by Varsha Ravi
“You could have died,” he said, brows furrowing. He was prone to saying things like this, worrying over the value of life. As if he wouldn’t give his away. Viro did not understand how these things weren’t interchangeable to him, but he didn’t like to argue.
“We should get back,” Tarak said, rising. He had dug out a small, shallow grave and buried the snake. His fingernails were dark with soil and he trembled faintly, though his expression was resolute. He tucked the wooden hammer into his satchel and turned to Viro, visibly upset. “You can’t put yourself in danger like that.”
Viro stuck his tongue out. “Kiran has already lectured me. I am fine, because you were here to protect me.”
Tarak frowned and opened his mouth—likely to scold him further—but he went quiet as Viro pulled him close and linked their arms together. He was still trembling, but it faded considerably. “This entire experience has made me so tired… if only there was some place in the palace where they served warm tea…”
He rolled his eyes, but Kiran straightened up. “I can go ahead and get us tea. Wait in the sitting room.”
Viro narrowed her eyes. “No, Kiran, you’re still weak from the bloodletting—”
But the other boy just waved his hand in dismissal and set out toward the outline of the palace in the distance. Viro frowned and leaned into Tarak’s arms. The boy reluctantly let him in. His gaze was on the silhouette of Kiran in the distance, bracketed between the trees.
“He never cares enough about himself,” he said, unable to keep the note of frustration from his voice.
Tarak twisted down to glare at him. “You are not allowed to judge him, not now.”
He shook his head, insistent. “I’m a fool. Air-headed, absentminded—you two have scolded me enough for it. If the gods told him to, he would walk straight into the brazier.”
“He would survive.”
“Even if he wouldn’t,” Viro said, disentangling himself from the other boy. Tarak had stopped shaking, the fear drained from his expression. The cold immediately set in, and he longed to go back, but he’d indulged enough. “Even if it hurt, he would let himself burn.”
“Then I suppose he’s fortunate to have us to keep him safe,” Tarak said. He held him at arm’s length, fingers light on the sleeves of his winter cloak. “There’s no point in concerning ourselves with this. Let’s go in and warm up.”
Viro followed him out of the forest, frosted ground crackling under their boots. He exhaled, purposeful, as they traced the well-worn path back to the gardens, and watched the breath cloud in the air. White, like mist. Like smoke.
10
Lyne
It was the smoke that woke her. Suri shifted in the chair, peeling back the blanket with sleepy languor. She squinted at the brightness of the late morning, all sunlight and smoke and glints of white and green.
Smoke. She drew back in alarm; the fallen headband dug into the side of her neck, and she untangled it from her hair with shaking fingers before glancing back.
Kiran’s eyes were fluttered shut, chest heaving unevenly. She had never seen him asleep, and she sincerely doubted this qualified. He looked faintly pained, strained in a clear, discomfiting way. The T-shirt he wore was burning in several places, small, controlled fires that loosed thin streams of dark smoke into the sky.
She crawled out of the chair and moved closer, wincing at the heat. Glancing inside, she found the rest of her friends still asleep. They couldn’t find him like this. She pulled the blanket from her shoulders and threw it on top of him, temporarily staunching the fires.
Ducking back into the apartment, she got out a pair of pans from the kitchen and began to bang them together. Dai woke up immediately, sitting up so quickly he cracked his neck. Ellis moaned, slowly pulling himself into an upright position. He looked ill.
“What,” he asked. “What is going on. Suri.”
“Out,” she said, trying to fake a mild, sadistic cheer, as if she were throwing them out for the sake of it. Not because Kiran was on the verge of spontaneously combusting where they could all see it. “All of you, out. Now.”
“Now?” Dai echoed muzzily. “Why now? My head hurts.”
“Because,” she said. She tried to keep her voice pleasant, but she could feel the strain in it. “I need to clean up.”
They both stared at her intently, neither sober enough to place why she was acting strange. They exchanged a look of resignation, and Suri could’ve cried from relief. Once they were gone, she could throw Kiran into the shower and call her grandmother, because they did not make emergency hotlines for flaming gods.
Aza and Miya padded out of the hallway. Aza’s witch hat headband was hanging around her neck. She peered over at Suri with blank confusion. “Why are you holding pans?”
“Wakey, wakey,” she said nonsensically. “Get out of my house.”
Miya raised her eyebrows and glanced over at the boys. They shrugged, and she yawned, running a hand through her hair. “Can we shower first?”
“Um,” Suri thought fast. She felt like she could smell smoke, but maybe she was just being paranoid. She fought the urge to glance over at the balcony and check if he was on fire again. “No. Pipes broke again.”
“Really?” Aza asked, rubbing at her eyes. “I washed my face last night and everything seemed fine.”
“Well, they’re broken now,” she explained, distantly registering the fact that her hands were shaking. She put down the pans. “Before you all woke up. They broke.”
“Again,” Ellis supplied.
“Yeah,” she said. “Again. So you guys need to go.”
They all looked at each other, as if weighing the merits of banding together and annoying Suri into letting them stay. Finally, Aza nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
“Great,” Suri said, her voice pitched unnaturally high. She tossed them their coats and belongings, tucking them into their arms when they didn’t bother to catch them, and nudged them toward the door. She cracked it nearly closed so they could still see her face and smiled. “Nice seeing you. Fun night. Have a nice day.”
“Suri—” Ellis started, but she’d already shut the door. She slid back against it, her head stinging where it hit the wood. The movement was strangely steadying, affording her a brief moment of peace. Which was fortunate, because moments later, she realized she had been smelling smoke.
She returned to the balcony to find that Kiran had not only burned through her blanket, he had also burned through the rest of his shirt. His devil tail had also caught on fire and was now flickering behind him. The irony of it did not escape her.
Suri waded through the balmy heat, brushing a hand against his forehead and regretting it immensely. Her fingertips felt scorched. Somehow, his fire had grown, distorted into something guileless and apocalyptic.
She crossed the balcony to the watering can, shaking as she untwisted the top and poured it out on him. There was a faint hiss as steam rose into the sky; momentarily, his warmth faded. From a bonfire to something kinder, like a candle.
She attempted to scoop him up but it was impossible, especially in the face of the heat. Finally, she pulled a discarded cardigan off the rail, dampening it with the dregs of the watering can before twisting it around his arm and dragging him into the apartment.
He made no noise, even as she dragged him over cement and carpet and tile. She collapsed by the side of the tub, breathless, reaching up to twist the handle so that it sprayed out ice-cold water.
The hiss of steam was louder now, and it cut through the silence. Suri let the water fall, let it bounce off his skin and hit her, wetting her face and hair. She felt a little like she might fall back asleep on the bathroom floor.
No, she scolded herself. You’re not done yet.
She reached into the shower, untangling the cardigan where it had wrapped across his arm and part of his chest. Her breath caught when she saw the marks over his heart—the outer one, the one of memory, was still nearly untouched save for a single faded area.
And the innermost one was dark as coal, dark as pitch. But the central one, the one that bound his power, was fading—some chunks had turned a sickly ash-gray and some had faded entirely to reveal the brown skin underneath.
When he had summoned that fire, months ago, she had been awestruck. So this is the power of a god, she had thought, a little unsteady, a little fearful. If that was him fully bound—if even a slight release in the sankhili meant he burned like the sun—then she could not fathom what he would be like once unbound.
If you lock away a god’s power, she thought, do they become human?
Kiran opened his eyes.
Gold as honey, gold as gods. He stared at her, gaze fathomless and deep as seas. His chest heaved, and he leaned back against the tile of the far wall. His lips parted, as if to speak, but he simply glanced away, down toward the drain carrying away ash and fire.
He examined the changes in the middle sankhili with a surprising disinterest. Then he looked up, saw her still knelt beside the bathtub. She knew she looked like a mess. She just didn’t care. He was alive and her home wasn’t ashes and for now, that counted as a victory.
“Thank you,” he said, the rasp of metal on stone. He sniffed with distaste at himself. “I can promise you this will not happen again.”
Suri sat back on her heels. Now that the immediate terror of getting him back to normal had fully faded, she was once again aware he was shirtless in the shower. She watched the water speckle the mat below. “Do you feel stronger?”
She saw him tilt his head in her periphery. Finally, he said, “Perhaps. I cannot tell, not yet.”
The memory of fire, of blurring, consuming heat came back to her. She leaned forward despite herself. “Your old enemy, why would they let the middle one weaken first? Wouldn’t it be best to save your power for last?”
Kiran shook his head slowly, damp hair twisting with the movement. “Actually, it’s quite smart. They clearly thought this out.” At her questioning look, he continued, “Power is nothing without purpose. Memory grants purpose. And even purpose is meaningless in the face of ideals, in the face of a moral code. They know I won’t act rashly in such a large city. And I cannot leave, not without you. Even then, we would always have to contend with the possibility of my power severing itself with malice and hurting you. So, effectively, I am still useless.”
She glared at him, unamused by the phrasing, and he looked faintly chastened. “I may be able to communicate with a few of the gods now. I’m unsure. Before, I couldn’t even sense them.”
“Communicate?” she asked uneasily. “What does that mean?”
In her head, she imagined him inviting them into the apartment, a reheated dinner shared with ten-foot-tall giants. She imagined him setting up a video call with an ancient, divine being. She was beginning to feel a little sick.
“Nothing extravagant,” he said hurriedly, spreading his hands. The water splashed off them and onto her arms. “It won’t interfere with your life. You will have to trust me.”
He said it casually, but she knew he meant it. Swollen with the knowledge that she did trust him, she looked away, offering a wordless shrug. Despite everything, some of the tension melted from his stance.
True to his word, he ensured that his attempts at communication never interfered with their daily routines. The first time she interrupted him, he was perched on the edge of the bathtub, speaking in low, urgent tones. He glanced up when she entered, a toilet scrubber held loosely in one hand.
“What are you doing?” she asked, blowing a piece of hair out of her face.
“Talking to a friend,” he said easily, nodding toward the toilet. From the doorway, she could just barely hear the soft swirl of rushing water.
She raised her eyebrows. “You’re friends with the god of plumbing?”
Kiran threw his head back and laughed, a rare, youthful sound. After regaining his composure, he wiped his eyes, grinning over at her. “She’s going to love that one. Thanks, Suri.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” she said, stepping forward. Was his friend easily offended? She had just barely escaped her fears of being smote by him—she couldn’t return to that terror again. She peered into the toilet bowl, but it flushed before she could make anything out. When the spray dissipated, the water was steady. No sign of a vengeful goddess. She glared over at him. “Is she angry at me?”
“Unlikely,” he said, mouth still creased in a smile. “Even if she was, you’re under my protection, so there is little she could do.”
“Your protection,” she echoed grumpily before pointing the scrubbing brush at him, a weapon. “Like you need to protect me.”
“I’m well aware you’re capable of taking care of yourself,” he replied cheerfully, pulling his knees up so she couldn’t bat at his hanging legs with the toilet brush. “I’m just here for… oh, I don’t know. Spontaneous bursts of toilet water.”
She folded her arms, but the scrubbing brush reduced the intimidation factor greatly. “You’re a freeloader. Get out of my bathroom.”
He hopped off the edge of the bathtub and left, probably to resume his conversation in the kitchen sink.
The only other time she caught him, he was peering at the wrought-iron railing of the balcony, shining and ash-gray in the early night. His brows were drawn together, mouth open in the outline of a word, before he noticed her heading for the watering can and wisely paused.
She pointed the can toward the railing. “Were you speaking to the god of railings? Infrastructure? All your friends are so sensibly named.” She pressed a hand to her mouth in mock shock. “Wait, let me guess. You’re the god of furniture.”
“Fire and furniture,” he said wryly. “Not such a good combination. You’re lucky, you know. If you offered such crude names to any other gods, they might get upset. They have very fragile egos.”
“I can tell,” she deadpanned, and he mimed being struck in pain.
To say he was drawing further away from humanity was a simplification, and wrong in many ways. He felt a little bit more present, more alive. The weakening seal had given back some of his vitality, outlining him in bright, broad strokes shaped like sunlight.
When he’d first arrived, there had been moments where he had seemed like something entirely other. Removed from both divinity and humanity, he’d been raw and strange, jagged with muted memory. But now he was oddly settled, even inclined to answer occasional questions Suri asked.
Seventeen-hundred years old, she thought, still unable to fully process the notion. She couldn’t fathom what he must have seen, lifetime after lifetime after lifetime. But he remembered nothing of it, not yet, and so in a way, he was still a little human. Close enough to touch, close enough to know.
Suri opened the door to smoke and fire.
For a moment, terror seized her. She glanced around the apartment, convinced it had gone up in flames—it was burning as the car had burned, and it was still burning, and she could do nothing but watch. But it hadn’t yet caught flame; it was much like everything else in her life, gasoline-soaked and nearly undone, a match pressed to one corner as if in a kiss.
Kiran was sitting in front of the coffee table, head tipped forward. Candles were carefully arranged around him—dozens, hundreds of them, neatly lined up on every available surface. The room swayed under the weight of fire.
“Where did you get these?” she asked, voice oddly hushed.
He tilted his head up in a slow, feral movement. The flames limned his face, blades dancing in the smooth surface of his irises. “Rana gave them to me.”
Suri navigated the peaks of wax and fire and carefully lowered herself beside the coffee table. Across from her, Kiran knelt before the wood, palms face up and marked in ash. She recognized the movement from the temples of her youth. They used sacred ash to mark the cheekbones and forehead of worshippers, but priests, in service, always marked their palms, held them up in supplication before the altar.
The god was still as an idol, save for the
faint heave of his chest. His lips moved without sound, the movements smooth and practiced.
“How long have you done this?” Her words slipped out without warning and he paused, cheeks pale from blood.
“I don’t know,” he said, faintly strained. “A very long time. I would have begun when I arrived, but I could only light a few candles at a time then. Even now, it is difficult to hold so much fire at one time.”
Her breath caught. He had lit the candles with power. The flames swayed by his words, by his breath. “Is it difficult to keep them burning?”
“No,” he said, slow, measured. “It is difficult to keep them from burning. Fire is not a stationary element—even now, I can feel every individual flame, longing to spill out of wax and turn this building to ash.” He drew in a rattling breath. “Part of me wants to let it. It is not a part I know very well, but I feel as though I once did.”
Memories coming loose, she thought, and felt her stomach twist. His gaze returned to the ash on his hands, dipping into the lines of his palms. She watched the movement, entranced.
“Who do gods pray to?” she asked aloud, a dream with open eyes.
The line of his mouth was sharp enough to draw blood. But when he spoke, his voice was snow-soft, death-soft. “This is not prayer, Suri. It is atonement.”
On the morning of the dawn festival, Suri awoke to her phone buzzing beside her.
“Hello?” she asked, muffling a yawn with the side of her pillow.
“Why are you still asleep?” her grandmother scolded her, with the sprightly irritation of someone who regularly woke up at five in the morning.
She shifted the phone against her ear, twisting in the blankets. “It’s only eight, anda. What is it?”
“Today’s Theyni,” she said, sighing. People were chattering in the background, an endless stream of white noise. “I attend the temple service every year, but I’m out of town on a delivery.”
“What does that have to do with me?” Despite her efforts, Suri could hear a plaintive note creeping into her voice.