18. Rajesh
RAJESH
The wait was agonizing. Leela continued to breathe, gentle at times and ragged at others, like someone had grabbed her lungs and was shaking them.
Each rattling breath of hers was torture. A constant reminder that it was his fault.
His healers were able to patch her wound and clean the blood from her hair, but her skin was still pale, her eyes still shut, and it tore at his heart.
Rajesh bit his lip, turning toward the window to keep his emotions in check.
He couldn’t let another lustisha free, not after the last one destroyed everything he held dear.
To focus on something—anything—else, he grabbed the cloth in the water bucket beside her head. He wiped over the tiny silver marks cut across her body, and noticed the cut across her right arm, another twisted reminder of what he had done.
If only he told her. But his mother had been very stern in how he approached Leela, telling him from an early age to guard his heart.
He hadn’t known what she meant when he was five, or seven, or even eleven.
Growing up alongside Leela, all he’d cared about was waking up, seeing her, and running through the fields like nothing mattered.
Like the giant wall around their town wasn’t even there, and the monsters didn’t ravage the world.
Until his family finally sat him down and told him about the curse.
Until they laid it all out, bit by bit, statement by statement, saying how heartbreak created the worst monsters.
His life then flashed before his eyes, his heart already wounded upon learning his father was dying from a mysterious illness.
Before the attack, he’d gone to find Leela after pondering the news for hours. He had to tell her. Had to let her know that whatever happened, he still loved her, but he never could love her. Not if it would form monsters.
Had he known what would happen hours later, he never would’ve told her. He would’ve kept up the lie and tried to love her while keeping his distance. Would have lied… about loving her…
No. That was worse.
Leela stirred and groaned.
Every muscle in Rajesh tensed, watching and waiting for what was to come next. He picked at his nails, anticipation on the edge of his trembling tongue.
You know you can’t do it, the Scorpion warned.
What?
Love her. The curse is pretty simple.
The curse can fuck off.
Do you want to create more lustishas?
Of course not!
Don’t do this then, Rajesh. Protect her.
Why? Why should I? I get one life, and I get to live it like this? To never love someone? To never touch the one person I want to, ever again?
That is the way.
I don’t give a shit. He took a deep breath before saying, I will help you enact your revenge. Just… just take me to the wish-fulfilling tree, and I will do whatever you ask.
The Scorpion snipped its pinchers in delight, and Rajesh knew he’d regret his decision.
But right now, all he felt was rage and anger for his unfortunate circumstances—all he had was the Scorpion to fall back on.
What other choice did he have? Leela was one of the only good things he had left in this despicable world, and knowing she was alive made something blossom within.
It made him feel like he finally had purpose again.
Rajesh clenched his hands. He couldn’t control it this time. Anger swept through him—hot, burning everything in its wake like flame on dry grass. It rode his spine, hitting each vertebra and knocking the wind out of him.
He jerked over, pain running up and down his body. He knew what was going to happen before it did. Dark lines and white dots spun in his vision, and Rajesh was pulled into the sandstorm.
The harrowing nightmare of that night echoed within his head.
Bones snapped.
Muscles tweaked.
Blood pumped.
The sandstorm drowned out his scream.
The furybeast formed. Blood, muscle, organs, tendons, veins—everything swirled together in the tunnel of the sandstorm.
Knitting together like it knew where to go.
The tiny, spindly, white creature with two piercing black eyes formed before his eyes.
Two sets of claws stretched from its abdomen, forming into tiny pinchers, and its back legs clicked and clacked as it hit the earth.
A long, oval head stared him in the face, and the pinchers at the end of the tail curled into a poisonous tip.
He smashed back into his body.
It was too late.
The furybeast was born.
Rajesh rolled over, clutching his head. Begging for it to stop.
The process was never easy. It left him breathless and unable to control anything, and that was the worst part of the curse—feeling every monster born in the depths of the sandstorm.
But the drakion were the quicker of the storm-churning monsters, not too painful, like a dull stomach-ache or pins and needles in his hands.
It was why he laughed and faked a smile. To not stay in the dark depths of his mind or let the bigger emotions through. But how could he? When his emotions were what made him?
Into the monsters.
Into a monster.
The storm subsided, sucking all the anger from him and leaving him feeling numb.
“Rajesh?” Leela mumbled.
Rajesh jerked up to his feet, his chair clattering against the ground. He leaned over Leela, hands hovering over her as she mumbled and came out of slumber. She rolled over to meet his eyes, and he let out a heavy sigh of relief.
“Thank the Flames,” he said, hand on his chest. He hated the saying because it meant jackshit, but it was the only thing he could think of right now. “You’re alive.”
Leela groaned and shuffled into a sitting position.
“Gentle,” Rajesh said, nudging her back down. “You aren’t strong enough to stand, yet.”
Leela lay back down, clearly too tired to argue. Instead, she glanced around, soaking in the scenery before meeting his eyes once more.
His chest twisted. He should’ve protected her.
“I was attacked…” Leela said, more statement than question.
Rajesh nodded. “Yes. You took a blow to the abdomen, but you’re all stitched up and the skin should heal over time.”
Leela craned down her head to look at her stomach. Her fingers faltered over the slightly swollen skin, still red and tender from the stitches.
He had only let his best healer near her. Their remedies had saved numerous lives, even pulling some back from the doors of death. They might have had to travel thousands of miles to get the herbs and ingredients, but whatever they did, they did it well.
“It feels… weird,” Leela whispered. “Wow, my first battle wound.”
A smile crept over his lips. “Yeah, it will for a little. But use the appropriate ointments and it will heal in no time. I swear it.”
“You swear it, do you?” Leela teased.
“I do,” Rajesh said. He swallowed and sat down on the chair, still clutching at his chest from the furybeast.
He had to tell Leela his plans. The Scorpion would find the wish-fulfilling tree, and Rajesh would do whatever he needed to do to kill the Viperess—as long as Leela didn’t get hurt in the process, because he couldn’t handle it anymore.
Rajesh grabbed and squeezed Leela’s icy fingers, working up his courage to speak. He braced himself for her to move away.
But Leela didn’t move and only steadied her gaze on his.
Rajesh wet his lips. “I have made a bargain with the Scorpion to find the wish-fulfilling tree. I said I’ll do whatever I can to save you and get the Viperess out of you, and the Scorpion out of me.
Because Leela… that attack was torture, and I can’t do it anymore.
I would rather fear losing you than fear never loving you. ”
Leela held herself incredibly still, unblinking.
Rajesh didn’t care if she didn’t respond. All he cared about was that he was going to try, and Leela was worth every sacrifice. He should’ve known it sooner, but the fear of creating more monsters had stopped him. The fear of no escape. The fear of the curse. The fear of the Flames.
Fuck the curse. Fuck the Flames. Fuck it all.
Rajesh was done hiding. He was ready to stand and fight.
“Okay,” Leela said. “What does that mean then?”
“We will head to the wish-fulfilling tree,” Rajesh said. “Which also means I have to alert my crew and give them the chance to go back home. I wouldn’t want to force this on them. They should get a choice. As should you.”
Leela nodded stiffly. “I will do whatever I can.”
Rajesh pushed aside a loose curl by her face, and he grinned at the way she shivered. “I hate this distance between us. I can’t stand it. Knowing you’re there… I can’t let you go. I will do whatever I can to protect you. You know that.”
“I do.”
Rajesh nodded. “Then we find the wish-fulfilling tree and head home.”
Leela squeezed his hand back. “I am with you. Always. Through the flames of the Awakening and the Netherworld.”
Rajesh smirked, the words of their marital vows ringing through his mind. “Through the flames of the Awakening and the Netherworld.”
He grabbed her hand and planted a tender kiss on her knuckles. He lingered longer than he intended, but there wasn’t the obvious awkward distance between them like before, and all he wanted was to pull her in and kiss her. Instead, he held back.
“I’ll be back. I need to alert the crew.”
Leela nodded.
Rajesh forced himself to leave, taking his hand out of hers to do what a good captain should. His crew were his family and his home too. They deserved to know the dangers they were getting into.
Rajesh stared at the maps across the table. The three desert kingdoms spread out over the parchment, each one staring back at him in fine lines, jagged mountains and rocks, and dunes.
Do you have a way yet?
I do.
And…?
You won’t like the destination.
Did I ever say I liked anything about this to begin with?
Fair. You will need to head into Kithium territory. Toward the Whispering Mountain where the monsters lie.
Rajesh groaned. He drifted a finger toward the mountain peaks nearing the ocean line of Kithium.