Then Indra shifts in a rain-filled blur of light. The vajra cuts into my throat, scorching my skin.
“What did you say?” he snarls.
I touch the vajra with one hand, and pain shoots through my body, burning. It is like touching the lord himself. A part of me is shocked at what I am doing. What am I doing?
Still, the fingers of my other hand quickly form the rune for strength. With terrible effort, I push the heavy lightning bolt aside enough to move it a few inches away from my neck.
I stumble to my feet and stand. Streaks of mud cover me. In my clothes from the hermitage, I look nothing like an apsara. Disgust curls Indra’s lips as he studies me, and fury shines in his eyes. I am humiliated to be seen like this, but the brave, foolish, shocking word resounds over us. No . No, I cannot let you do this.
I don’t repeat it. I take a few steps back, my fingers already carving other runes I learned at the hermitage. The rune for understanding, for patience, for forgiveness. They form and disappear, but their qualities pour into me and color the damp air around us. Indra watches me perform this mortal magic, and my cheeks heat in shame. I had hoped for the runes to affect him too, but he is a deva and I am unpracticed in prana magic. If I want to appease him, this is not the way.
I recall what Rambha did once.
Immediately, I change the movements of my fingers from carving runes into forming dance sigils. “My lord, please,” I begin. “I didn’t use the right words. If I only knew I was talking to you—”
An illusion forms from the tips of my fingers, and even as I make it, I know it is not going to be enough. Rambha—the real Rambha—is Indra’s beloved apsara. Who knows what illusion she showed him? My fingers twist desperately, and an image of Indra’s throne room forms. Maybe if I remind him of the palace he loves, he will calm himself. But terror makes my hands shake, and the illusion flickers without my permission. It changes into the apsaras’ grove, then flickers again to become the buildings and homes of Amaravati, to the rock pools, the devas’ harem, the hermitage.
“Please, my lord,” I say as the image changes rapidly, uncontrolled. “I only meant—”
Indra makes a slicing motion.
The vajra cuts through the air.
I duck, uttering a choked cry, but the vajra is nowhere close to me. I blink and it is back in Indra’s hand. His eyes gleam.
At first, I don’t understand. Something has happened, something terrible. A deep horror seizes me, tasting of bitterness and bile. Everything looks much the same. The lord standing opposite me, his vajra glinting, rainstorm pouring around us. The illusion of the hermitage still glimmering. The isolation of my own good sense.
Then a hollowness grows behind my navel. It creeps its way deep into my heart, deeper into my soul. A whimper trickles from my mouth. The illusion I made turns gray.
My fingers are still curled into dance mudras, but an aching sense of loneliness yawns within me, my tether from Amaravati fraying, whiplashing. The illusion flickers, all color draining from it. It becomes weaker.
Within me, a flame dies.
I fall to my knees in the same instant the illusion vanishes.
“No,” I whisper, knowing, feeling, not understanding. “No, please, no.”
Indra’s cold voice washes over me as though from a distance. “You have such a fondness for the mortals that you would betray your own king. You no longer need Amaravati and her power. You can live and die as one of them.”
“NO!” I scream, grief making me raw. “My lord, please, I beg you, I beg you .”
“Stop blubbering, child. It is already done.”
But I can’t think. I can’t stop.
It is not possible. He has taken away my magic. Nothing could have prepared me for this—it has not happened to any apsara in memory. What will become of me? There is no return to Amaravati anymore. No home. No illusions or dance. This is not merely exile. This is a death sentence.
In desperation, I curl my trembling fingers into a mudra as though to deny it all, but no magic emerges from me. In the place within me where my tether to Amaravati once lay is a burned cord, a severed thread. I am on my knees, keening, rocking back and forth.
“Please,” I whisper, cold. “Please don’t do this. I—I am an apsara of your court, my lord. I—I don’t know who else to be. I don’t—”
Light shifts, and Indra crouches to his knees in front of me. His hands settle on my shoulders, and I hear the command in my head to look at him.
His eyes are sorrowful. Kind. There is anger there, certainly, simmering underneath the impatience and coolness—but he is sad too. My eyes brim with tears. What have I done?
“Oh, daughter,” Indra says softly. “You have failed me at every turn. You will never dance again. Should you survive the next few hours without your magic, you must find a way to atone for your sins. But you are finished here in this mission, never again to return to Amaravati.”
It is the kindness in his voice that undoes me. I reach for the slimmest hope, searching inside me for the prana magic I learned at the hermitage. Kaushika’s crescent comb burns at my scalp, and I try to focus on it. I imagine the dewdrops of my prana within my own breath. I think of the instructions of the yogis from the hermitage. A part of me always hoped it was not Indra who gave me the power—that it was mine and mine alone, learned through my own tapasya.
Yet there is emptiness within me when I hunt for my wild prana. A sickening feeling grows.
My eyes lift to Indra, who stands, his resolve clear on his face to destroy Kaushika. I see my own destiny sealed, and a tidal wave of grief smashes into me. Here is the truth, then, one I have been too afraid to accept.
Rambha had been right all along.
All my magic, celestial or mortal, came from Indra.
I truly am nothing without the lord.