Page 40 of The Legend of Meneka
The shield glitters around me and Kaushika—and then I forget everything else. The rest of the hermitage is a blur of shadows outside this circle that Kaushika and I are in. His eyes lock on me, alarmed, terrified, furious. He does not stop chanting, but I face him even as he trembles like he is dying.
His chin drops in exhaustion. His arms grow loose, barely able to hold the shield. I clasp him around his bicep to help keep it up as he shudders. His fingers twitch limply, trying to wave me off, but then his other arm comes to encircle my waist to support himself.
His hair is in total disarray, long strands escaped from its knot and sticking to his sweat-drenched face. His voice becomes raspier. A haunted expression comes into his eyes. He’s reaching the end of his power.
I think of him dying. I think of what Rambha would tell me to do now. I think of how I still have so much magic left inside me, a magic tied to Indra. If I looked into Kaushika’s lust now, what would I see? A wish to be more powerful than this? A desperate attempt to keep living? Regret for what he has done?
I can defeat him.
I candestroyhim.
Now is my chance, to strike true, to learn everything about him I need to and undo him entirely. The command almost forms in my mind, to ask him to reveal his lust.
Kaushika stumbles, his shield about to break.
My command dies unformed. Instead, I raise my right hand and sketch the rune of Sri Yantra. I have exhausted all my tapasvin magic already; it is my tether to Amaravati I try to draw from now, knowing it will not work,knowingthat my celestial magic is from Indra, and Indra has not allowed me to make mortal runes using my tether before. The shape forms sluggishly, wrenching the power with every bit of my strength, and I cry out, pain lancing through me, cutting me with a thousand knives, blinding me.
I expect the rune to do nothing. I expect that we both will perish, my last moments filled with chaos.
Yet something floods me in my desperation. Amaravati’s power surges inside me the same way as when I dance. A kind of raw understanding blooms in me as though this rune is simply another way of making a mudra. A tug occurs behind my navel, and for the first time ever, Amaravati’s magic connects to the prana in my heart, a clash of two currents in a stormy sea, releasing a wondrous image.
I look within myself into a mirror.
It is a glimpse, a scent, a secret. Dappled light, fresh lotus, endless skies. Power floods me, a wave crashing into me, sweet and fierce at the same time. My eyes widen in shock, but the hand making the rune does not shake. I radiate prana into myself and into Kaushika. Amaravati sings in me, connecting to the wild prana, the two powers mirroring, interlacing, strengthening each other.
Under my other hand, Kaushika’s magic soars. The rune affects him as well, and I feel him twitch, then straighten, replenished by mystrength. His aura suddenly grows brighter. The rune grows larger, floating up above us, giving us light.
Kaushika’s eyes track it, and his chant grows more strident. I pour more of Amaravati’s power into the rune, and suddenly I canseeKaushika’s voice, a riot of blue and indigo and green.
His mantra grows alive.
Letters, song, and symbols swirl and shimmer in the air for a long moment. My ears and my heart are full of Kaushika and his magic, and I know his heart is full of me and my runes. It is an intimacy that brings the blood rushing to my cheeks, and for an instant I see inside him—his passion, his freedom, his strength of purpose. I see my own devotion, my loyalty, my sense of integrity. Rambha surges in my mind, then Nirjar, Queen Tara, and all my other marks. Behind my eyes, I look into Kaushika’s mind as well, and the way he used intimidation so callously, turning away those who needed help in the name of enlightenment, all while nurturing his hatred for Indra. We are reflected in each other’s souls, and within the both of us is a glorious light that tries to shine, a darkness that eddies and pools. We are both free and imprisoned, soaring with our truths, weighed down by our follies.
I have no time to think of what I am revealing to him. No time to wonder if he can see everything I am seeing. Kaushika’s hands tighten around my waist in quiet entreaty, and I feed him my power. He seizes it, and I lean in, his magic coating me, protecting me, releasing me—and he gasps as he sings.
Our powers merge.
Kaushika raises a limp hand, and a weaving appears, a braiding of luminosity.
Before my eyes, arippletears through the air. Beyond the ripple, a field glistens with tall grass waving in a summer breeze. My hand extends toward it of its own volition. I can almost touch the grass. Iam hypnotized; this is unlike any other magic I have encountered. It calls to me like a temptation, but my tether to Amaravati balks.
I watch, stunned, not understanding, as the fumes of halahala pour out of Kaushika’s mouth and into the field. Air darkens in bubbles of poison. Sparks sizzle before subsiding, dust bending like it does around the heat of a fire.
The halahala leaves Kaushika rapidly. It shrinks to a pinpoint, roiling into that meadow. I try to watch it, to see what will become of it, but the air crackles once again, and the portal closes without another sound. Kaushika stops chanting and slumps against me. His head thunks on my shoulder, and I hold him close, not caring how it looks, only caring that he is safe. That it is done, and he issafe.
Silence rings around us.
A thousand thoughts buzz within me, but I don’t have the energy to indulge them. I lean into Kaushika’s chest, breathing in his skin, and his exhalations curl around my ear in precious stolen whispers. My hands climb higher, to his neck, my nails grazing his skin. He shivers in a deep sigh. He presses a palm into the small of my back, pulling me closer against his torso. Something stirs in my belly, something familiar, like lust, but deeper,hungrier, and I am suddenly aware that he is bare-chested, that his thumbs are reaching below the gaps in my own kurta to skim over my hipbones, that his skin on my skin is scorching hot and glorious andalive.
It shakes me—the realization that I’ve wanted this for so long. It scares me—that I chose to save him instead of destroy him. I pause, stiffening.
Kaushika’s eyes snap open, and he staggers back from me.
“Are you all right?” I begin—but his face is not just hardening, it is suddenly furious.
“How dare you?” he says. “How dare you interrupt my magic? What did you do?”
The exhaustion and chaos of the last few hours crash into me. I blink, but then my confusion gives way to anger. I step up to him. “Me?” I hiss. “What was that portal you opened? Where did you send the halahala?”
