Page 75 of The Legend of Meneka
“She knows,” Rambha answers. “She has not objected. She understands Indra and his desires.”
I think of the queen. Proud, beautiful, kind. A goddess who raised the apsara girls in her own grove, bearing gifts and sweetmeats for the little ones, sitting among the flowers, encouraging our dance. I recall her fury in the throne room, and how she challenged Indra. I cannot reconcile the image of that devi with what Rambha is saying to me. Would Shachi truly not care about Rambha with her own husband? Rambha was never part of Shachi’s grove. If Rambha were truly born during the Churning of the Oceans, then she is as old as Shachi herself. Yet Indra is known as Shachindra.Shachi’sIndra. Whether the queen understands Indra’s desires or not, she is possessive of the lord.
Rambha reads my mind, and her smile is resigned. “Do not confuse faith with monogamy, Meneka,” she says softly. “Monogamy is the invention of mortals. I have seen it come and go. I am not the lord’s only lover, and the queen has her own harem. But I am a free agent, and my heart is to do with as I wish. Just because I love Indra, it does not mean I cannot love someone else. And what I feel for you—”
“Whatdoyou feel for me?” I interrupt, finally asking a question that has hovered between us from the beginning. “That kiss, and everything you have asked me to say or do for this mission … has it been for the lord? Or has it been for me?”
“It has been for both of you,” Rambha says, though her face falls. “My love for the two of you is not different, Meneka. The lord will not want me here, but even if he wins it and destroys Kaushika, this warwill only weaken him further. It will be a mistake Indra might never recover from, to kill a sage devoted to Shiva. Tell me,” she says, and a cold edge enters her soft voice. “Why doyoudo this? Why didyoumake the choices you did during your mission?”
I pull away from her. Yet I cannot deny that the very same questions I have asked of her, Kaushika has asked of me. I understand her explanation, but pain still lances through me, cutting me fresh. Is this what Kaushika felt with my betrayal? With my explanation?
“Indra exiled me from Amaravati,” I say quietly. “He took everything from me when he did so, unwilling to hear me out, and maybe that is what devotion is, the fact that I cannot help but still retain a measure of love and loyalty towards him, no matter his actions. But I do not forget what he did, Rambha. I do not forgive. I can balance both these emotions in me—just like Shiva holds both poison and freedom within himself. Do you understand what I am saying?”
She is silent for a very long while. Under the moonlight, her cheeks look pale. I wonder if she has ever been rejected.
“I understand,” she says finally, and her voice is emotionless. “But if it is your objective to stop this war, then you need me.”
A breeze ruffles my hair, heavy with the scent of storm. My mind swims with everything she has told me.
I shake myself. “Then help us in any way you can,” I say. “The others are waiting, and we don’t have time.”
I leave without checking to see if she follows.
IRETURN TO A CLEARING OVERFLOWING WITH MAGIC.
Rambha and I were not away long, but already the mortals and Nanda are working together, albeit begrudgingly. Anirudh’s rune of accord glitters with Amaravati’s gold dust as Nanda spins a lazy circle around it. They push it out together, and it rises, enlarging, into thedusky sky above us, similar to how I once created a rune over the hermitage. I imagine it shielding the forest.
The braided magic works on me as well, almost as soon as I arrive. My muscles relax, and my head empties of its confusing thoughts. I join Nanda, and we mold illusions of Amaravati, its delicate sculptures that peek through the trees, its arches reaching over the clouds. The mortals clear the woods, and we fashion it to resemble Indra’s own personal garden.Do not war here, I add silently, a prayer to the lord of heaven.This realm is not so different from the one you love.
My request to an invisible Indra is simple, but when I think of a mirror one for Kaushika, the peace I’ve acquired grows unsteady. What can I say that will convince him? I know his reasons for battle, and I have not been able to persuade him yet. Even his closest counselors have failed in this, as have his teachers from the Mahasabha. His dimpled smile flashes in my eyes. The heat and camphor of his aura. The softness of his skin. The kindness that fills his heart. I cannot bear it, the thought that he could be destroyed soon.
We stop to rest when the rain has completely let up, and the moon is high. My mortal allies settle around the fire in their bedrolls. Rambha and Nanda, of course, do not need to sleep as celestials. The two disappear into the woods, murmuring in low voices.
I lie on the ground beside Kalyani and Eka as the night climbs. Magic shimmers around us, in dimly lit illusory lanterns on trees, and runes that flicker just out of sight. A low hum of mantras circles us, providing a soothing cadence, and the fresh scent of petrichor sings in my heart. The mortals fall asleep almost instantly, but I lie awake, thinking. Only a few hours ago, Shiva was speaking to me in this clearing. Only a few hours ago these people were ready to attack one another. We are peaceful now, but what will the morning bring? Could I change Indra’s and Kaushika’s minds the way I changed the minds of these people here? I cradle my head in my hands, while Istare up at the star-studded sky. I imagine myself back in Amaravati, but I do not know if I will find relief there, not unless my friends and I succeed at what we intend tomorrow.
I should rest, yet all of Amaravati’s magic around me keeps me alert. Rambha’s laughter through the trees heats my cheeks. She and Nanda are comforting each other in the way apsaras often do. The celestials are not loud, and my mortal friends sleep deeply, undisturbed, but of course, they would not have a celestial’s sensitivity to such pleasures. Unlike the mortals, we are made for song and dance and love. I can hear the two women release their fear and worry, the slight pants, the playful tones. Yet there is no one here who can help relieve me.
My hands twitch, and I rest them lightly on my belly. My eyes fill with stars, but all I see is Kaushika and the night we spent together. The length of him. The rosewood scent of his skin. The way he would move me just so, for the satisfaction he could give me. The way he would demand his own pleasure, rough and gentle and breathless. My breathing turns shallow, and my eyes start to close, drifting, drifting, so easy to forget that he might never forgive me—
“Meneka? Are you awake?”
I snatch my hands away from my belly.
I open my eyes to see a shadowy shape sitting up across the fire where the other yogis are. “Yes,” I reply, my voice a croak. “I’m awake, Romasha.”
She wriggles out of her bedroll. Her shadow moves, then she sits beside me, staring into the fire. She throws a few twigs in, biting her lip.
“You are worried,” I say, sitting up too.
“I don’t like this waiting. I hated it even when Kaushika was making allhispreparation. Before Kalyani convinced Anirudh and me that we needed to find you.”
“We’ve done all we can,” I say. “This will work.”It has to.
She does not reply, but her posture grows more tense. She isuncomfortable about something unrelated, wanting to unburden herself to me. I wonder if she is about to declare her love for me too, like Kaushika once did, and then Rambha. It is such a ridiculous thought that I smile to myself in the darkness.
“Meneka,” she blurts out, “he was distraught.”
It takes me a second to understand.
