Chapter 38 The Ruined City of Danavas #3
Chandra watched Makhadeva, who was absorbed in making sure his spell worked, paying her no attention. It was useless to plead with him anymore for help.
She thought back to the yaksha’s words about how to break the curse. That would happen only if Veer showed he had any humanity left in him. Humanity? Pity? Empathy for others?
Why would Veer choose to give importance to those feelings, when in his eyes, he was just killing animals? He needed to have a personal connection to show those human emotions.
Chandra stepped away from Makhadeva. What she was about to do was foolhardy in the extreme. If Veer were here, he would skin her alive for even contemplating her next action.
But what choice did she have? If she waited any longer, Veer would end up dead.
Chandra crept cautiously, keeping an eye on Makhadeva, who was too focused on the unfolding action to pay her any attention, before breaking into a run. Toward the prison cube. Toward Veer. Who had stopped investigating the cube and was looking in her direction.
She unsheathed her twin daggers as she ran, ignoring Makhadeva’s shout behind her to stop. Vaulting over one of the rods that was in her way, she came face-to-face with Veer.
Her invisibility helped her. Even if the beast sensed her presence, it was unable to anticipate her actions.
Chandra bent past his outstretched arm, turned, and swiped across his open wrist. She moved again, before he was able to reach for her with his other arm, then appeared on his other side, where she struck her knife into his kidney.
She kept turning and swiping across whatever vital parts she could reach. Killing him wasn’t her goal, but she did want him incapacitated enough that the yaksha would stop his imminent imprisonment.
Already the rods of the cube prison had stopped their advancement, hovering in the air, an incomplete open structure, as if waiting for Makhadeva’s command.
The beast-Veer’s roars were becoming more painful.
His rage increased, and he windmilled his arms, trying to catch her invisible form.
Unfortunately, one of his arms stuck her across the midriff and sent her sprawling to the ground.
Before she could get up, he was on her and Chandra realized with a sense of dismay that she was now visible.
The invisibility spell seemed to have lasted only while she was untouched.
The beast grabbed her by the hair and slammed her to the ground repeatedly. Her nose cracked. Blood leaked from her scalp in a thin trickle into her eye, blinding her. She squinted it shut.
He flipped her over and reached for her throat. The knee he placed on her torso pinned her to the ground, causing so much pressure, she was hardly able draw in a breath.
The beast’s hands started squeezing her throat. Her lungs seized from the lack of air. Stars danced before her eyes, big black patches of nothingness encroaching on her vision.
How the hell was he even moving? She had sliced through most of his important joint tendons, and it didn’t seem to even faze him.
She gave up trying to dislodge his hands and blindly groped about for something useful to use against him.
“Veer, remember,” she choked out. Her hands closed on something in her hair, sharp and deadly. “Your promise.”
She thought she saw some glimmer of recognition in those beastly eyes. The fingers around her throat loosened. Horror slowly replaced the bestial expression on his face.
“Run,” he mouthed.
Sensing his weakness, she plunged the poisoned hairpin she had commissioned herself, straight into his neck, down to its blunt, ornamental edge. Laced with a strong sleeping draught, it was enough to knock a grown man to instant sleep.
A loud growl erupted from the beast’s throat. He took his hands off her, to scratch at his neck. One of his arms struck her in the scramble, knocking her a few feet, and Chandra hastily rolled away, coughing.
The beast stood up, his body weaving on unsteady legs. The poisoned hairpin was still embedded in his throat. The beast’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he crashed to the ground.
Chandra cataloged her injuries. Breath wheezed out of her lungs.
She likely had at least a couple of broken ribs, and her left knee was swollen to twice its size.
Her head hurt like someone had dropped a million-pound bag on top of her.
She tried to put a hand to her forehead to wipe away the blood and realized her arm wasn’t working. Her shoulder was dislocated.
She was in a lot of pain, and knew it was going to hurt even more soon, once the adrenaline high wore off and more injuries made themselves known.
But at least it was worth it. She had a momentary glance of Veer. The real person behind the beast-like persona. A split second where his human nature won and had told her to run. It meant the curse could be broken. Hopefully.
She watched with apprehension as a dark miasma rose from Veer’s massive form as it returned to normal human proportions. He looked unkempt with twigs and scratches on his body, but it was him.
Veer was back! Albeit unconscious.
Makhadeva came to stand beside her. Chandra opened her mouth to thank him, but a human moan from Veer made her look back at him. The lines of the grid began moving again, coalescing on him.
“What are you doing?” asked Chandra hoarsely. “You said you’d let him go.”
“I said no such thing. I merely told you the way to break the curse, but I didn’t say I’d let him go. He needs to still be punished for the damage he has done, the creatures he has killed.”
“But it wasn’t his fault. He was under the influence of the curse,” she cried hoarsely.
A scream caused the hair on her arms to rise. It sounded so inhumane and painful. Veer was awake and his eyes were bloodshot and wide with fear. He hunched over himself, trying to make himself small.
“He may be under the influence of the curse, Princess, but he brought with him someone who has no place in this dimension.” Disgust coated Makhadeva’s words.
“What are you talking about?”
She tried to get up and fell painfully when she lost her balance. Winded, she tried to crawl toward the grid but collapsed on the ground again. She tried to appeal to the yaksha again but found his visage smiling.
“You planned this to happen, didn’t you?” she asked, with a sudden burst of understanding. “You’re the one who made the ring go missing.”
Makhadeva didn’t deny it but held up his hand and she spotted Veer’s red ring, shining like a beacon amidst the buzzing bees.
“Why? Why do you hate him so much?”
“Because of who he was. In his past life. And because of who he has brought with him. Has he told you about that traitor, Ilavu?”
“Who’s this Ilavu? What does he have to do with my husband?”
“Ilavasura is a coward who fled his danava city to find refuge in the mountains instead of fighting to defend his home. And your husband is no different. Ask him why he went looking for Ilavu in the first place. The curse I gave, was for the both of them. I removed Veer’s humanity, just as I removed what it means to be a danava for Ilavu, so they both are reduced to their base natures. ”
“But if your problem is with this Ilavu person, then stop hurting Veer. Please. I beg you. He has fulfilled your requirement.”
Makhadeva paid no attention to her pleading, his focus entirely on moving and completing the prison. Veer’s screams had faded to whimpers.
Desperation made her throw her daggers at Makhadeva, but they thumped harmlessly on the ground, the swarm of bees re-forming. The yaksha was invincible in his current form. She couldn’t harm him.
She wanted to use her arrows, but the warning the yaksha had given her earlier—about not using magic from the outside world—stopped her. Despite the way he had behaved so far, Chandra didn’t think he was lying about that.
And she didn’t want to test it and be struck with a curse like Veer had been, while he killed her husband at his leisure.
Veer had stopped moving in the almost complete prison. He appeared to have lost consciousness.
An anger born of helplessness and defeat filled her. Her head pounded as an insistent pressure built inside her. The rudraksha bracelet grew warm on her wrist. She felt lightheaded and spots danced across her vision. She was going to faint, she realized helplessly.
As if hearing her unvoiced call for aid, she saw a ribbon undulating in the air, transparent, colorless, and somehow, she knew, made of pure power.
It moved through the air, slow and sedate, until it merged into her right eye.
The numerous aches and pains receded to the background as she felt a familiar but ancient strength fill her.
The world steadied. She felt and saw everything around her through a filter, as if it were happening to somebody else.
The bird on Makhadeva’s shoulder dug its talons into the mass of his form, but the yaksha still appeared to feel this silent communication and turned his head toward the bird.
Who had its human eyes trained on the sky above them.
Chandra glanced up as well and was dimly surprised to see a star blinking to life at the edge of the horizon. Another flared a distance away, and another until they seemed to form a circle in the sky.
Is that…a wheel? she thought, and squinted up at the sky.
“Princess, stop.” The alarm in Makhadeva’s voice barely penetrated through to her.
“No.” Chandra’s voice emerged sonorous and otherworldly from her throat. She felt light and invincible, as if drunk on something.
The yaksha strode toward her and carefully touched her arm. “Please, Princess, you need to get out of this place.” He waved his other hand, and the glowing grid vanished. Veer’s unconscious form fell to the ground with a crash, jarring her thoughts.
Clarity returned and her shocked gaze returned to Veer’s body. For a moment, a very brief moment, she had forgotten her husband, forgotten everything, relishing whatever it was that gave her such pure, unadulterated power. She wanted to smite everything and everyone around her.
With the realization of her surroundings, the nascent power building up inside her drained away, like mist dissolving before sunlight.
“I don’t underst…”
She suddenly fell to the ground, her head ringing with a splitting headache. Like the sound of rushing rain, multiple echoes filled her ears. Ghostly cries of men and beasts fleeing from doom.
She felt the crushing weight of a centuries-long regret in her soul. Flashes of events she had no recollection of, flickered behind her eyes—of battles, slaughter and death. Her breath grew short, trying to stave off an encroaching dread of searing grief.
The rational part of her brain understood that she wasn't supposed to feel this way. That it was an overreaction to whatever had just happened.
Tears sprung unbidden in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. A scream was building in her throat and her hands went to her temples.
“Make it stop. Please. Make it stop.” Her voice came out scratchy and raw. Chandra looked up at the yaksha who came to stand beside her, feeling lost.
“Chandrasena,” said the yaksha, offering her a hand. The pronunciation of her name centered her in a way nothing could have.
“I’m sorry, Princess.” Chandra couldn't be sure; it was difficult to think past the chaos in her head, but she thought he sounded sad and haunted.
“This is all my fault. But you should leave this place. Immediately.” He got a hand under her elbow and then said, almost under his breath, dragging her away, “You have a little too much of her in you.”
“Why? Who’s her?” She whimpered in pain. “Who am I?”
Makhadeva ignored her question. “There is a reason people’s past lives are sealed off from memory, Princess. I’d be doing you no favors telling you about yours.” The yaksha extended a finger toward her. “If you wish I can help you forget all this.”
“Wait!” Her very bones hurt, and she wanted to lie down for a very long nap.
Whatever curiosity she might’ve had about the past, paled beside the thought of not experiencing whatever she was going through right now.
But she needed something from the yaksha.
“I...I need some assurance that you are going to leave my husband alone.”
“I give you my word as a yaksha, your husband will not be harmed any further. Now please let me help you.”
Chandra managed a nod, then felt the feather-light brush of bees against her forehead. A blessed relief invaded her as the voices and memories cut off.
The last thing she remembered, as her eyes rolled to the back of her head, were the stars that faded away slowly into the black sky. And then she remembered no more.