by Varsha Ravi
“Perhaps,” he said, asperous. “Or perhaps I am here to mourn what I have become.” The god took a step closer, stone shattering under his feet, and raised a hand. His fingers grasped Kiran’s chin with a bruising tightness, leaving streaks of blood on his skin. “Look at you. Rotted with your own weakness.”
His other hand crept over his chest, over the cotton of his robes. “I could cut your heart out, and you would let me. I doubt you would even notice until after it had stopped beating. Do you understand what I mean to tell you?”
“No,” he whispered, and it came out a rasp. He hated the quaver in his voice, how he loathed and feared himself in equal amounts. And yet, this was the truest version of himself. This was his divine essence, what had burst alive in the flames after his mortal heart had burned away to ashes. He had not been born soft—he had learned, pieced together old memories and tried to recreate it in stuttering, distorted forgeries. But gentleness had never come easily to him, despite his lingering mortal hope. It was not as if the boy was wrong—it made him weak, and he had always known it.
The god rocked back on his heels, scraping his gaze across his face. “Go native if you wish. Let their mortal love—stained by ignorance, as you well know—wash away your clarity of mind. Indulge in the illusion that they are capable of caring for you. I will not stop you—I doubt I could, even if I tried.”
“But,” he said softly, leaning in so his voice was overwarm against the shell of his ear, “Do not forget yourself. That world is not for you. And if you remain like this, soft and frail as an infant, you risk the lives of those around you far more than you risk your own.” His mouth twisted sharply. “In their world, kindness is repaid. In ours, it exposes vulnerability. Do not forget which one you belong to. They will not wait for you to learn.”
The words rolled through him, acrid and true. They felt like poison, felt like ancient secrets and hidden, suppressed vitriol. Ink swirling through clear, still waters. “Who?”
The line of his mouth was a knife. “Even if I were to say their name, the sankhili would distort the sound. It is unlikely you will even remember this conversation when you wake. I can only hope my warning will linger, that you will act with some measure of caution. But I am not optimistic.”
He watched him for a moment, that acerbic silence souring the air, before Kiran realized he meant for him to speak. He exhaled, and asked, as evenly as he could, “Why do you hate me?”
The god’s eyes glittered with fire. But when he spoke, there was a cold amusement to the words. “I don’t. I am afraid, just as you are afraid. It is simply that we fear separate things.”
Kiran knew what he feared, the knowledge of it intimate and hollowing. And, looking into his own eyes, smooth with primeval wrath, he thought he might understand his other fear.
Before he could voice it, the boy stepped backward, a deliberate, graceful gesture that held faint unease. “Heed my words, naiyin. Before it is too late.”
He felt empty, unsteady. It had been a long time since someone had called him that.
The god waved his hand in a practiced gesture and disappeared into smoke. In its wake, the air smelled faintly of iron.
Seconds later, another presence replaced him.
He had thought he knew true fear. The notion of it seemed unbearably naive now, a child presuming to know the depths of the universe after seeing the moon rise once.
It came like his memories had when they had first begun to return—sensation emptied of meaning, a throbbing, wordless sense of dread.
Kiran turned to face the other end of the battlefield. Someone stood in front of him, a cruel, ugly piece of power sculpted to resemble something person-shaped. In the distance, the sea crashed against the rocks, ceaseless and violent.
He couldn’t breathe—his chest was filled with blood, with bile. It dripped down his skin. It coated his heart, oily and black. He was not flesh at all, only a suggestion of it, only a vessel for poison. Terror carved him into tepals, and scattered them on dry, cracking soil.
The figure smiled—they existed without a face, and yet he knew, instinctually, that they were smiling. They smiled, and it cut into the world, split the soft flesh of reality and let it bleed.
“Wake,” they said.
Kiran opened his eyes. The room was dark and empty; the glow of the waning gibbous moon cast everything in stark relief. There was no spectrum of soft grays—the world existed entirely in light and the absence of it.
He sat up fluidly, unthinking, and leaned forward so his hands laid flat on the cold wood of the coffee table.
Divinity was a ghost in his bones. He curled one hand into a fist and then extended the other, drawing symbols on the wood gracelessly. He did not need to tell his body what to do—it knew, just as it knew fear, as it knew wrath. And he sat there for hours, hunched in a smooth arc, until dawn broke and he slumped, exhausted; index finger crooked as it continued to trace a circle, and a line that cut through it.
21
Enesmat
Viro left the next morning with little pageantry, but pageantry nonetheless. He was dressed in full uniform, though he’d opted out of the more flamboyant decorations the more ostentatious military leaders were fond of. That taste for flair had long since left him, and in any case, Kiran felt like riding off to the battlefield, possibly toward death, wasn’t the best occasion to celebrate.
The king shook hands with the palace officials, ministers and diplomats and envoys, holding a brief, polite conversation with Galen as Lucius tried not to ogle him. The other boy had always had a morbid fascination with Viro, as though he were a scientific specimen. The Rage of the Lost Youth, labeled with ink on cleanly cut parchment.
Surprisingly, he acknowledged Suri, taking the time to shake her hand. Odd that they would become equals this close to the end, he thought, and then chided himself for the bitterness of it. Was it a victory, if he had succeeded in averting one vision of death and destruction only for them all to be doomed by another? Perhaps this was the gods’ sense of humor.
In the vision of that dawn on the hill, he had been given something frustratingly detailed with absolutely no context. Here, he was given even less; simply the sensation of metal piercing skin and carving through flesh, the suggestion of blood, ragged breaths in the distance. He could not know where it took place, who died, only that odd, pervasive sense of wrongness he had felt all those years before, and the sinking knowledge it would result from the king’s departure.
Viro paused by Tarak. The captain refused to look him in the face, keeping his gaze on his shoulders. They did not speak, but for a moment, Kiran thought the king might’ve smiled faintly.
Then he moved past the captain and lingered by him. Kiran held his gaze, did not look away even as the other boy examined him, as if looking for a some specific emotion, a hidden message.
But there was nothing more to say; Kiran wanted him to stay, and he would not, and they both knew this. And yet, driven by a sudden macabre, he leaned forward and pitched his voice low. “At least try to stay alive.”
Viro smiled, a thin, sharp thing directed outward. “I will.”
He smiled back, or tried to—it was frail, sadder than it was amused.
And then he was gone, the gates of the city shut behind him. There were troops with him, guards and reinforcements and extra supplies, but he could not help but suspect that none of them would be of any help when Viro truly needed it.
Even before the crowd had fully dispersed, Kiran found himself turning away, walking back to the palace. He felt sick to his stomach—a part of him wished he had swallowed his pride, had bound Viro in manacles or simply yelled at him until the words had gotten through his thick, impenetrable skull.
He let that strained, self-deprecating regret guide him, and he wandered through the palace aimlessly before finally ascending the north tower and pausing in front of the aviary. He rooted around for the key beneath the loose brick, but it was not there, and the door was cracked open slight
ly—someone had already entered. Gently, he opened it further, shutting it softly behind him.
Suri was leaned against the bars lining the platform leading out to the aviary windows. She had opened them slightly, just enough that the room wasn’t quite as stuffy as usual, airy with petrichor and ozone. She jerked her head toward the dark, cloudy sky, slouched against the metal. “A storm is coming.”
“Hopefully, Viro avoids the worst of it,” he said lightly, but her gaze was heavy, uncharacteristically soft, as if she could see his worry as clearly as if he’d painted it on his face. He forced himself to look away. “What brought you here?”
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug and descended the stairs, crossing the column in the middle of the room so she stood by him. “It is… peaceful up here. Quiet. And the view is beautiful. As I am sure you know.”
“I do,” he said, rueful, and the words brought back years of memories, of stolen moments beside the aviary windows. The silence of this world at night, the lovely, dark chill of it, the knowledge that there was life around him—that the world was not just blood and steel and funeral pyres.
A shrill caw interrupted them, cutting through the silence that always seemed to blanket the aviary when Kiran entered. The windows nudged open further at the insistence of an occupied kagha, who slipped through the gap and arced over them, landing, surprisingly, on Suri’s wrist, half outstretched as if she had subconsciously expected this.
Though he could not believe that she had. She was bloodless and trembling, the fingers of her other hand raised to pet the kagha and yet still in the air, unwilling to go through with the act. There was a folded piece of cloth tied to the bird’s left foot, a scar right below it.
“It’s for me,” she whispered. And then, stricken, she raised her gaze to Kiran’s. “But I did not send them anything—this is—this is…” she trailed off, frowning down at the kagha. “This is not related to my… my assignment.”
“If they are invading,” he said, the words sour and burning even as he spoke them, “They may want you to leave beforehand. To avoid getting caught in the massacre.”
A small, bitter smile flickered on her face. “I doubt they would care. And yet…” still frowning, she reached down and untied the small piece of folded cloth from the bird’s foot. She nudged the bird and it flew upward, returning to its place among the rows of nearly identical kaghas.
Suri made a strange, choked noise and he glanced away from the birds. He had not thought it possible, but she looked even more pale, the thin piece of cloth shaking in her hands. She backed away from him until her back hit the column at the center of the room, and she slid down it, eyes wide and empty.
He crouched down beside her, tentatively placing his hand on hers. It was cold—most were to Kiran, yet he could tell that there was something unnatural about this clammy, fear-wrought cold.
She looked up at him, lips parted as if to speak. Instead, she handed him the silk missive. He squinted at it in the storm-dimmed light of the aviary. From what he could see, it was a stream of written Najan, yet, effectively, it was all gibberish. He had read enough Najan literature to recognize the structure of the sentences, the syllables, but every single word was meaningless.
“It is a code,” Suri said, oddly remote. “My… My brother and I made it when I was younger, when I went on my first assignment that required us to communicate long distance.”
He stared at the not-quite words, then glanced back at her. “What does it say?”
She heaved a single, shuddering breath. Her mouth twitched to the side, faintly amused. “He says my parents plan to kill me.”
For a moment, Kiran did not breathe. “How does he know?”
“He overheard them talking with another brother of mine, one who, in their words, apparently, ‘had not deigned to form as close a relationship with me’,” she said. That self-deprecating, resigned smile had not left her. “The plan, it seems, had always been for me to kill the king and for them to invade—and then depose me and place one of my brothers on the throne. Anyu—the one who has sent the message—had been their first choice, but I suppose they ascertained he wouldn’t… support it.”
Kiran’s blood felt like ice in his veins. “And now that you have stopped communications…”
She let out a harsh, humorless laugh. “Once they reach the capital, I am as good as dead.” Her mouth twisted in a ghost of anger. “Even after all I have done for them, I am little more than a loose thread that must be tied up. An issue to resolve.”
When he spoke, he tried his best to keep his voice steady, even though it felt as though the world was slowly beginning to crumble around him. “You must run, then.”
“What?” she blinked, shock washing over her face. “Run?”
He forced a faint smile. “You have to leave the country. So they cannot find you. So they cannot kill you.” Kiran rubbed his thumbs against the backs of her hands. “It may not be ideal, but at least you will not have to bend to their demands. You can live out your life the way you care to.”
Suri’s expression shifted, darkening. Taking in all the possibilities that now lay in front of her, there was nothing hopeful about the furrow between her eyebrows. “Leave?”
“Yes,” he said, trying his best to sound encouraging. He tried to imagine how Suri would navigate the cities of the rest of the kingdoms on her own, and immediately knew she would take to it like a fish in water. “Leave Athri. It is not as if you ever meant to marry Viro, anyway.”
Kiran had said it partially because he had thought it might bring back a spark of humor to her face, vanquish that dark, pensive apprehension. But she only frowned, lifting her gaze to his face. “And what about you?”
Frost was a disease, a thin, creeping layer over his own heart. In his bemusement, he let go of her hands. “What about me?”
Suri’s hands dipped down and grasped his own again, holding them tight. They were still cold, but not as much as before. “What will you do?”
“You know what I will do,” he said gently, but the words came out soft, wavering. “In five days, remember? I will die.”
His voice broke on the last word, and he hated himself for it—hated his own weakness. The gods had given him nearly eighteen years, and still he yearned for more, still he could not help but wish he was meant for something more than fire-kissed blood on stone and the promise of prosperity. But if this was the role he was given, the fate he’d been handed, then he had no choice but to go along with their wishes. If there was one thing prophecy had taught him, it was that fate did not care who you were, did not care what you loved and how you loved it. The intensity of your love, of your existence, were of no use to anyone—except perhaps those who would one day tell your story.
Suri pulled a hand from his and held it against his face, pulling him out of his reverie. For a moment, he stared back at her. Her copper eyes were alive with anger and defiance. “Come with me.”
Now he was the one unsteadied. He could feel himself being slowly unmoored, set adrift in this endless ocean. “What?”
“Come with me,” she repeated. The words seemed to buoy her, animate her. She leaned forward, hand still chilled against his cheek. “I know—I know you do not want to die. Come with me.”
There was a rhythm to the way she spoke, a lovely, intoxicating cadence to it. And more than that, the promise of the words themselves allured him. The thought of leaving this death—bought and paid for in his blood, long before today—far behind, where the gods could not reach him.
And for what? a contemptuous voice in his head asked. Athri will die, for your remaining decade of peace? The people will starve and suffer and live on in stuttering misery, just so you can escape a death you have already cheated once?
If he left now, he would be dooming them to a fate worse than death, to an unstable, fortune-drained life that would only grow worse and worse until the fire in his blood finally consumed him. They didn’t deserve that, and he knew it as well as he knew hi
s own heart.
But do you? What have you ever done to deserve death?
“Kiran,” Suri said, curling her fingers into his cheek, the touch unbearably gentle. The hope had faded from her expression, but the defiance and anger remained. But it was a touch sad now, as if she knew what he would say.
“I cannot,” he whispered, turning away. Even now, he could not bring himself to move her hand from his cheek, and so he reached up with his own and placed it over hers. “You know I cannot leave. I cannot condemn them.”
Her mouth twisted downward, bitter but unsurprised. “I thought you would say that. I knew you would. Yet it still hurts to hear it.” She dropped the hand from his cheek, but his skin stung with the memory of it. She picked up the letter from where it had fallen to the ground and examined it with a long, weary exhale. “If I am to leave, I must do it soon. Before the week is up. And we must get rid of this.”
Kiran smiled, sharp but not without humor. “I think I know a place where we could do that.”
He allowed himself a single indulgence, taking her hand in his own and holding it tight as they descended the north tower. They did not acknowledge the touch, for to do that was to acknowledge it was forbidden—to acknowledge it was something they could not truly have.
And so he led her up toward the temple, to the brazier that had burned all night in the midst of his unanswered, desperate prayers, and he took the letter from her hands and laid it in the fire. Carefully, so they could see the ink swirl and burn. So that they could see the cloth crumble into ash.
Suri burst into the war room. She had not been able to sleep all through the night. Anyu’s careful print felt seared into her brain—I wish I had more stories left to give you, but I don’t, so you must go find one of your own. Exhilaration and terror warred in her chest; she had dreamt of this freedom, hungered for it, and yet she could not help but think of whether she too doomed Athri by leaving it—she was only one person, a single soldier, and she would die if she stayed, whether on the front lines or by Rohit’s hands. But to simply leave without a second thought—she couldn’t fathom it. An assassin’s work had always been, in a kind of way, a coward’s work. But she did not feel like an assassin anymore.