Chapter 33
TRUTH BOMBS AND REVELATIONS
There was a part of me that recognized that I should be shocked. That this revelation that Chandra was Vritra should have had me reeling, but after everything that had happened, this truth did nothing to shake me. Instead, I found a laugh bubbling up my throat.
I set it free, and it was joined by another, then another until I was doubled over, gasping for breath, tears blurring my vision.
“It’s all right!” Chandra said, to me or to someone else, I wasn’t sure.
I was too busy trying to regain my composure, or maybe not.
Maybe I’d ride this wave of wholly inappropriate emotions because damn it felt good to laugh.
To truly belly laugh until my chest hurt.
“It’s all right.” Chandra made soothing circles on my back, his words solely for me this time.
A sob ate away the laughter, and tears spilled hot down my cheeks. What the fuck was wrong with me?
I pulled away from Chandra’s touch, moving further down the ship. Away from him. This was his fault. All his fucking revelations, messing with my emotions. Unbalancing my equilibrium.
“Leela…” C’ael enveloped me in a hug from behind, and I caught the barest hint of cranberry on the wind. I inhaled it greedily, relaxing into the embrace. “It’s all right. I’ve got you.”
I breathed deep and found my center, and an ache that was too much. Just…too much.
Chandra approached, his shadow kissing mine. I tensed.
“Not now,” C’ael snapped. “We’ll come to you.”
He retreated, and I relaxed.
Long minutes passed as the sky lightened. I closed my eyes and tipped my face up to the sun, allowing it to warm my chilled skin and seep into my bones to dispel this twisted, awful feeling that wanted to take up residence inside me.
“I’ve got you,” C’ael said again. “It’s going to be all right.”
Fresh tears tracked down my cheeks. “I’m tired, C’ael. And yes, I know I’m not the only one fighting. Our friends are out there right now doing whatever it takes to survive, but…I’m tired. So fucking tired.”
“I know, love, I know. So let me carry you for a while. Let me hold the burden. Let me be your anchor, your shoulder, until Araz comes home.”
I nodded, releasing a sigh and letting the tension bleed from my limbs. I let him hold me because in that moment I wasn’t strong enough to hold myself.
I found Chandra on the bow later. He tensed as I approached.
Guilt tightened my stomach. “I’m sorry about how I reacted earlier. It wasn’t about you.”
“I’m sorry if I contributed to the emotional load.”
“To my mini breakdown, you mean?” I gave him a wry smile. “Better for it to happen now than mid battle.”
“There won’t be a battle,” he said firmly. “We will make sure of it. All we need do is give C’ael the opportunity to touch Araz’s vessel, and the fight will be over.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It will be. I believe it.”
Araz’s words about shaping our reality with the power of belief filled my mind. Yes…we could do this. We could make it happen if we all believed.
I leaned against the hull. “So…you’re Vritra, huh? The god that spawned the Danava. Reborn as an Asura?” I lifted my brows.
He snorted softly. “The rebirth and the bloodline were not something I chose, and the irony was not lost on me. But…it afforded me some protection to be amongst those that supported my demise when I was Vritra.”
“Tell me what happened to you. Tell me the truth.”
“It’s a long tale, but I shall tell it in as few words as possible because you need to know. You need to understand what the gods are truly capable of.”
“Yes. I want to know it all.”
He nodded and sat on a bench made of clouds. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to the contradiction that was this ship. I joined him on the bench, waiting for him to continue.
“I was created by the Deva. Born of the essence of many. Theirs to command. When the time came, they made me into a villain. Not all of them were complicit. Some left before my demise. There were factions amongst even those gods. The ones that stayed used me to overpower and capture Mizikiel, the being you now know as the primordial evil.”
I stared at him, unblinking, then nodded. “Go on…”
“I did what I was tasked to do and then went back to my life. To my family, to the bloodline of Danava that I’d spawned. But the Deva came for me one night. They captured me and used the Vajra to end me…or so they thought.”
“Why? Why did they do that to you?”
“Because when I went into Mizikiel’s realm to find him, I forged an unexpected bond with the throne.
One that the Deva could not allow to stand.
The throne was the connection. The pathway to Mizikiel’s world and its power.
They wanted to control it. They destroyed my body and tried to burn away my soul, but I survived and was reborn into the very bloodline that now had a connection to the throne. ”
“Vijayroodra…”
“Ironic. I know. But I believe it was my connection to the throne that kept me alive. It allowed me to come back.”
“But you couldn’t claim it because you didn’t have enough Deva blood.”
“That’s right. They destroyed the body that had once forged a bond with the throne.
But the essence, the essence that defined me remained.
I remembered everything, and I kept my power banked.
My death allowed the Deva to keep the throne, but it also helped them to gather the power they needed to alter history and hide the truth about the origins of the throne and the existence of Mizikiel.
They altered history a second time when they locked away Iblees.
Vayelle’s death and the death of her people powered that alteration.
“I was vilified because the truth would have made them the villains. My offspring, the Danava, were given lower status, allowing the Asura to control them, and this control intensified once the Danava king was falsely accused of killing the Vijayroodra family.”
Falsely accused. “He didn’t do it? He was innocent for real?”
“Yes…” He looked away, and an awful thought occurred to me. “Chandra…did you have something to do with the death of the royal family?”
He inhaled sharply through his nose, then exhaled heavily from his mouth. “Yes.”
My heart sank. “Tell me what you did. Tell me why my bloodline was killed.”
“Yes, you deserve to know. You deserve to know it all. The truth of the djinn, of the Deva’s true successors was beginning to surface.”
“The spell was weakening.”
“Yes. A powerful sacrifice was needed to reinforce it, or there was a risk that the Deva would be summoned home. I didn’t want to hurt them, but…
If the Deva returned, they would sense my true nature.
I’d succeeded in hiding it from the Asura, but the Deva, the beings who had created me, would know me instantly, and then… ”
“You were scared.”
“Yes. I was a coward. I doomed the Danava, my soul descendants, to a life of being ostracized.” His smile held a bitter edge. “I lied to you about Araz…about his origins.”
My breath caught. “He is Danava Harish’s son, isn’t he?”
“Yes. That night…the meeting…it was about an alliance. His son to be betrothed to Vijayroodra’s firstborn daughter.
Your ancestor. The Authority searched for the queen for a long time, sending pischachas into the mortal realms searching for her signature and your Nani’s.
She was a pari, Leela. Handmaiden to the queen and—”
“I know. That much I learned.” The creature had been looking for Nani so it could find the descendant of Vijaroodra. “They wanted me dead.”
“Yes, but you made it here, and as soon as you mentioned the pischachas, I knew who you were. I hid the truth from the Authority.”
“Why?”
“I…I’m not sure. I was…intrigued by you. I felt…a connection.”
“But they tried to kill me again, and Pashim died.”
“No, that was not the Authority. That was…unfortunate. But they did not send the creature. It was not one of ours.”
“Ours? You help control them?”
“No, Leela. I don’t have control over them, but they belong to the Authority. Created in the war and then used again to instill fear into the population.”
So that everyone thought the devouring force was bad. Chandra was Vritra, Araz was Danava royalty, and the Deva were just as bad as the Asura.
“Why tell me all this? It doesn’t affect what will happen next. You didn’t have to reveal any of it.”
“I know. But…I needed you to know me. The whole of me. To understand my past so that you can believe that I will never hurt you. Not again. Not intentionally.”
He reached into his pocket and drew out the dagger and gave it to me. “I will never hurt you or the man you love.”
I took the dagger, recognizing the gesture for what it was. He was handing me the key to locking away Mizikiel in Araz’s body. Proof that he had no ill intent in that regard. I let loose a breath, palming the hilt and swallowing the lump in my throat.
“When did you know I was Vayelle?”
“The night of the ball when the musicians played a song I had not heard in eons. The song Ilyarien had composed for Vayelle as a betrothal gift. When I heard it and I saw you with Araz, I felt you for the first time, and once again, I knew that you’d made a choice other than me.
And I knew that I was never meant to have you as lover, but I could have you as a friend. ”
“And Araz? Did you know who he was?”
He shook his head. “Only that he was the offspring of Danava Harish. I did not know he was Iblees’s fragment and vessel.”
“And in the labyrinth?”
“I wasn’t sure. I’d been responsible for both Iblees’s and Mizikiel’s incarceration, and I didn’t know which one had broken free. I should have realized it was both.”
“You should have told me what you knew. We became friends again…you could have told me.”