Page 43 of The Legend of Meneka
I search for another explanation to the halahala, and a hidden memory taps in my mind, a thread I must pull that will lead me to the truth. Yet I cannot sift through it when everything is so blurry. Kaushika is asking me for clarity, but I don’t want him to base it on what I say. I wanthimto reassureme, to take care of me, to tell me everything I’ve ever believed has been fine, simply because I am me and he believes me.
I bury my head in my hands, aware of the incongruity of my desire.
Kaushika lets out a deep sigh. “I am sorry,” he says again. “Indrahasbeen a hero in the past. But please think this through. The bracelet did not reveal itself until I touched it. It was meant for me, and only the lord of heaven has cause. Indra is threatened by me. He knows I do not like him, and he has tried to thwart me many times before. The last many weeks, he sent storms to the hermitage as a warning that he knows where I am. I was able to keep them at bay during the Initiation Ceremony. Otherwise, the hermitage itself would have been flooded away. If there really was someone else behind it … well, that might change some matters. But I cannot see another answer, and Indra cannot go unchallenged. This is why the sages and I must meet. The sages must see that Indra is a menace to the entire realm. To send halahala is monstrous by any estimation. Even you agree to this.”
I can say nothing. I am to blame for the storms sent to the hermitage.Itold Rambha of the hermitage’s whereabouts. I never expected such a retaliation, but I feel the lord’s desperation pressing at my throat like a knife. I feel the urgency of my mission like first blood drawn. Rambha’s voice echoes in my head, reminding me to be devoted. I think of how even she did not see fit to tell me everything occurringin Amaravati, of how she told me to do my duty unquestioningly, to be a good little apsara obeying commands blindly.
Yet here is Kaushika, myenemy, telling me secrets of his own accord, trying to understand me even though his entire life has been to work against those of my kind. My heart aches so much that I can barely breathe. I think of what Iwantto do, and who owns me. Rambha and Indra and Kaushika and my friends from the hermitage spin in my mind like colors within water. The words almost form on my lips, to blurt out the truth about my identity, simply to see what he will do, but I hold myself close, trembling. I cannot risk it, not even now,especiallynot now. What if I am misreading everything about Kaushika? What ifIhave been seduced by the hermitage and the mortal realm?
Kaushika’s voice washes over me in a comforting breeze. “How did you know it was halahala?” he asks.
“I sensed it. I … I don’t know how.” My voice is muffled, my head still buried in my hands. The faint memory tap-taps again in my head. I loosen my topknot, my hair spilling over me, covering whatever of my face Kaushika can see. I do not care about the propriety of appearing like a sage, not anymore. It is enough that the action releases some of the tension in my head. That, just for a moment, I am hidden from him when I am so obscured to myself.
Kaushika shifts beside me. I feel a movement, as though he is about to touch my hair but thinks better of it. “And the magic you did?” he asks softly.
“I—I don’t understand it myself.”
Everything is confusing. Did Indra allow me to use Amaravati’s power for mortal magic? Was it because of him that the two magics combined? Why would he allow me this if he sent the halahala himself and wants Kaushika dead this badly? Despite what Rambha said, I can no longer make sense of how the ability to do tapasvin magiccould have been granted by Indra. This magic must be my own. If tapasya truly allowsanysoul to access divinity, then why should I be any different from a yogi? I try to slow myself down, but each stream of thought ends only in more questions and objections. Blooms of sincerity and deception coil inside me, twisting, until I cannot breathe. I have been turned inside out, everything I held within spilled out for all to see and leaving me hollow. I cannot rely on anything, and I float unmoored, a rudderless boat in the roiling waters of chaos.
Kaushika exhales softly. “It is all right, Meneka. I believe you. You have no reason to tell me anything. I have no reason to ask.”
I look up at this, surprised. I brush back my curtain of hair.
Irrationally, it is Rambha’s voice I hear in my head:What good is love, what good devotion, if it is only transactional?A sense of wretchedness steals over me, and I have to breathe hard to contain the sudden sob in my chest. I cannot believe it—that he is offering so much of himself, yet expects nothing in return. That he does not question me further like I have questioned him at every occasion. Is this a trick?
Kaushika smiles slightly, a glint of white teeth in the starlight, as if he has heard me. “I never wanted your secrets, you know. I only wanted for you to be true to yourself. If that knowledge awes you, you are wise. I was awed by you too.” His gaze locks on me. “I am awed by you all the time.”
My voice is a whisper. “Because of the strength of what I can do?”
“No,” Kaushika says. “Because of you. Of what I see in you.”
A sound escapes me, half sniffle, half laugh. I am an apsara. My marks see what I allow them to. Yet, I have not shaped myself into his desire—not deliberately.
“Whatdoyou see?” I ask skeptically.
“I see a vision of beauty, sacred and deep,” he says quietly. “I see a woman who is strong, because she has fought terrible battles with herself. Who has won them and lost them and understands the futilityof fighting but does it anyway because to not do so would be harder. I see a being, daring and audacious, talented and hungry. I see a power who can challenge the gods themselves. I see you, Meneka, and I see the great Goddess Shakti herself, she who belongs with Shiva. Why do you think that in Thumri I looked to you as I completed my mantra? When the power from my own tapasya started to wane, it was you who gave me strength. Reminded me of another path. Reminded me of love.”
My words choke within me. It is too much, the sincerity in his speech, the scent of him, the heated gaze. It is too much, this validation I have never received even from those closest to me, to be seen as something more, to be seen as being capable beyond my own estimation. Whether true or not, I want to believe him. I want to deceive myself, even if all this is an illusion.
I lift my hand to touch the cuff of Kaushika’s sleeve, tracing a finger along the embroidery of his kurta. “You met with another royal today,” I say inconsequentially. “That is why you are dressed like this.”
“A particularly difficult queen,” he says, smiling slightly. “Yet I believe she understands what I am trying to do.”
“And whatareyou trying to do?” I ask, lifting my gaze to him. “What do you intend to achieve with the irreverence you foment against Indra?”
“An opportunity,” Kaushika answers. “An opportunity for justice in the world. How many more must suffer like the villagers in Thumri? Like my own kingdom? I seek wisdom, Meneka, to imagine something different. My meetings with the royals are simply to gauge if they feel similarly. If I take on Indra, we must be united.”
I stare at him. I wonder if the queen he met today is the very same one I overheard him speaking with at Shiva’s temple. It is significant that he is meeting with a royal so urgently, when so much else is occurring. A part of me knows I must ask about it, but my fingers hoverover his pulse, and his eyes darken. I want to tell him that the clothes are beautiful, thatheis beautiful. The words catch in my chest, aching.
Kaushika’s gaze lingers on my face, watching all this.
I swallow, and the sound is loud. I am drowning, and even though I know it is a losing battle, I call out to Amaravati in a desperate attempt to remember my mission, remember my devotion.Reveal your lust, I whisper, and I see my own head thrown back as Kaushika fills me with ecstasy, and this time I accept what I have known all along. That his lust and desire are a mirror to my own, just like the magic we did with the halahala. We are two opposites bound to each other in this game of mark and seducer, each of us taking either role, unknowing, unaware. The lust I saw in him is mine, the empowerment of everything I can be, realized through the mirror he holds up to me.
My fingers skim his wrist again, lightly skating over the kurta, reaching for the strong contours of his bicep. Kaushika exhales, a soft sound that lifts the hair off my forehead. I don’t know why I do it, but it is a test of the both of us. I let my touch climb, then hover over his mouth, my thumb tracing the outline of his lips. He licks his lips in the same instant, and his tongue rasps over my finger, tasting it. He gives it a soft nip, catching it between his teeth, and a whimper escapes me.
I stare at him, but he does not touch me any further. I can tell; he is waiting, he is trying not to scaremeoff, when we are hovering here in this moment that will change everything. It is so absurd—that he should care, thatheshould give me the space to retreat whenIam the creature of lust and he the sage—that my whimper becomes a small laugh, halfway between joy and disbelief.
Enough, I think.No more games.
