7. Leela
LEELA
Leela woke to a piercing scream and a heavy dose of smoke in her lungs.
Sleep left her as quickly as sand between her fingers. She knew what those screams meant. She knew what brought about the sound as haunting as a ghost without needing to know what she was about to burst into.
Chaos.
Destruction.
Ruin.
She touched her pocket and sighed in relief at the feel of the hilt. Not that it meant an easier fight or that she knew how to wield a blade, but it was better than nothing.
Leela was done running. Especially when these people saved her life.
She tuned into the screams, trying to pick apart monster from mortal. The furybeasts’ were higher in pitch, the soulkissers’ softer. There wasn’t a hiss for the angstent.
She sank her toes into the ground. At least the ground wasn’t shaking. She didn’t have the energy nor the weapon she needed to confront a lustisha tonight.
Burned flesh stung Leela’s nose, and it drew her back to the night that the bloodthirsty drakion attacked her village.
Breathe. Or never breathe again. Rajesh’s voice, as inconvenient as it was, held her steady.
Snapping out of the memories, she lunged out of the doorway. People ran in every direction. Bodies were cut open and organs spilled out into the red sand.
A drakion crouched at the logs before the hut, lurching into the moonslight and revealing emaciated flesh hanging in ribbons along a skeletal frame.
Clumps of pale, human-like hair sprouted in uneven strands along its skin, and its jaw hinged open and closed as if tasting the air.
The drakion fixed its eerie, blue gaze on Leela, then split the sky with its bone-white claws.
Leela’s stomach dropped. Her eyes widened, and she was sucked back into her nightmare—into the gripping moments the drakion ran over the broken wall and destroyed her village. She clenched the katar tighter, hoping it didn’t slip from her sweaty grip.
The Viperess uncoiled, hissing and rearing back. I hope you are a fighter, mortal.
Not a very good one.
Great. Perhaps it is best we run?
A high-pitched screech grated on her ears.
Leela froze. She tried to move. She even tried to scream.
Nothing.
Move!
The drakion lunged.
Before Leela could react, a flush of heat shot up her spine.
She threw her katar. The blade coasted through the air before finally splintering bone and flesh.
The drakion shrieked and reared back, a dark liquid oozing down its chin.
As if her body was moving on its own, Leela closed the distance, wrenched the katar from its ribs, and slit its throat in one motion.
The drakion’s head rolled on the ground, its forked tongue sticking out the side before it shriveled into a steaming pile of ash.
Where did that come from?
I need you, maybe more than you need me, it seems. Count this as a blessing that I am here. You are absolutely useless.
Leela let the snip slide. She didn’t have time to argue with the Viperess.
She needed to get out of here before more drakion attacked her, or risk dying like her family.
Without the Viperess, however, Leela would have died, and as tough as that realization was, she knew the Flame was currently her best chance to survive.
“Leela!”
Snapping around, Leela saw Jaya sprinting toward her, a weapon in hand. Leela forced the bile down at the sight of a bloody cut covering the side of Jaya’s arm, fabric sticking to the torn skin.
“Are you okay?” Jaya asked.
Leela nodded, her joints stiff and refusing to cooperate. She was still trying to overcome the fact that the Viperess had controlled her, and what scared Leela more was that she had no idea how to stop it from happening again. Still, she told herself she would have time to deliberate later.
Breathe. Or don’t breathe at all.
Gulping, she assessed the burning village. The fire flickered and burned, filling the air along with the stifling screams of death. Everywhere she looked, memories unfolded like a terrible dream she couldn’t escape.
Chaos.
Destruction.
Ruin.
People dying.
Children running.
Drakion lunging and plunging their elongated fingers into bodies.
Screams.
Screams.
Screams…
Nightmares caught her in their web. Her breath clogged her throat. Her mind reeled. She couldn’t do it.
She couldn’t focus.
She couldn’t breathe.
“Leela?”
She barely heard Jaya over the thumping in her ears.
Pull yourself together, mortal, or we die.
I… I can’t…. breathe…
Breathe or die!
As comforting as the words were, they did nothing. Telling someone to be ‘calm’ had never worked, and Leela was definitely not calm. She panicked and choked, like the night when her life was torn apart.
Leela shut her eyes, trying to block it all out. She ground her teeth together as another terrible scream cut the skies. And another, cut short by a gurgle.
Breathe!
She tried, but the more she did, the more the panic set in and the tighter her throat became.
Pathetic.
Disappointing!
Leela shook off the looming, dreadful thoughts as blood pounded in her ears.
It wasn’t until she choked on a fleck of sand that she realized she was curled up on the ground.
The edges of her vision faded into darkness, the chaos blending into a big mess.
Thoughts, wild and untamed, seized her. Leela was going to die, and perhaps, it wasn’t the worst thing considering her circumstances.
Mortal… I have you. We have this. Breathe. Don’t breathe. Whatever you do, focus. Focus on my voice. Focus on the warm air around you. Focus… Focus… Focus…
The word reverberated within Leela, enough for her to grasp at reality and get away from the nightmares. Enough to pry her eyes open and realize other things were happening.
The drakion continued to tear away at people’s flesh, but there were others fighting for their lives.
There were flashes of blue against the navy skies, and a giant sandship hovered in the distance.
Swords shhhwed from their sheaths, cutting into the monsters and turning them into piles of ash.
Shadows transformed into the form of animals as Foxes, Tigers, and Bulls ran into the scene and killed any monster in sight.
She fell back to the sand and sighed in relief. People had come to save them. Vessels with Flames as their weapon.
We cannot always be strong, mortal. Sometimes, we need emotions to keep us steady.
How in the Flames was I steady?
You will learn. You are injured.
Leela frowned. No, I’m not?
In mind. You will heal. It will take time. Be gentle to yourself.
Leela shook her head. She couldn’t understand this Flame. One moment she was argumentative, the next, supportive or completely silent. She was like a tornado, made of chaos and lies Leela wished to untangle.
And be rid of.
Leela rubbed at her collarbone to calm her nerves.
Blood, however, continued to ooze from Jaya’s slender arm, and a spit of anger flashed through her.
Because of her panic, she had risked Jaya’s life.
Leela hated herself all the more. She should’ve been stronger.
Should’ve been able to push aside the emotions clouding her mind.
“Leela…?”
Slowly, Leela pried her gaze away from her hands.
“Is that you…?”
Leela’s entire body grew as rigid as Nihikia’s sandstone city walls. Darkness crept into the edges of her vision once more. For a moment, she thought she was having another panic attack. At least, it might’ve been better than hearing the voice of someone she believed to be dead.
Every muscle in her screamed to not turn around, but how could she not? That voice had used to sing her to sleep with a sweet childhood lullaby and haunted her nightmares. The owner of that voice used to be her light, the guiding hand she needed in the darkness.
And he was meant to be dead.
Despite her brain screaming at her not to look—knowing it was all a figment of her imagination—she turned and peered into the eyes she’d last seen lying at the base of a dune—dead.
A gasp shook her lungs. Leela couldn’t do anything but stare at the man whose face she could memorize in her sleep, from the sharp edges of his jaw, to the way his eyes glistened and burned like the fervent stars above, and the black curls, now longer, lying like languid vines around his face.
Six years.
Six fucking years.
And he was alive.
Not dead.
But very much living and breathing.
Leela finally blinked.
Rajesh trailed his gaze over her body the same way she did him. His eyes were wide, as if he had just seen a desert spirit. His blade clattered to the ground at his feet. His lips—the lips she used to kiss—were wide with fear, then confusion… then relief.
“I… L—Leela?”
Her response clogged in her throat. The night’s chill dug into her bones and held her steady within its cage, unwilling to release her.
She needed to talk. Needed to stand and punch him in the face. How else was she meant to react to seeing the man she presumed dead but was actually standing before her?
She soaked him in. The way his black V-neck shirt with tiny straps billowed in the wind. His baggy black pants stopped at his ankles. A dusting of sand coated his features, the dark depths of his eyes still lined with thick lashes, his wild black curls stuck with sweat against his square jaw.
As shocked as she felt, what she really noticed was the small curl she used to play with still leaning against his forehead, the way his eyes bore into hers and the new scars painting his body. He had aged into a fine man. Still as gentle and handsome as the last day she saw him.
“Rajesh,” she finally said past the thick lump in her throat.
“Y—you’re alive?” He gasped. His eyes gleamed, and Leela almost wanted to jump in and smell the familiar scent of burnt toast and the sweetness she craved for many endless nights.
But it didn’t stop the last words he’d said to her six years ago from surfacing and drowning her all over again. “So are you, apparently.”
“Captain!” A man ran up to Rajesh, huffing. He put his hand on Rajesh’s shoulder.
Rajesh didn’t move. He only stared at Leela.
“Rajesh?” the man asked.