Page 86 of The Legend of Meneka
She is quiet for a long moment. I think of what Rambha told me about Shachi and her questioning of Indra.
“We have been angry a long time,” Shachi says finally. “I think you are familiar with such anger towards the lord. Did you not feel it when you were sent for this mission?Idid, when I learned you had been manipulated into it. Oh, Indra tried to tell me youvolunteered,as though that should appease me, but I came for you to the mortal forest by Kaushika’s hermitage, only to learn I was too late. It was I who triggered the sage’s warding, though I did not intend to. I was unable to protect you, but you did well enough on your own, did you not?”
My eyes widen. I don’t know how to respond. Kaushika’s ward was triggered by one who meant to harm him or the hermitage. Is that Shachi’s intent? It is all I can do to keep my face still, to not show her how much this scares me.
“When Indra sent Nanda the first time, we were all unaware of Kaushika’s danger, hiscapability. When she did not return, I knew Indra had wasted her. He insisted on sending Magadhi and Sundari, but them I could keep safe. You, on the other hand …” Shachi reaches forward and lifts my chin. “I thought you lost, but you provided a fine opportunity.”
Her luscious lips curve into a smile. A chill goes down my spine.
“The halahala,” I cannot help whispering. “That was you.”
The goddess laughs, a rich, tinkling sound. “Surely you did not believe it was Indra? The lord is not capable of it, he has vowed not to touch it. He made the promise to Shiva. Indra is too much of a coward to break the promise.”
“But—but he is the only one who can access those vaults,” I stutter. “The stories—”
“Forget so often about us women, do they not?” Shachi says in a whisper. “Tell me, apsara. What is my name?”
I blink, not understanding, then my tongue flashes out to coat my suddenly dry mouth with moisture. Shachi, she is called, but also Indrani, the goddess whobelongswith Indra, who is apartof Indra, his other half, just like Shiva and Shakti are two halves of the same whole. If Indra can access the halahala, so can she. Why did the stories never sing of her? Why did even the gandharvas forget?
“Why?” I croak. “Why send such a poison to the hermitage?”
“Because I needed this battle to occur before the Vajrayudh,” Shachi replies, eyes glinting. “Because I needed Indra weakened and defeated if possible. Rambha told us of your questioning nature, and I understood that Kaushika’s hate for Indra is deep and enduring. All the sage needed was a push, but it would need to be a significant one. Sending halahala showed me not only Kaushika’s power, unrivaled by any other mortal in this realm, but also his ambition. It unspooled his own actions, forcing him to deny the other sages in the Mahasabha, in preparing his army for battle.” Shachi shrugs her lovely shoulders and strokes her thick, flower-filled braid carelessly. “Indra is not fit to rule swarga, and I have long sought someone more worthy. Who better than this sage who seeks to usurp the lord? Who better than a powerful being like Kaushika by my side, sharing my throne? I will still be married to Indra—to be together is our destiny. But perhaps this timehewill serve me and become my concubine, while I rule swarga.”
“Kaushika does not wish for heaven’s throne,” I whisper. “He will not want to take Indra’s place.”
“Does he not wish for the Goddess either?” Shachi says, amused. “You yourself taught him that wisdom, did you not? And who am I if not a part of divine Shakti herself?”
I see her power, her beauty, her ambition. My throat feels choked, filled with tears. I swallow, and it is a loud sound in the silence of the hut.
“Why are you telling me this?” I breathe.
“Indra has Rambha as his loyal servant, one who tells him everything about the apsaras. It is time I have my own agent too. And one who barely tolerates the lord, who has seduced Kaushika, even gotten him to fall in love with her?” Shachi’s smile is wide. She reaches forward to stroke my cheek with a glittering, bloodred nail. “Daughter. You belong to me.”
The implication is clear.
Herweapon. Not Indra’s.
Shachi lets go of my face. I feel her nail marks burn my skin. Dread pools in my belly, and I touch my cheeks but there is no scarring. She has left her markwithinme somehow, claiming me for her own.
The queen stands up, but leaves behind a package on the cot. Apsara raiment, glorious and magical—and upon it a celestial blade. It is carved and jagged, shaped like a lightning bolt. A weapon from heaven, perhaps from Indra’s own quiver. I tremble as I remember the manner in which the halahala released like a blade of lightning. Is this one tipped with poison too?
“The clothes are for when you return to heaven,” Shachi says. “And the blade should you need it before that. Indra sent you on a task to stop the sage from attacking him before the Vajrayudh. Your job now is toencouragehim to do so within that time. Only a few months remain, daughter. Do not fail me.”
A thousand questions bubble within me, but my tongue feels heavy. It doesn’t matter. A reply is not expected. With another sharp smile, Shachi and the two apsaras blink out and I am left alone. I gasp as though a weight has disappeared from my chest with the queen gone.
The clothes and jewelry shine at me from my cot, but it is the lightning shard I pick up as if hypnotized. It is powerful, but it is not tainted with halahala—I would sense it were it so. Still, it is as threatening to me as that poison.
Once it was Indra who commanded me, but now it is Shachi, and I dare not disobey her either.Shewas the one who sent halahala to Kaushika, something that could have ripped him from the cycle of rebirth altogether, all as a test of his mettle, of his worth by her side. Shachi had no way of knowing if Kaushika would survive it. He almost didn’t—it was only my magic that saved him. What if shefinds another way to harm him? The blade feels heavy in my hand, giving me the answers.
She wishes to rein Kaushika, the two of them together ruling heaven, but if I fail to obey her, she will kill Kaushika herself. She will either have him by her side or destroy him. Perhaps she will force me to destroy him with my own hand—in her own capriciousness and pride.
As for me … I have already made an enemy of Indra. If I make an enemy of Shachi too, I will never be able to return home, no matter who has the throne. Shachi has shown me how unpredictable she truly is. She is born of the asuras, her father a king of the hellish realm. Her marriage to Indra has always been shrouded in mystery, but though she is as heavenly as I am now, once she resided in the demonic realm. I cannot imagine what she would have in store for me. Between Shachi and Indra, how will Amaravati be safe? And am I to choose between the lord and his queen, when they are so inseparable?
My mission has not ended. It never will.
My heart grows cold. I leave the hut, clutching the blade to me in a daze. Outside, the air is clear and Kaushika stirs by the fire, waking now that Shachi’s spell has lifted. His voice is weary, thick with sleep. He makes to rise.
“Meneka? What is it?”
