Page 73 of The Legend of Meneka
When we release each other, she has tears in her eyes too. She laughs ruefully and brushes them away, and I give her a small smile.She pats my hand and the two of us turn back to the others, composing ourselves.
I take a deep breath, trying to sort my emotions. I look at Rambha. “Does Indra know you’re here?”
She glances at the sky and grimaces when a drop of rain plonks on her nose. “I did not tell him when I came to investigate the surge of power. But he has been raving in his court for days, working himself up into a frenzy. Only Surya and Agni have managed to stay his hand in doing something he would regret. Queen Shachi is furious with the lord. She has not forgiven him for sending you on this mission, but that has only made him angrier, with you and with Kaushika. Indra has wished to destroy the sage for some time now. With what you told him about the army … The Vajrayudh is still some months away, and the lord is too strong. He is going to annihilate any who oppose him.”
“Kaushika is ready too,” Anirudh says in turn. “When Indra arrives, Kaushika will be able to sense it. He will open a portal to the deva king, and his army will pour out. The deva king should not underestimate Kaushika or his army.”
“He has placed wards around the hermitage,” Romasha adds. “And he will bring battle far away from it.”
“A battle that you once supported,” I remind her softly. I trust my mortal friends, Imust, but there are still things to clear up, and I will not move forward unless I understand all of it.
Romasha’s gaze does not waver from mine. “Yes,” she says dispassionately. “It was a battle we once supported. Anirudh and I have known about the meadow, and what it really is. But never before has Kaushika acted out of sheer rage. Oh, he has been angry but there has always been a righteous reason behind it. His abandonment of you now, however, shows he has a wounded heart. It is affecting his choices.” Romasha shrugs, and though the gesture is casual, I detect pain and grief in it. “This war is an action of a spoiled prince,not a wise sage, and one must question if everything thus far has been guided by a similar sentiment.” Romasha meets my eyes, and I see no lies in them. “The sages of the Mahasabha always did say that Kaushika was bound by his past karma. Perhaps we have been wrong to follow him so blindly. Perhaps he never would have chosen the peaceful path. You have revealed to us … a different side of him.”
My brows rise. One by one the other mortals nod, agreeing with Romasha’s words, and I think back to what they said after Thumri, and how they behaved at the Mahasabha. How Kaushika himself considered Anirudh and Romasha his most loyal followers.
“Do you no longer think Indra needs to be taught a lesson?” I ask softly.
“The storm lord has much to answer for,” Romasha says. “But war …” She shakes her head, once, tightly. “We must think of another way.”
My gaze takes in the other yogis huddled together. Under their brave expressions, their fear ripples. I realize how the words spoken by them before were always bold words, easy words. Which one of us save Rambha has ever experiencedwar? We only know the stories, and even Rambha does not speak of it, ugly as it is.
These mortals rebelled against Kaushika to come for me, but perhaps my disappearance broke them out of an enchantment they didn’t know they were under. Kaushika would not have done so deliberately, but his very intensity and charisma collected a whole army. My mortal friends absorbed his anger for Indra as their own. They were bewitched by Kaushika’s power.Seduced.
A bone-deep tiredness threads through me with this realization. How curious that I was sent here to seduce Kaushika, but what I’ve done instead is break the others from his seduction. He and Indra are so similar, out for blood and war, in the name of loyalty and power.Yet I am the one who has somehow betrayed them both. Is this where I belong—fighting between each of their pulls on me?
No.
I refuse.
I stand up. “Indra is coming, and so is Kaushika. Soon this forest will become a battleground. We need to stop this battle we are all being manipulated into.”
“How?” Nanda asks.
I pause, looking to the others for suggestions.
Anirudh comes to my rescue. “We can begin with creating wards here. Anything to prevent bloodshed. Anything to incite peace.” He cracks his fingers together, then draws a few runes in the air. Harmony. Tolerance. Prayer.
They begin planning then, the mortals from the hermitage and Nanda, a move that surprises me, given they were nearly at arms earlier. Nanda begins to sing as she casts her illusions. Eka and Parasara murmur to each other, their mantras melding with her song. Magic ripples out from all of them, golden from Amaravati, and a thousand earthy hues from the mortals, blending and weaving, unleashed into the forest beyond the clearing.
I move to help, but Rambha is next to me, reaching out a hand.
“Please, Meneka,” she says. “Let us talk.”
I hesitate. I don’t know what I will say to her.
Her eyes are large and liquid. She doesn’t ask again. I glance at Anirudh and Kalyani, who are busy with the other mortals, and I think of how they came for me even though I deceived them. Do I not owe Rambha the same?
Sighing, I nod. Rambha leads us away from the clearing toward the clifftop.
CHAPTER 27
We stand next to each other at the precipice of the cliff.
Below us, the tributary of River Alaknanda cascades like a stormy ocean, preparing for battle too. Waves rise and fall in the wind, the usual chinking babble now crashing violently over stones. Despite this, so strong is my sense of peace around Rambha, so familiar is her star-anise scent, that if I close my eyes I can almost believe I am back in Amaravati.
I do not close my eyes.
I stare ahead and will myself into stillness, forcing myself to see this moment for what it is.
