Page 76 of The Legend of Meneka
Kaushika.
My heart begins to race. I want to ask a hundred questions, but my tongue is heavy in my mouth. I swallow.
“I have never seen him like this,” she continues. “You have changed him.”
My eyes close. Romasha’s words are a balm to my soul, but I cannot accept them. Kaushika’s face flashes at me, the way I saw him last, cold and emotionless, repulsed by me.
“He loves you,” she says, her voice quiet.
“You don’t know that,” I whisper, tears pressing at the back of my eyes. I shake my head, wanting to change the subject, but Romasha looks into the fire, and her voice hardens.
“Idoknow that,” she says vehemently. “I knowhim. He returned to us weeping after he left you. Oh, he blustered and raged while telling us what had occurred between you two. Criticized you and himself and all the betrayals. But you and I both know he is too strong to simply be seduced by a celestial. He was never as innocent of the seduction as he claims to be. He suspected you were lying from the very start; he even asked Anirudh and me to watch you while he was away from the hermitage, to see if you exhibited any suspicious behavior, to see if you attempted to attack him in any way. He began warding his home after you arrived, and he told us to trap you if you were found inside so he may deal with you. He never confided why, never telling us he thought you were an apsara. It was too close to his own shameful act with Nanda, I suppose. But he tried to trick you as much as you didhim, and now he is in love with you, even if he is too blind to acknowledge it yet. The pain from what happened between you two … I believe this is what drove him to finally call his followers to arms.”
Embers of hurt, indignation, and anger spark in me, flashing too fast to keep track. Keeping them threaded is an animalistic thrill. That he was hunting me all the while I was hunting him. That he knew, he suspected, and yet here we are … I want to acknowledge everything Romasha has said, but it is too raw. I latch on to the easiest thing I can.
“So this war is my fault?” I say. “Kaushika is just like Indra, then. Neither of them wanting to take responsibility for their own actions. Neither of them—”
“Meneka,” Romasha interrupts, “he is in pain. This war is for you, not because of what you did, but because of what you were made to do.”
My anger melts away. I remember him saying,Your compulsion to obey is another thing Indra must answer for.“Why are you telling me all this?” I ask Romasha quietly.
She turns to me, surprised. “Do you not know? I thought it was obvious. I am telling you because I love him.”
I stare at her, and Romasha lets out a bitter laugh, turning back to the fire. “Do not mistake me,” she says. “I wish with every living breath that he would see me the way he sees you. But I am a yogi, wise enough to know what is simple desire and what is more. He lovesyou, not me. He does not even know I care for him in this way, but I do not need him to. When I look at Kaushika, I see Shiva. But he sees Shakti when he looks atyou. Who am I to stand in the path of his devotion?”
Words fail me. I open my mouth—to say what? Tell her I am sorry? That I understand it is unfair? Romasha does not need my explanation or my apologies. Suddenly, I feel small and humbled.
I say nothing for a long time.
Stars glimmer above, beginning to fade. In the east, the pale-pink flush of Surya’s first light colors the sky. Within the hermitage, they will be starting prayers. In Amaravati, the apsaras will be bathing, splashing water on one another.
“I have hurt him too much,” I say finally.
“Who among mortals or immortals does not hurt the ones they love?” Romasha says, shrugging. “Love is hurt. But it is forgiveness too.”
Her tone is indifferent, but this is wisdom. Indra would ask me to atone for my sins in order to gain forgiveness. Is this what Kaushika will want too? I open my mouth to ask Romasha, but she sits up abruptly, gazing behind me.
I turn toward the east to follow her line of sight.
Dawn comes faster than usual, flooding across the sky, the sun’s rays burning my skin in seconds. Romasha and I stand up. My heart begins to race. The other yogis from the hermitage awaken as though this is an alarm, and when I blink, Rambha and Nanda are there too, beside me. Everyone is grim, and we can all see it now—chariots appearing in the sky, drawn by the massive steeds of heaven.
Devas glitter on them, Surya with his brilliant light-rayed crown, and Vayu, lord of wind, around whom the very air shimmers. Agni, with orange fire sparking over his body, and Samudra, lord of river and ocean, who can command the tributary of the Alaknanda, which lies behind us.
On and on they come, a hundred devas both great and minor, and Lord Indra rides amidst them, the most magnificent of them all. Indra’s armor shines a brilliant silver, like the edges of a storm cloud, glinting with the combined power of all the gods he commands. His crown gleams so sharply that I can almost not tell it is made of thousands of tiny lightning bolts. Atop his armored war elephant, Airavat, Indra towers over all the lords, dark-gray clouds crackling inmalevolent thunderheads above him. Celestial magic sings to me, and I know the devas are accompanied by apsaras, gandharvas, danavas, and uragas—all of them denizens of Amaravati, and each a warrior in their own right.
Indra has brought his full army to this fight, though there are no devis with him, and Queen Shachi is absent too. The goddesses have been left behind to protect Amaravati, their power meant to shield the real jewel while the devas bring havoc to the sage.
Terror laces through my heart. Lightning flashes and thunder rumbles long and loud, thrumming painfully in my chest.
Next to me, Kalyani cries out and points. To the west, a ripple appears in the sky. My eyes widen as a portal cleaves the air, wider than any I’ve seen before. Through the tear, Kaushika’s army waits arrayed, and even from so far away, his aura shines as bright as Surya himself, a lone figure of light within the crowd. I cannot hear him sing, but he is certainly chanting. The army pours out onto the sky itself, sustained by Kaushika’s power alone.
The devas shine brighter, and a long, drawn-out roar of thunder covers the forest, making the earth shake. Indra stares at the rip in the air, toward Kaushika. Agni glints, fire igniting his entire body, a smile of relish on his face.
None of them have noticed us, but I wait no longer.
Uttering a chant myself, I levitate into the air.
Next to me, Rambha ascends as well, two figures flying before war breaks out. I glimpse the others of my alliance as they spin runes, mudras, and mantras. I sense Kaushika’s gaze as it flickers to me from a distance.
