3. Leela #2
Ishaan. At least the note had led her to the right place.
Whatever this place was. Rebels hiding out inside a cave by the light of the moons was ominous, and not where Leela thought she’d end up.
A damp, wet smell suffocated her alongside the ringing in her ears.
Everything about this place set her on edge.
The shadowless darkness. The dozens of guards.
Weapons, gleaming under the moonslight. She just wanted to find this damned relic and be on her way.
Ishaan towered over her. The smell of whiskey hung heavy on his breath as he examined her down his pointed nose, eyes never leaving hers. His lips twitched. “Who are you?”
Leela gulped. She met Ishaan’s gaze and told herself to focus. If he harnessed the Flame of the Raven, she knew the tales well enough to know it deciphered lies from within. “Leela.”
If Ishaan could get the truth from her with a simple touch, she needed to appease him. She had heard horrible tales of those who harnessed different Flames and their mighty power, and more about what happened if a mortal didn’t obey.
Ishaan’s lips twitched, and a second later, he stroked her cheek, a trail of warmth left in his wake.
Leela froze. A gasp caught in her throat. She held his gaze as the warmth shimmered, digging into her layers of skin and causing her very bones to itch.
His hand fell to his side. “Pretty name for a clumsy fool.” Ishaan chuckled. “And what is it, Leela, that draws you here?”
Leela straightened her shoulders despite her stomach feeling like stones were weighing it down. Her mother had once told her, ‘Confidence was the best liar,’ and right now, Leela needed all the confidence she could muster to get out of here.
“Clumsy, yes, but your name came up in conversation for what I need. I’m hoping you’re the rebels who have relics to slay monsters. I’m looking for the bow and arrow said to hit every target. Or would the wish-fulfilling tree be in stock?”
Ishaan’s gaze darkened. “And where, Flames above, did you hear that?”
Aarna. “Whispers.”
Ishaan smirked. “And why would you need such a weapon?”
Leela sighed, admitting defeat. If she had the chance to get out of this alive, she had to play their game and hope she could strike a deal, even if it meant telling the truth. “I need it to kill a lustisha.”
The hands around Leela’s arms tensed.
“We don’t deal with the beasts outside these walls,” Ishaan hissed. “What is it you want?”
There was a slight tremor in his words. The beasts scared the shit out of anyone who lived in the desert kingdoms. How could they not? They destroyed kingdoms and brought the strongest walls to the ground with a simple strike of the fist.
Leela knew it all too well.
“I told you,” Leela said.
“To kill a lustisha is unheard of.” Ishaan flicked his wrist. “Especially by a mere mortal. How could you hope to bring down such a beast? Have you ever seen one, pretty girl?”
Leela’s chest twisted. She knew her odds. She had a very slim chance in killing a lustisha, but she didn’t care. She had to bring the giant beast to its knees. She had to. Because if she didn’t, it meant her village and everyone she had loved had died for nothing.
It meant her fiancé, Rajesh, had died for nothing.
“I know my odds,” Leela snapped. She gazed fiercely at Ishaan, lips straightening. “Do you like blouses? I have my wedding garments, which would pay their weight in gold.”
“I do not care for blouses.”
“I’ll pay with my life if it means I find this weapon. Do you have it or not?”
Ishaan studied her for a moment.
Thoughts swirled behind his eyes as Leela continued to stare him down, hoping she could weasel something out of him.
She hadn’t learned to survive the palace, keeping prying hands off and trying to find sanctuary within the walls, for nothing.
She had nothing else to lose, and if she had to give herself away to get what she wanted, then so be it.
“There may be another way.” His gaze narrowed. “How do you feel about becoming a Vessel to a Flame?”
Leela held incredibly still. The chill in the air was sucked dry, and her skin warmed.
Becoming a Vessel meant harnessing a Flame and using their insurmountable power. She knew the risks, and becoming a Vessel was not a part of her plan. Finding a weapon was simple enough. She could use a weapon without too much training, without fearing a Flame would fully consume her.
Like the tales said, the Flames were still alive in soul, without a body.
When the Viperess split the realms open and cast several monster-churning storms across the world, the Flames needed to intervene and help the mortals.
Except their giant, eternal bodies are now strewn across the mortal world.
The Flames’ souls lived on to harness mortals.
If the mortal survived the ascension, that was.
No. She didn’t want to become a Vessel for a Flame or lose control over herself. She wanted to find a weapon, and a weapon she would get.
Her breath hitched when she replied, “No.”
Ishaan cocked his head. “But you would be perfect. And I have just the Flame.”
“No. No, I refuse to be a puppet!” Leela shook her head.
Ishaan chuckled. “You have no idea the power I possess. The way I can find the truth with a single touch. The way I can harness such power. Have you ever wished to have everything your heart desired?”
Leela shut her eyes, pushing away the intruding thoughts. Of course, she had. All she wanted was her family alive, that the night six years ago that killed everyone she loved hadn’t occurred, and to touch her siblings again.
To kiss Rajesh and hear his heartbeat.
She snapped her eyes open at the image of him. She had pushed every thought of Rajesh from her mind. What was the point when he’d broken her heart the night the lustisha attacked? A part of her wished he were still alive. Another part, the part still mending her heart, wished he weren’t.
“No,” she said.
Ishaan sighed. “Pity. I thought we could have done this without force, but your pretty friend led you to me, and I don’t see another choice. The Flame in my head has a very good feeling about you.”
Blood drained from Leela’s face. Every vertebra in her back froze. “A—Aarna? What’s she got to do—”
Ishaan held up his hand. “When someone comes looking for a favor, you give them what they need. Especially now when the Raven has looked into your soul and knows what sort of person you are.”
Ishaan waved his hand at the guards and nodded.
Before she had the chance to speak, the guards pulled her into the middle of the room and held her down.
Leela tried to shake them off, but they pushed her further into the stone platform.
Her heart thundered louder than the storm snaking across the sky.
Their hands were too strong, and Leela wasn’t much of a fighter. Not against these rebels, anyway.
Her thoughts raced. Too busy to focus on any. The fear of the unknown consumed her.
No…
No!
“Let me go!” she screamed.
She shoved and pulled. Bucked. Kicked. She even tried to bite. She knew how to run and lie through her teeth, but when those things were taken from her, she was nothing.
A shadow encased her moments later, and someone held her head down.
A haunting chant from the cloaked people around her rose with each of Leela’s hairs along her arms. Leela swore she saw more hooded figures approach, now standing closer to the middle, hands rising to the sky.
“Let us pray, on the night the moons are the most exposed, that this works. For both our sakes, Leela,” Ishaan whispered in her ear.
The chants continued to rise. Louder. Higher. Smoke choked her lungs, and through her panic, Leela watched as the flames twisted and thrived in a nearby drum, almost as if they were alive.
Ishaan turned to the flames and muttered something. With each word, the smoke twisted into the silhouette of a woman, the edges wavering, the flames melting to form two golden eyes.
Shit.
The smoke slithered over the floor toward Leela like a black pool of scales.
Leela thrashed one more time, but before she could do anything, a hot, searing pain gripped the base of her neck. It spread through her body, heating every bone and muscle, and tore through her organs in a fiery trail.
She barely registered the guards letting go as she screamed, lips wrenching wide and head pounding.
She dug her fingernails into her skull. Whatever was trying to take over was rooting into every part of her, causing her mind to splinter into a thousand different directions, and Leela wasn’t sure if she was sitting or standing, or even alive anymore.
Pain filled every vein and blood vessel, like they encased each one in a hot pool of lava.
Her skull rattled.
Blood stung her tongue.
Her body quaked and ached.
Hisssssss. There you are.
Then darkness cradled her into its warm embrace.