Page 43

Chapter 42

I HAVE NO WORDS

V iki wouldn’t come near me. He wouldn’t look at me or speak to me. It was obvious that he’d associated me to his horrific experience with the monster that had taken him. I can’t lie, it stung, but I understood. Meena sent her gratitude via Dharma, and I took a spot beside a different cart for the rest of the journey.

I got to know the young couple riding it—newlyweds who were excited to be starting a new life at the brand-new settlement.

Araz stayed close by, ever vigilant, but aside from the odd instruction, he didn’t speak much to me. It felt like he’d withdrawn again.

It was exhausting.

Aradha had claimed Pashim as her travel companion once more. Not that it bothered me. But I couldn’t help but wonder what Pashim wanted to tell me.

We stopped for lunch on a pretty hillside, and the children played at making flower chains.

“What season is it?” Priti asked Keyton.

“It is the beginning of the flowering season,” he said. “A good time to prepare crops for the coming year.”

“Will they have food at the settlement?”

“Stores have been provided to keep them nourished,” Keyton said. “And more will be delivered in the coming weeks.”

“The other tests?”

“Yes.”

We continued into the afternoon, carts trundling over a bridge beneath which a river raged, then onto flat lands once more.

It was here that we spotted a pack of beasts that looked like a cross between a wolf and a lion. The elite were on alert instantly, tracking them as they tracked us from a distance.

“Will they attack?”

“I doubt it,” Araz said. “They are merely curious. Not hungry.”

“How do you know for sure?”

“This area is rich with prey. They will have been well fed. Do not worry.”

He was right. The pack got bored of us after half a mile and dropped back. We stopped at the edge of an abandoned village so everyone could eat and take a toilet break before continuing the last stretch of the journey.

As the sun began its descent to the horizon, the new settlement came into view on the plains below us. It was huge, not one dome but three interconnected ones. They glinted orange in the setting sun, and it seemed that everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.

This wasn’t a settlement. This was the beginnings of a city. “Araz, this is a city, isn’t it?”

He smiled down at me. “Civilization must go on. Humanity must have its chance to evolve.”

“Without technology? I mean, you said it doesn’t work here.”

“Technology will not function here because this world is saturated with jadu, divine and otherwise. Svargana is a place for the gods to live alongside mortals. Technology breeds contempt of the divine. It allows mortals to believe that they have the power, and when that occurs, there is no need for gods. And despite what gods might want us to believe, they need mortal faith and prayer. There can be no gods without mortals to serve them, and so for now, the gods serve man.”

I stared up at his profile. “How do you know all this?”

He blinked, snapping out of his reverie. “My mother spoke of it once, a long time ago… ”

I wanted to ask more about her. About his life before he came to Aakaash, but his expression had closed off, making it clear that his past was not a topic up for discussion.

Guru Mihir called out instructions to watch the carts, to be vigilant as we made the descent toward the settlement, and the atmosphere became charged with the buzz of excitement.

“It’s beautiful.”

“We made it.”

“Our new home.”

The people’s excitement filled me with a sense of achievement. “Is this what it always feels like when you deliver people to their new homes?”

Araz smiled down at me, the warm honey smile that he’d gifted Aradha last night, and my insides went all gooey. “Every single time,” he said. “Every single time.”

“Everybody move!” Guru Mihir ordered. “The vortex lands in two hours, and we need to be there to take it.”

Without our cargo to slow us down, we ate space, jogging in the same formation that we’d arrived in at Nahee Aasha.

The plan was to bypass the valley nestled between the mountains up ahead and cut around it and take a trail that backed onto the cliffside.

We got onto the trail and were making good progress when Guru Mihir called a halt.

“What’s going on?” I looked from Pashim to Araz. “Can either of you see?”

“It’s a landslide!” the elites called from up ahead.

“What does that mean?” Priti asked.

“It means we can’t go this way,” Keyton said.

“Then what do we do?”

“The vortex lands in less than an hour,” Dharma reminded us.

“Fuck…” Joe said. “There is only one other route…”

“Turn around!” Guru Mihir strode past us. “Everyone, turn around.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” Joe said.

“Everybody listen carefully,” Guru Mihir said. “We’re running short on time. If we’re going to make it to our collection point, then we have no option but to go through Mrtyu Valley. We will move fast, and we will shield our minds.”

“But the potentials have not been taught that skill yet,” Pooja pointed out.

“Then their drohi will shield for them. That is what the bond is for. I know it is a risk. I understand that we may not succeed in blocking out the influence of the spirits completely, but I believe that if we move fast, they won’t have time to take full control of any mind.”

Pashim didn’t look pleased about this, but Araz’s expression gave nothing away. He seemed calm enough, and that quelled my panic.

“Move on!” Guru Mihir ordered.

Back down the trail, we went at a steady jog, then onto the path that would lead us into the valley.

“Carry your potential,” Araz said. “That way we’ll move faster.”

The valley was narrower than I’d expected. More of a gorge. Araz scooped me off my feet and swung me onto his back. “Hold on, Leela. And ignore whatever you may see. It will be a lie.”

With the potentials clinging to their drohis’ backs, the pace sped up two-fold, and the gorge swallowed us whole.

The moon went out, and darkness pressed in on us, thick, viscous, and alive. The ascended demigods’ weapons flared with light that spilled out to push back the shadows.

I held tightly to Araz as we flew over the ground. Goosebumps washed over my skin as awareness of an otherworldly presence filtered dread through my veins. There was power here, dangerous and hungry, and we were its favorite kind of snack.

The silence was suddenly filled with the eerie wails of the restless dead. Bony fingers reached out from the gloom, desperate to make contact with us.

My head grew heavy, scalp tight, and whispers filled my mind.

Pointless. Everything is pointless.

She screams for you.

Curses you.

It’s your fault that she’s gone.

Nani’s face filled my mind, her mouth stretched too wide and filled with black liquid.

Leela…Leela, we can take you to her. We can help you free her. Come to us.

My grip on Araz slackened.

“Leela! Focus!” Araz grabbed my arm and squeezed, bringing me back to myself.

The voice faded, taking the darkness with it, and I could finally see the gorge properly—moon-washed and rocky, but empty.

No wraith.

No ghosts.

“You bastard!” The clang of metal on metal rang out behind us.

Araz slowed his pace.

Two elite fought behind us, while another two tried to break them up.

Pashim ran by us. “Don’t stop! We cannot stop.”

Guru Mihir confirmed the same as he flew overhead. “Get the potentials to the vortex. Don’t look back! ”

He circled back, swooped down, and landed between the brawling elite. A wave of light sprang out of his body, obscuring them all and momentarily blinding me. When my vision cleared, we’d turned a corner, and Guru Mihir and the battling demigods were out of view.

“Exit is close!” Pashim said. “We can make it.”

My head vibrated with pressure as the spirits tried to enter my mind, and I gritted my teeth, focusing on Araz’s body heat and the pressure of his form against mine to ground myself.

Priti screamed and thrashed on Keyton’s back, attempting to be free, clearly in the grip of the spirits’ control. He held on to her as best as he could, and Pashim veered toward them to help.

Dharma had her head down, her face buried in Chaya’s neck, and Joe clung to Mahira a few feet ahead.

“Almost there, Leela.” Araz sounded strained. “Almost…there…”

Images of fire and blood filled my mind. A child screamed. A woman begged for mercy, her beautiful golden face bloody as she reached for someone, and then the glint of a sword and?—

Araz shot forward, jolting me against his back, and the images died. The pressure winked out.

We were out of the gorge.

But Araz didn’t falter.

He didn’t stop.

He kept running, and I clung to him and the memory of that face. I knew who it was. I’d felt it through our bond via the shared shield he’d put up.

The woman in my mind had been his mother, and Araz had watched her die.

I’d somehow seen into Araz’s mind and shared a memory that now sat like a lead weight on my chest.

A wide river came into view, spanned by a bridge.

“The vortex will set down on the other side,” Pashim called out. “Keep moving.”

“What about the others?” Dharma asked.

“They’re right behind us.”

I looked over my shoulder at the fast-approaching group, and the tangle of dread in my belly eased off. But as we hurtled toward the bridge, a bellow rose behind us.

Ice rushed up my spine at the sight of the four beasts attacking the elite.

Revenants.

Where had they come from?

“Keep moving!” Pashim ordered, falling back so he was abreast of us.

We hit the bridge with Chaya and Keyton ahead of us and Mahira behind.

We were about halfway across when the bridge trembled, and Joe screamed .

My head whipped back toward the cry. Something was on the bridge with us, a huge dark shadow looming over Mahira.

The breath left my lungs.

A pishacha?

No….

Pashim ran to help them.

I squeezed my thighs around Araz’s waist. “Stop!”

“No.”

“You have to stop. We have to help.”

“I must get you to safety.”

Chaya and Keyton made it to the other side, and a gust had picked up. The vortex was on the way.

Behind us, Pashim and Mahira fought the pishacha.

What had Guru Chandra said? Only a god can kill a pishacha?

They weren’t going to be able to take it down, a god like Guru Mihir or Pooja. But they were still fighting revenants.

“Araz, please, we have to go back and help them.”

“No.”

“They’ll die.”

“But you’ll live.”

Behind us, Pashim and Mahira linked hands, and a blast of energy hit the creature, blowing it off the bridge.

Yes! “They blasted it off the bridge. They’re okay and?—"

Something smashed into us, knocking me off Araz with enough force to fling me back down the bridge. I hit the ground hard enough to see stars.

“Leela!” Araz cried.

I rolled to my feet as something landed a few feet from me. My mace! I scrambled to grab it then ran toward Araz and the revenant he was fighting. I swung my mace back, ready to hit the fucker, but a shadow surged out of nowhere and blocked my path.

Eyes like blood, a maw filled with serrated teeth, the pishacha surrounded me in darkness.

My heart shot into my throat as it lunged. I swiped at it with my mace, feeling a snag and a pull as I made contact with the ethereal material of its being. But the next moment, the mace was ripped from my grasp and sucked into the churning crimson vortex of its throat.

I staggered back, fighting the pull of its ravenous hunger—not for my flesh but for my soul.

Pashim materialized beside me. “Get away from her!” He pushed out his hand, sending a blast of air that knocked the creature off the bridge. He grabbed my hand. “Run!”

Joe and Mahira joined us as we bolted up the bridge. Araz finished off the revenant and spun toward us, eyes blazing in the gloom. “Watch out!”

Darkness descended on us like a smothering cloud.

Joe screamed as he was lifted off his feet and sucked toward the pischacha’s hungry maw .

“No!” I grabbed Joe’s hand as he flew past me.

“Leela! Help!” Joe said. “Help me!”

My nani’s face filled my mind, her eyes dark pools of regret. “You can’t have him!” The creature pulled harder, and I dug in my heels, using every iota of my demigod strength to fight back. “Let go of him, you bastard!”

Hands circled my waist. “I have you,” Pashim said against my ear. “Keep hold of him, and I’ll pull you both free.”

Oh thank fuck. “Okay. Okay, I’ve got him.”

Pashim pressed his lips to my ear. “What I needed to tell you is in my mattress.”

“What?” I looked up at him in confusion, and my stomach pinched at what I read in his eyes. “Why are you telling me that?”

Stark regret painted his features. “I love you, Leela, and I would have continued to love you with every fiber of my being.”

Icy fingers gripped my nape as the rest of Guru Chandra’s words came back to me.

Only a god can kill a pishacha, and in the absence of a god, the consumption of a soul can temper it, giving others an opportunity to escape.

“Goodbye, Leela,” Pashim said softly.

He threw me with such force that the creature’s hold on Joe snapped.

“No! ”

Pashim looked back, his beautiful face breaking into a smile. Then he stepped into darkness and into the heart of the beast.