36. YAMUNA
YAMUNA
Andhra Pradesh, India
After little jaan passed, Drasko thought his heart would forever be buried in a tomb.
It was Yamuna, the daughter of the local scribe, who made his heart gasp and take in full breaths of life.
Yamuna was older than him by five years, her amber eyes full of kindness, her soft hands capable of healing his scars.
She was everything Drasko wasn’t—patient and full of love. Like the river she’d been named after, she filled the gaping hole in his heart, opened him up like a dry flower and breathed life into him.
He was twenty years of age when she first smiled at him during a local wedding.
“You dance so well,” she said then, “for a pardesi .” A foreigner.
She laughed so enthusiastically that Drasko, for the first time in a while, grinned and didn’t take his eyes off her the whole night.
He wanted to get lost in someone. What he didn’t know then was that for the first time, he would feel the need to anchor.
“I don’t ask anything of you,” Yamuna said when he had been visiting her by night for a month. “Off you run. To other women.”
But he didn’t. He came back for more, and she gave it freely.
“I don’t need anything in return,” she explained, having lost her husband and son to malaria only a year before. “I don’t make deals. Nor do I want promises easily broken.”
But Drasko never went to another woman and gave himself to her completely.
Only twenty, he felt like an old man. And Yamuna made him young again.
Careless days, full of laughter. Hot nights, spent in lustful fever. Her eyes shone with so much acceptance that when she undressed him the first night they were together, he blushed at the way she kissed his scars, healed them with her caresses, then worshipped his body like he was holy.
He told Elias then that he didn’t know what women were until her. Didn’t know what sort of man he was in bed until she taught him how to touch her.
Elias grinned at such words. “You know what they say. In this part of the world, they got the Kama Sutra down to a science.”
Drasko realized one day that he didn’t care much for the Mawr business. Suddenly, the money didn’t matter, and diamonds didn’t shine as brightly as his lover’s eyes. He wanted to stay in a happy world, void of grudges and rivalry and greed.
Then the Wollendorfs happened. That night, he knew everything would change again.
And it did.
The day they found Alfred Mawr’s body, Elias told Drasko, “Run.”
Drasko had never been afraid. Nor was he now. But he had to be careful because now he had Yamuna to keep safe.
She stayed silent for some time when he told her what he wanted to do. “I don’t think we can,” she answered.
But of course, they could!
And he didn’t listen to her, didn’t pay attention to her lingering gazes, a sad smile like she knew what life had in store for them.
He went to talk to Uriah. “We want to travel,” he said, starting the conversation from afar.
“ We ?”
“Yamuna and I, we are getting married and we want to travel for some time, see the world.”
He knew by the way Uriah cocked his head that he didn’t like the idea and suspected that Drasko wasn’t planning on coming back.
“Do you now…” Uriah said dryly.
“Maybe Borneo. We will stay with Elias for some time. Then London.”
“London, hmm. What about Mawr Industries?”
“I could help out. Perhaps, in London.”
“Help out?” Uriah’s lack of words always indicated the upcoming storm, yet Drasko still hoped for the better. “So, you are giving up your life for… what exactly?”
“I love her. I want a family.”
“Juvenile.”
“I am a man!”
“Spare me the drama, Drasko.”
“I don’t owe you anything anymore. I don’t ask anything of you. Not money. Not support. I need a life of my own.”
Drasko knew it then, felt that this feeble attempt to break free was pointless. As long as Uriah breathed, Drasko would always be a prisoner. The prior tragedies came to mind, one after another, after another, Uriah’s entire life spotted by them and others’ blood.
“We need to travel to Delhi tomorrow,” Uriah said indifferently. “It’s an important meeting, and I need you there. When we come back, do as you please.”
Drasko should have known it felt too easy, should have taken Yamuna with him.
“I am staying,” she announced the night before he left. “Everything is the way it is supposed to be.” So very calm, her hands caressed his body but didn’t quite soothe the ache that burned inside him like a premonition.
Only a month passed before Drasko returned to an empty house, not a trace of Yamuna.
“Her body was burned as per tradition,” her father said grimly, not meeting Drasko’s eyes.
“She was bitten by a venomous snake,” his maid explained.
Only Drasko knew that Yamuna was an herbalists, she saved people who were one foot in the grave. She could not have possibly met so senseless a death.
But her existence was merely plucked out of his life.
And again, he didn’t get to say goodbye…
Weeks passed of him trying to make sense of the cruel workings of fate. His grief was different this time. Not overwhelming, wanting to break out and destroy the world, but quiet, submissive, the experienced kind.
The gaping black hole in his heart came back, growing bigger. The hate in his veins ran deeper.
This time, Drasko suspected it was Uriah who had taken another dear person out of his life.
Drasko still wanted to run from this cursed place that swallowed lives. He wanted to be like Rakshasa, free and feared and alone so as never to know the pain of losing his loved ones again.
He got a giant tattoo of Rakshasa. The vicious tiger with bared fangs took up his entire back. It looked like its claws ripped Drasko’s healed scars, the reminder of where he had come from and who he needed to be.
With time, the tattoo healed, yet Drasko always felt the ghost of the beast on his back.
He wanted to leave India again, but Uriah wouldn’t let him.
“You need to think reasonably, my boy,” Uriah said. “You are just like me, whether you want it or not. When fate takes something away, you take more from others.”
Drasko had never thought of it that way. And for the first time, his rage changed course.
No, he wouldn’t run. He would roar at his prey and charge forward like a fearless tiger.
He would rip anything that stood in his way.
And if there was something worthy of keeping—he would do so, by force if needed, and protect it at all costs.
He could only do that if he stood at the very top, higher than Uriah ever had.
“I don’t have much time left,” said Uriah one day, and Drasko’s eyes snapped at him in confusion. “I am sick, you see, and I won’t last long. But I shall see that you have all of it. That you get your freedom.”
The words felt like a lie.
“You shall be the richest man in the world. The most influential too,” Uriah said. “But wealth and power require sacrifices. For that, you have to give up everything else.”
“I have nothing left.” That was the truth. Drasko had nothing but rivers full of diamonds, lifeless things with imaginary value.
“Reputation. Fame. Loved ones.” Uriah narrowed his eyes at Drasko.
Drasko chuckled devilishly, bitterness twisting the pieces of his broken heart farther apart. “I have none of that.”
“You will.” Surprisingly, Uriah smiled. “But the path of a king is a lone one. If you want to be one, you have to sacrifice. If you give up your silly notions, I will give you the world, my boy.” And then he said the words Drasko had been waiting for a long time.
“And I will give you the biggest treasure, the Crimson Tear.”