8. Leela
LEELA
Leela stayed in the shadows, clinging to the railing with pale fingers. She decided this was where she was safest from the moonslight and the need to vomit over the edge. She blended in with the bleeding patients as the crew bandaged the injured or offered them warm drinks.
“You must be her.”
Leela gazed into a pair of chestnut eyes.
She tried to put an age to Tanmay now that he wasn’t rushing around trying to get Rajesh’s attention.
His cheeks rose with a smile, slightly puffier than a man who may have fully grown.
Perhaps he was twenty-moons and still growing into his features.
Either way, his lanky frame shuffled over as he tugged at his fingers, a nervous twitch in his lips.
“Her?” Leela questioned.
Tanmay kicked a loose clump of sand. “Her. Leela. I’d know that expression from anyone. Like he saw a desert spirit. A beautiful one, but one nevertheless.”
“Oh…” Leela gulped. Had Rajesh told anyone else about her? Or was she a pretty secret? Clearly, he had told Tanmay, and whether that was because this younger gentleman and Rajesh were friends, or because he was his second mate, she wasn’t sure. “What has he said?”
“Nothing much,” Tanmay said. “Just your name. That was all I ever knew.”
Oh…
“How do you know Rajesh?” she asked.
“He’s my captain. Took me in after the monsters tore down our walls. Saved me from a ruined village. Trained me up to be his second mate because he saw potential,” Tanmay said, puffing his chest.
His slightly puffy cheeks and soft chestnut eyes warmed Leela.
She didn’t often find strangers comforting, but there was calmness when it came to him.
Leela was generally a good judge of character.
Like her mother had always said, ‘You will always know who someone is in the first ten seconds, their first ten words, and first ten glances.’
“You seem too young to be a second mate.”
“I am twenty-moons, Miss Leela.”
Good guess, mortal.
Leela waved a hand. “Please, just Leela is fine.”
Tanmay nodded with a polite smile. “Did you live with these people?”
Leela chewed the inside of her cheek, a spit of guilt cutting through her.
She didn’t know these people, yet she felt like she should now that they shared the same wounds.
She glanced over the wounded children who whimpered in their parents’ arms, reminding her of her own history.
Her gaze landed on a young girl blankly staring at the deck, lost in the aftermath of the attack.
The guilt dug its claws in deeper when she thought about how she had been that girl once, the one taken to ‘safety’ on a sandship when they came to collect the injured and dispose of the dead.
She was meant to get to safety, but Leela was taken to the Crimson Palace.
“No,” Leela finally replied, realizing she had lost her train of thought. “I don’t know any of these people, yet I know what this heartache will do to them.”
Tanmay ruffled his long dark locks. “Yes. Life can be cruel. Only the lucky survive. The strong persevere.”
Her mouth drew into a straight line. “Are you saying the weak deserved it?”
Tanmay gasped and shook his head vigorously. “Oh, no, no! I didn’t mean that. I just… I meant…”
She waved it off, too tired to give the younger man a hard time. “Be glad the Ravens are dead.”
Tanmay fell absolutely silent.
Guilt clawed at her again, but Leela was also too tired to really focus on how she’d made him feel. She had other things to concern herself with. Like the fact that she was heading into a completely new place with Rajesh.
The Viperess coiled in the edges of her mind, golden eyes flashing. Going to ask where we’re headed?
No.
Why not?
I don’t quite care.
I care, mortal. Do I need to take control again to get the answers I seek?
Leela gripped her hands. The feeling of the Viperess controlling her body had completely blindsided her. It wasn’t a feeling she’d easily forget or want to ever happen again.
Are you going to ever leave me alone?
The Viperess hissed, flashing yellow across Leela’s eyes and sucking her into her vision. Did you not listen, mortal?
Stop calling me that.
Mortal?
Yes. It makes me feel small.
To me, you are small. A mortal.
You’re smaller still. You’re a voice inside my head.
Am I just?
What does that mean? Why did you pick me, of all mortals, to harness?
A Flame is more than just a soul, mortal. I am using your body as a vessel, a carriage of sorts, between the three worlds to walk the earth. I used to be as grand as the Awakening. Too grand to walk the plains of the Netherworld.
Leela had been too scared to ask if the Viperess was originally from the Awakening or Netherworld, but the more she grew comfortable with the Viperess—as comfortable as one could be with a Flame in their head—she had to find answers.
Are you a Flame from the Awakening or the Netherworld?
The Viperess was quiet for a moment. Does it matter?
Absolutely. Flames from the Netherworld were said to be devious.
Or pushed there for unreasonable expectations.
Leela kept her opinions to herself. The way the Viperess answered was filled with such disdain that it was enough of an answer.
While Flames could be from either, the Netherworld wasn’t a place anyone ever wanted to venture.
Most wanted to ascend into the blissful Awakening when one died, into several layers above and not the lower ones.
Below, the beasts grew.
Above, the creatures thrived.
All tales, mortal.
If you can talk to me, can’t you just appear in front of me, then?
Not quite how the planes work.
Then tell me!
Not yet.
Are you going to tell me what you want with me, at least?
Again, not yet.
Why?
Why destroy the fun we will have? Besides, I do not yet know my Vessel. I need to know who you are before the truth is spilled.
A horrifying thought crossed her mind. What did she have access to? Did she know every small fear of Leela’s? Did she know… everything? Could she change her mind? Adapt her?
Easy, Vessel. We will get to know one another. We have time, remember?
Leela groaned. How could I forget?
The rest of the ride was an irksome loneliness that set Leela’s bones on edge.
She couldn’t sit still, continually twisting her neck toward the wheel where Rajesh stood and at the sails where the woman that kept them floating was.
Now and again, Leela would connect her gaze with Rajesh’s and quickly look away.
By now, the screams of the wounded had died down.
Those injured were moved to better accommodations below.
They offered Leela a room, but she didn’t want to leave the sunrise.
The beautifully stripped ribbons of orange merging into a dingy red cleaved the dunes in the distance, spreading like aching fingers along the ocher earth.
The sunrise was always a message saying she had another day. She was alive. Some days she wished she wasn’t, but that was when her mind and hormones were beyond the darkness.
Except Leela needed to move and hide her shadow.
She kept wondering how she would keep it up.
Wherever they were heading, Leela would eventually have to reveal the Flame she harnessed.
She just couldn’t bring herself to tell Rajesh.
This person knew her the most, yet when she spoke to him, there couldn’t have been any more distance if she tried.
Six years.
Besides the longer curls by his face, the sharper tongue, and the edges of his muscular frame, he was still the same Rajesh. The same man who told her long ago that he could never love her.
Leela’s chest squeezed at the distant memory, surfacing like a blade puncturing skin.
She would never forget that feeling. The feeling of loving someone and having her heart thrown back in her face.
To be told the person she would spend the rest of her life with, the person she grew alongside, didn’t love her back.
Leela bit her tongue, her emotions cracking before she could get a hold of them.
She hadn’t wept over such a foolish thing in years, but suddenly the torment of those memories came back with hunger, and she couldn’t control them.
Trauma was a terrible thing, buried deep and then surfacing before there was time to comprehend it all.
First, she had a vengeful Flame in her head, and she had to work out how to hide her, as well as work out what that Flame wanted with her.
You think too much, mortal.
You speak too much, snake.
The Viperess chuckled, low and breathy. Fair point.
Are you going to tell me what you want with me yet?
Not yet.
How convenient.
The rest of the ride was quiet. Leela found a place near the ladder, away from the light, and hoped for a quick exit without anyone noticing.
Eventually, the ship rode over one last dune, and Leela’s breath caught in her throat.
The ship hovered over a giant hole, funneled deep into the ground.
When the ship was in position, it lowered, dropping as Leela’s stomach did.
Shadows crept over her and she was thankful for the dark cover to hide under.
Tunnels opened into a web of carved-out houses among arches and lengthy hallways. Too many people for Leela to count wandered through the labyrinth, carrying weapons or training in separate rooms across the several layers.
Eventually, the ship docked on the ground. Leela craned her neck to glimpse at the top.
“Welcome to the den,” Tanmay said, sneaking up behind her.
Leela jumped and frowned. “You call this the den?”
Tanmay nodded. “Our humble abode. Our safe place.”
She regarded the gaping hole in the ceiling. “Don’t the monsters ever, well, you know, fall?”
Tanmay chuckled. “Oh yes, but because we’re between the dunes, they barely see us. If they ever fall, they’re falling a very long way, and it’s only ever happened once.”
“Did it crush anyone?”
“Luckily, no. It cracked its spine and died. Made for some good weapons too.”
Leela shuddered.
People lumbered their way off the ship. The wounded were hoisted onto carriers and lowered down, or they stumbled down the ladder with an assistant. Leela could tell this wasn’t their first time. Everything was organized and precise.
Leela quickly glanced at Rajesh, who stood at the top and ordered those below to hoist or pull.
She sucked in a breath as his arm muscles bulged underneath the shirt. She shouldn’t be thinking about him like that. Not anymore.
“Ready?”
Leela hadn’t realized she was the last one. Everyone else, besides Rajesh, was gone. She was too focused on watching them help the wounded to actually take note of what she was meant to be doing.
She nodded.
Rajesh let her go down first, and she scrambled down the ladder. Sand sank underneath her bare feet. Her toes nestled between the grains. Red. Good.
Rajesh jumped down beside her, landing with a gentle thud.
She followed without being told. The rest of the crew helped the injured, but Rajesh strolled through the cavernous cutout tunnel as if he owned it. Leela supposed, being captain of a sandship, he did.
More sandships lined the dock. Giant sails flapped in the gentle wind.
People scrambled like ants inside the tunnels, carrying crates full of fruits and vegetables off the ships, and others were tying the ropes to keep the ships in place.
Sun beat from the center, rising higher and higher.
Leela quickened her footing, sliding into a hallway after Rajesh.
“Stay close. Hold onto my shirt,” Rajesh said.
Leela didn’t question him. She grabbed the tiniest part of his shirt, fingertips barely touching, and he led her down a set of long dark passageways, which were too dark for shadows to crawl.
She stayed closer, not too close in the fear of his scent drawing her in, but close enough she didn’t get lost.
He turned this way and that, seeming to know where he was going without much of an issue. Now and again, he’d glance over his shoulder, and Leela would note a small green glow around his pupils.
She frowned. Why in the sands were his eyes glowing? She wondered if it was a weird monster hunter thing. Perhaps they injected themselves with the blood of the Flames to make it happen the way they carved their weapons from the bones.
The Viperess hissed, the sound vibrating in Leela’s skull.
Before Leela could deliberate any further, Rajesh led her into an area where the sun blinded every edge of a domed room, split by a table in the center.
She froze, muscles locking and feet sinking deep.
Leela’s pulse quickened, thumping like a sandstorm. She could only focus on his shadows. No… She was clearly dehydrated, because there was no way Rajesh’s shadows were shaped like a scorpion and a man.
Rajesh turned to her with a sad smile.
He had taken her here to show her this. Leela knew for certain, because the look in his eyes told her all she needed to know.
There was no way to get out of the giant shadows haunting his frame.
She wanted to slap herself for not checking his shadows, because while she was hiding her Flame, so was he.
Traitor!
Did you know?
Liar!
Did you know!?
The Viperess hissed. Obviously not, mortal, otherwise I would’ve had his head rolling on the ground!
A surge of heat rode Leela’s spine. Leela stumbled into the light, gripping her head and teeth grinding, before falling to the ground.
She barely registered her knees hitting the hard rock.
All she could focus on was the overwhelming anger running through her like hot liquid, burning everything in its path.
When Leela glanced up, a yellow hue was covering everything, as if she were looking through someone else’s eyes.
Her body lurched forward on its own accord, fingers arched, and she fumbled forward as if she were learning to walk all over again.
Her foot caught on the ground, and Leela slammed against the table.
It all happened so suddenly that Leela barely got the chance to realize the Viperess had gained control—or tried to.
Leela focused on her body, feeling the Flame coil back into the depths of her mind. The Viperess was like an overwhelming void inside her, spreading warmth through her skin. It was that heat that told Leela when the Viperess was closer to controlling her.
When Leela finally managed to regain control, she gazed up.
Rajesh stood perfectly still, face slack and eyes widening.
“No… not you…” he whispered.