Page 69 of The Legend of Meneka
The world evolves. Indra and the other devas grow in shape and power. Apsaras, who were once barely more than fish, become water nymphs. My mothers and sisters from a different age transform, andtheir beauty is like the dawn of a new day—innocent, shining, full of possibilities.
Indra evolves. He takes the form of a man. He arrays his devas. He builds Amaravati with his bare hands and rules the city. He promises to follow the cosmic order of birth and rebirth. Promises to keep safe those who are pious before it is their time to return to the mortal form.
The three realms take shape. Rules develop, change, and die. Busy, busy, life goes on in all of them in some form. Indra approaches the apsaras—the most beautiful creatures of all the three realms, who flit from stars and clouds to rivers and streams, free. He offers them a home. “Bind yourself to me,” he says, “and I will give you permanence.”
We agree. We choose to serve him in return for a home in his beautiful city. We dance for Indra. We fall in love with the devas. We lie with them and the gandharvas. We bear children, always another apsara, whom we train into our art. Dance was always our form. We have only perfected it now, when before it was mere movement in water and dust.
Our devotion to Amaravati is rewarded, and the city succors us with each dance. Illusions drip from us, an enchantment even Indra did not know would occur. We are forever young, forever beautiful. We do not know the meaning of promiscuity—it is an ugly word. For us, our dance, our very bodies, are instruments of love.
My feet spin, and there is joy in my steps. Freedom, ecstasy, peace.
I tell my story, and I allow Shiva’s wisdom to flood me. Everything I felt for Kaushika, all that I’ve felt for my friends, Anirudh, Kalyani, Rambha, even Indra and the city of Amaravati. I inhale that love, letting it soak my body, letting it soakme. My tether awakens, snaps around, and Shiva smiles.
And I understand what he means.
Mortal and immortal magic do not matter.
Love is a form of magic too.
Something sparks with this realization. Awareness flaps its wings inside me like a vivid butterfly. I dance, gasping, unable to stop—and Amaravati’s force floods into me, a golden power, a dam that has been bursting to receive me. My own wild prana slams into my heart, tapasvin power I cannot be denied. Power is power, and I—Iam a creature of power too.
My eyes snap open. Around me is the legend I told myself. Illusions of devas glimmering. The Churning of the Oceans as asuras try to take the amrit that was once promised to them. The world before the three realms, water and fluid coagulating. The legend of the apsaras and how we came to be. The legend of Indra and how he built Amaravati. And finally, embedded within all of these stories, the one I care about the most.
The legend of Meneka.
She is there, amidst it all, watching, understanding. She is immortal but young, and she finally understands herself and her history. She sees where she came from and her own choices. Kaushika kisses her. Anirudh wraps his arm around her. Rambha tips her chin up. Meneka is here, surrounded by her friends and her mentors. She is in Kaushika’s hermitage, studying the mortals, and at Amaravati too, among the devas. She is alone, but she is never alone. For I am here too.
I fall to my knees, but the illusion still glimmers, powered by my sheer emotion. Indra, Amaravati, and all the other apsaras shine in the distance, but Meneka walks up to me. She kneels in front of me and lifts my chin. Her touch is as light as air. She smells like morning’s fresh hope.
Meneka smiles.
I smile back.
I see you, we think. We blink—
And she’s gone.
The rest of the illusion glimmers, fading into golden dust. Within me, my tether to Amaravati blooms rich and fluid, still bursting with power. I breathe deeply, and my own prana floods me, alongside the tether, both powers that I understand now were never gifted to me by Indra.
Wood and dust and heat create their own mirage. I breathe, and my body lights up, my own aura visible to me for the first time. Within me, my chakras glow, not merely the seven everyone can name but thousands of smaller ones. Prana flows in a rainbow river of radiance, and I watch it twining through my blood and bones, indistinguishable from any other part of me. Give yourself permission, Kaushika’s voice says to me from a lifetime ago, and I unlock the chakras as though I have always known how to do so.
Mortal and immortal magic braid together, consuming me.
Strands of prana seep into my very soul, water meandering and finding its path to the most concealed parts of me.
My back arcs, and my breath slows.
I twist my wrist, and before the mudra is complete, an illusion shoots out, rich with Amaravati’s gold. The heavens roar, a crack of thunder, and I look up. Lightning flashes again and again, and dark clouds storm the sky, gathering right above me in response to my magic. Rain begins to pour, in punishment and rage, and I know Indra can see me. Despite everything, he is my sire, and I am his devotee. This place is not warded from his view. I have taken back Amaravati’s power despite my exile. I have disobeyed him again. He is coming.
Let him come.
I stand and shake my arms out, dispelling stormwater.
I am intoxicated by my own power. I am more clearheaded than I’ve ever been. A chant threads through me, one I did not know I had learned. It is a similar chant to the one Kaushika used to open a portal, and the air in front of me ripples.
I stare at Nanda in her stone form. She undulates, the stone raining, howling. The portal brought her here, closer to me, and runes escape from the ends of my fingers, the circle of freedom, the lingam of Shiva and Shakti, the sickle of healing. I press the force of my braided magic into the stone, and it weeps.
Then the obelisk bursts.
