14. Leela
LEELA
Leela found herself in a nightmare without escape. Its ragged claws pulled her deeper into the stinging stench of death from the night of the attack.
Leela lay on the bed beside Rajesh, tracing the veins in his arms. Moonslight streamed through the small, arched window of her hut. She had waited all day for him to come to her, to be in his arms once again.
But there was something wrong. His arms were too tight around her.
Leela sat up on the blanket, staring into his deep brown eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Rajesh held her gaze. “Nothing.”
She frowned, unease twisting inside her. She knew Rajesh more than the back of her hand, and something cursed and heavy lay within his eyes. “What is wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Yes, there is,” she declared. “You’ve barely touched me.”
Rajesh glanced at his fingers. “I… I can’t.”
Leela blinked several times. “What are you saying? Are you sick? Is something wrong?”
There were diseases circling through the village every now and again. Had he caught the strange illness his father had? Was his father… dead…? He looked fine, the moonslight soft against his brown skin, and the curls in his hair newly washed.
No. There was something else troubling him.
Her chest swelled with a dangerous emotion, one tugging on her heartstrings and sending her into her deepest and darkest thoughts.
Had Rajesh fallen out of love with her? Had he realized she wasn’t his soul mate?
Was the last ceremony too hard for him? Their marriage was within the year.
Had he finally realized he was better without her… ?
“What is wrong?” she pressed.
He evaded her eyes and kept staring out the window.
The longer time stretched, the more her pulse quickened.
She had been with Rajesh from childhood through their bonding ceremony, when children aged sixteen moons were tasked with finding a soul keeper.
Rajesh had her soul. He had her heart. He had her everything.
She could never be with someone other than the man beside her.
They had spent the last few years going through the ceremonies to work on how strong their love was.
They were the most compatible couple to have ever graced the ceremonies.
“Rajesh?” Leela pressed.
Rajesh finally met her gaze, dragging them from the ground. There was a haunted sadness in his eyes, like he was trying so hard to push whatever he wanted to say back. It was the look that would haunt her nightmares for years to come.
“I can’t…” His jaw tightening. “I can’t love you.”
Leela could only stare at him, refusing to believe what she had just heard. A heaviness settled over her, seeping into her skin and suffocating her lungs. The words continued to reverberate inside her mind, bouncing off the cavernous walls.
I can’t love you.
I can’t love you.
I can’t love you.
I don’t love you.
I don’t love you.
Leela felt everything and nothing at all—a numbness, the walls darkening around her vision.
Rajesh reached for her, but she scrambled back.
She pushed herself to her feet. The walls were closing in. She needed to escape. Needed to run… or… ponder. She didn’t know. Whatever it was, she couldn’t decide whether to leave or stand and demand answers. But what more did she need to hear? She couldn’t keep letting him break her.
“I don’t… I… wh—what?” Leela stammered. Tears swam in her eyes as she met his gaze.
That look burned inside her mind. There was nothing inside. A hollowness bleeding into Leela. She couldn’t understand when he changed his mind. When he decided she wasn’t worth his time.
When they were sixteen and walking over the hot coals to prove to the Flames their love was worthy?
When they were seventeen, and they had to embrace one another for a full day?
When they were eighteen, and they first slept together?
Rajesh took a deep breath and slowly got to his feet.
Leela inched away. She couldn’t look at him anymore.
“I wish I could explain,” Rajesh whispered. “I wish I could tell you. All of it.”
She frowned and snapped her gaze to his. “What does that mean?”
“I… I can’t love you.”
“Can’t, or don’t? They have a similar meaning.”
“They don’t.” His tone was almost as if he were begging for her to understand.
But what and how could she understand this? He didn’t love her. Why couldn’t he just tell her that?
“Please…” Rajesh started, reaching for her.
But Leela had had enough. She stormed out of the hut and marched off to the river. She suddenly felt dirty, like everything she had done with Rajesh stunk, and she couldn’t get it off.
She loved him.
Loved him with all her heart and now…
Now he didn’t…
Just like that.
Done.
Nothing.
Leela burst into tears and landed on the outskirts of the village near the tree line.
She had no idea if anyone was around her, not that she cared.
All she could feel was the excruciating hollowness ripping her from the inside out.
Tears streamed down her face, forming a puddle between her quivering fingers.
So many tears.
So much heartache.
Leela had no idea how long she was curled up under the trees until a loud crack splintered the skies.
She sat up and stumbled to her feet as the wall around their village shattered in the distance. A gasp clogged in her throat as she stared at a pair of red eyes peering over the wall. Thick fingers grasped the wall and crumbled it to pieces like it was bread.
Leela knew it wasn’t a furybeast, or a drakion, or even a gullomer.
It was a lustisha. A thing of myth.
But it wasn’t.
Clay hit the earth.
People scrambled and screamed.
Candle lights flickered on, and weapons blazed in the skies.
Then the drakion attacked, climbing over the wreckage and sinking their teeth into flesh.
Leela’s heart pounded in her ears like thrashing waves. She gathered her skirts and ran. Ran despite her heartbreak. Ran despite it all. She needed to get to her family before the drakion killed them.
People took to the streets with weapons, trying to cut the drakion down.
Leela ran by a hut where a man attacked a drakion, cleaving it in two.
But it wasn’t enough. Her village weren’t fighters.
They were farmers. His sword was useless against the drakion, and soon another one cut him down, two more jumped on him and tore into his flesh.
Leela refused to vomit. She ran harder toward her family’s hut on the other side of the village. Smoke choked the air. Flames lit brighter and brighter.
The lustisha bellowed through the village, feet smashing against roofs, and it continued to look as if searching for something.
But Leela didn’t focus on the looming giant. She needed to get to her family.
Her heart slammed against her ribcage as she reached her hut. Smoke wafted from underneath the door. She skidded to a stop as flames ate the walls, spreading from the windows in a fiery, thundering blaze.
No…
Leela refused to believe her family was inside. She grabbed the doorknob and instantly screamed in pain. The skin on her palm burned and bubbled, and she swore. Pain shot up her arm and tears stung her eyes.
“MOTHER!” she called. “FATHER! DIYA! ANIKA!”
She screamed over the raging inferno. But there was no way her family would survive the flames, and Leela sank into the ground. She slammed her fist against the sand and screamed as loud as the fire. Loud enough her entire body hurt.
Why wasn’t she in there? Burning along with her family?
A small thought passed, enough to draw her out of her raging emotions. Perhaps they weren’t inside at all. Maybe her brain was scrambled from the scenes of today, and she wasn’t thinking straight.
Without a second to waste, Leela shot to her feet and ran.
She looked around the hut. Through the small scattering of forest around the village.
She ran, screaming for her mother, father, and sisters.
She looked everywhere, trying to evade the drakion in the village.
Surely Anika had run. She was smart enough to, right?
Right…?
She stopped at the top of the dune and froze. Staring through the light of the flames burning down her village, she looked at a body slumped against the ground. She knew his frame without needing to question it even as the light refused to touch him.
“Rajesh!” she cried.
Despite everything, she ran to him. Her legs buckled under the height of the dune, and her feet were unable to catch her in the sand. She reached Rajesh’s side moments later. She pushed him over, trying to assess his injuries.
His lips were parted, a bloody streak across his forehead staining his dark curls.
Leela pressed her ear to his chest, trying to find the familiar beat she knew better than her own.
Nothing.
“No…. No… NO!”
She screamed.
And screamed.
And screamed.
Until the ship from the palace descended and took her on board. She barely registered the village now strewn with drakion and human bodies. She barely noticed the ship taking her away.
She barely registered someone shaking her awake.
“Leela!”
Leela’s eyes snapped open. She stared into a pair of dark brown eyes. A thick layer of sweat coated her skin and stuck her hair to her forehead. She brushed it aside to see who was sitting across from her.
Her stomach rolled.
“Are you okay?” Rajesh asked.
Leela stroked her collarbone, a method that calmed her when she had cruel nightmares. She focused on him, wondering what he was doing in her room.
Rajesh wore a red shirt covered in dust and a pair of black pants tied at the waist. A look of concern, and what she could only say was fear, lingered in his gaze.
She gritted her teeth. “What do you want?”
Rajesh inched back. “I heard you screaming. I came to help you.”
“Help me?” she scoffed. The dream still lingered on her mind, and heartache blossomed, ripping open old wounds. She didn’t want his help when the dream was still so raw. “I don’t… I don’t need or want help. Especially from you.”
Rajesh flinched but sat back against the wall. He drew his knees high and swept a hand through his curls. “I understand.”
“Do you?” she snapped.