Chapter 1 An Ancient Tale of Betrayal #2
The devas ran, but they were halted by an invisible barrier at the edge of the circular hall, unable to get past the reach of the wheel. They cried out as all but Dhanu were enveloped in flames.
“If you are going to lay all the sins of my race at my feet, then I must designate myself as their representative and deliver judgment for all the wrongs done to them,” she said, her voice amplified by power.
Blue bled into her skin as she assumed her true danava form.
Fangs, but also tusks erupted from her mouth, a perk of being royalty.
Her ivory horns grew rapidly and black tipped her claws, not an extension of her nails but fingers.
With the power came a curious sort of numbness. There was no pain, no reasoning, no happiness, only a complete lack of feeling that felt like relief after all the suffering. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—turn away from the path she had chosen anymore.
Cracks appeared on the wheel embedded in the ceiling as it finally crumbled to dust. Power enveloped Ara, becoming visible in her left eye, which blazed with an unearthly light.
The walls rumbled as pressure in the chamber built.
The rest of the ceiling was blown away with a great, wrenching sound, opening the chamber to the twilight sky.
* * *
A faint moon and stars were already visible in the darkening sky. Right above their location, several new stars winked into existence, brighter than any other object in the sky.
Dhanu realized suddenly these stars would form a perfect circle when connected.
“Ara, stop. What’re you doing?” shouted Dhanu, panicked, his words stumbling in haste. “You’ll destroy everyone if you activate that weapon. Not just us, but all living creatures of this forest. Stupala will no longer exist. If revenge is what you want, just kill me.”
He knew she couldn’t hear him, being so lost in the power. The wheel in the circular hall had been but a facsimile of the even more powerful weapon hidden in the sky.
The celestial wheel was a dark secret, a powerful weapon rumored to be hidden in Stupala.
So destructive was its potential, that its use needed power and permission from every member of the danava royal family.
He had no idea what Ara was doing was even possible.
With no one else left in her family to bear the burden, she must have become the sole operator of the massive weapon in the sky.
The starry dots connected in a circle and sent spokes to the center, completing a wheel and no sooner had it formed, it started rotating, its creak sounding like thunder. Slowly at first and then building up speed.
“You’ll die, too, Ara!” Dhanu screamed as gusts of air swirled around him.
“That eye you lost had the immunity to protect you from your own magic. Ara!” The irony wasn’t lost on him—he was ready to see her die just a few moments ago.
The most mercy he had thought to give her, when he began the end to this thankless mission, was a quick, painless death at his hands, hopeful that his brethren would let him be the one to deliver it.
In rarer moments of optimism, he had been able to fool himself into imagining she could live.
But now she took the choice out of his hands entirely, deciding to go in one of the most painful ways known to their kind, condemning herself to a blight that lasted beyond death.
She scrunched her eyes, agony twisting her face, from the massive influx of power. Her skin split in long gouges.
The rest of the walls collapsed, leaving the chamber completely exposed, as the burned corpses of the devas scattered in the heavy wind.
Dhanu summoned a shield to protect himself and the danava child he had hoisted up safely in his arms. He touched the feather she had given him as a keepsake, a sign of her love that he wore on a thread around his neck.
One that shielded him from the influence of her powers.
It was the only reason he was still alive, and he felt a fraud wearing it, but was too hardheaded to remove.
Wind rose in a tempest, and the trees uprooted under its intensity. The forest boiled, as creatures tried to escape the fury in the sky. He heard the panicked yells of beasts, men, devas and danavas alike, as they realized their impending doom.
The wheel was now a super-bright discus glowing in the sky. Its whirling edge had a blue-white hue. Ara was no longer visible in the intense flash as it prepared to discharge its deadly force. There was no stopping it now. This was the end.
With a heavy heart, the deva cast one final glance back.
Despite his initial deception, his love for Ara had been genuine.
Yet, his unwavering allegiance to his cause compelled him to see the mission through to its bitter conclusion.
He knew this would remain his most poignant regret, but the good of all races had seemed more important.
Or so he thought, until he saw his own brethren behave with the same brutality that they accused the danavas of.
He walked away, wanting to hide the child from witnessing the carnage taking place.
* * *
Dhanu walked alone in the decimated forest. The aftermath of the weapon discharge was worse than what he had expected.
Nothing had been spared, no living creature seemed to have survived.
The ground itself didn’t escape unscathed.
The grass burned to a crisp, sending puffs of ash into the air as he walked.
A hillock lay smashed to a pile of rubble.
A small brook, which used to be here, had evaporated in the intense heat.
He kept expecting to see the remains of the dead. But nothing, not even a severed hand or torso, seemed to have survived.
The sky was dark with no moon or stars in it.
A kala-rathri. He walked in the dark night, looking for a sign of life, knowing it was a vain hope.
He had hardened his heart against what he would see before coming, but still the weight of regret sat heavy, almost too large to be contained by his physical form.
This was not what he had intended. How he wished he could go back in time and undo the damage. But that was impossible.
And then off in the distance, something moved. He ran toward it.
He thought he was the first one, the only one to venture into the forest this soon after the explosion, but he saw a small human girl.
She stood with her feet planted apart. Anger and disappointment swirled on her face.
Her eyes flickered, switching from human to divine, reflecting the breadth of the cosmos.
And yet, a bottomless sadness lingered in those unnerving, magnetic eyes.
And at her feet, against all odds, was Ara. Her body was a charred mess. Her one remaining eye still had the faint light of the power. He realized it was keeping her body alive, even though there was no way she could live.
He crouched beside her and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Ara.”
A white tear leaked out of the blind gray eye, its eyelid burned away. She raised her hands in salutation to the girl, who stood looking down at them.
“Curse me, Mother,” whispered Ara. “I have committed a sin for which there can be no forgiveness, even in your generous heart.”
Dhanu joined his hands in prayer as well.
“My children!” said the goddess, in the guise of a human girl, who was equally revered and worshipped by the warring clans.
The level of destruction unleashed must have forced her to pay a visit to this realm, when the immortal beings only saw her rarely.
She spread her hands helplessly to indicate the destruction all around. “Why?”
“I was blinded by rage and my prejudice. I lost my way, Mother. I forgot to listen to your voice. I activated the weapon to kill everyone.”
The deva slipped his hand into Ara’s. “We both are guilty.”
Ara turned her face to him, and Dhanu understood her unspoken question.
There was a time when they didn’t need to speak to understand each other.
Regret burned in his heart for happier times.
“I know you’ve no reason to believe me, but your nephew is safe.
And I…I didn’t mean for it to get this far. ”
Ara nodded once, but Dhanu didn’t know if she forgave him. If she would ever forgive him.
“I’d like to have a share in her punishment,” he said quietly.
“You didn’t do this. This is on me,” Ara murmured weakly. She was fading.
“I had the chance to turn back when I knew in my heart I was doing the wrong thing. But I didn’t,” he said stubbornly.
“Do you realize what you’re asking for?” The goddess looked stern. “Having a share in her punishment will be a heavy burden to bear. You’ll have to forsake your immortality and die with her. There won’t be any going back.”
Dhanu bowed his head as he thought back to the first time he saw the serene beauty of Stupala, the warmth of the people here who accepted him, almost as if he were family. Of Ara and her trust. And her love. He had thrown all of that away as if it didn't matter. And for what?
Instead of making the situation better, he had destroyed any hope of peace.
“To live when she is gone…” Dhanu stopped and shook his head, too overcome with loss to speak. He took a deep breath, controlling himself. “I’m sure,” he said, resolute.
The goddess glanced at their linked hands and her eyes softened. A trace of sympathy joined the sadness and the anger lingering in her eyes. She seemed to think over Dhanu’s request.
“People have been praying to me for centuries, but in all my existence, requests like yours are rare to come by, even rarer to see someone mean it,” she said finally.
“As you wish, then,” she said, her voice stronger.
“This is my curse to you. You shall both be reborn time and again. In each incarnation, you will find each other, and you will be given the chance to mend the harm wrought in this life. But you will accomplish this only when you have overcome odds and reconcile the misunderstandings between yourselves. And until then, there won’t be peace for either of you. ”
She extended a hand toward Dhanu, palm down, as if bestowing a blessing.
A mere brush of her hand over his hair and he felt as if he were being electrocuted.
The pain, at once all-encompassing, invaded every part of his being.
His hair glinted silver, then turned ivory as life siphoned off him into the goddess’s palm where it gathered into a soft ball of light, only to disappear a moment later.
Dhanu fell dead at her feet, his withered hand still entwined with the charred one of his dead lover.
* * *
The story of Ara and Dhanu was but one chapter in the long history of these supernatural beings.
Thousands of years passed. Saptavarsha flourished under the rule of man.
Both the deva and the danava clans disappeared for reasons unknown, and with their passing went most of their unique magic and knowledge.
But some of their more singular constructs remained, rumored to be functioning still…