“How long will it last?” I asked.
“It will remain potent until the last phoenix falls,” he said.
I thanked him and headed to Tibet. Instead of making my presence known to all the monks, I materialized before the first Dalai Lama as he walked alone in his garden, likely pondering the secrets of the universe. If he was startled to see me, he didn’t show it.
After presenting him with the scroll and the ointment, I used the power of the scarf to create a tiger medallion like the one I remembered and hung it around his neck. I finished by warning him that the contents of the scroll were not to be read and gave him all the other instructions I thought were pertinent to help Kelsey and my former self in their quest.
Every time I thought of Shangri-La, it brought a tightness to my chest. With the letter gone and the seal finished, there was nothing more for me to do. I wandered for a few decades, helping people where I could, knowing Ana would have wanted me to. I came upon a young man during my travels and my hand thrummed when I shook his.
I knew immediately that he was one of my many descendants. He told me his name was Tarak, and I started. I was in the presence of my own grandfather. To make sure, I asked where he hailed from and he confirmed my suspicions. We traveled together for a time, and when we separated, I offered him a gift.
“What is it?” he asked, unwrapping the cloth.
“A very precious heirloom. Seeing as I have no progeny”—the seal remained cold in my hands, responding to my lie—“I would be honored if you would keep this in your family.”
His eyes grew large when he saw what he held in his hands. “Are you certain you wish to part with it?” he asked.
“I judge you as one deserving of it. Besides, the time has come for me to move forward without it.” I was about to turn aside when I thought of something else. Hesitantly, I pulled a second priceless treasure from my bag and placed it in his hands. “This belonged to my late wife,” I said. “Perhaps one day your wife or daughter might take to it.” I touched my fingertips to Ana’s ivory-handled hairbrush and then smiled, knowing it would someday soon be in my mother’s hands.
He clutched my arm in a familiar gesture. It was the warrior’s vow. The words had changed somewhat since my wedding, but the promises made still stirred my heart. I clutched the boy to me, pounding his back. “May luck be with you always, young Tarak.”
“And with you.”
The boy waved as we parted ways and I continued on my journey, drifting back to Phet’s hut. I often pondered the idea that I could somehow be my own ancestor and wished I could have shared the information with Ren. I decided to write a new letter, one including my recently discovered fact, and traveled back in time, switching it with the old one as my other self lay sleeping in the hut.
Phased out of time, I looked at my own face as I slept. There were streaks of gray in my hair, wrinkles around my eyes, and I’d lost flesh. It appeared time was catching up to me. When I shifted back, I groaned. I felt old and world-weary as I settled in. Days passed in a monotonous way, especially because I sensed my work was finally finished.
One morning, Fanindra woke me. She sat on my chest and lifted her head. “Hello, my girl,” I said. She flicked out her tongue and I could barely feel it when it touched my cheek. “Ah,” I said sadly. “You’re saying good-bye. Come back to me someday if you can. For I shall sorely miss you.” After a moment, she slid down to the floor, and when I looked, she was gone, as were the gifts of Durga.
With Fanindra and the gifts gone, I felt my power draining quickly. I could no longer move through time, summon weapons, or create food or drink. Shifting into tiger form, I hunted instead, widening my territory until I came upon the old grounds where my parents would, someday soon, build a home near the waterfall. I didn’t become a man for over a year and I found, when I tried, that I no longer could.
I lost the love of the hunt soon after and got up only to drink from the pool. How many days had passed without me eating, I didn’t know. But one day, in the late afternoon, as I was napping, I caught a scent, one I hadn’t come across in years.
“Hello, son,” Kadam said, his back to the setting sun.
Epilogue
Somnolence
I tried to rise and greet him, but he shook his hand, “No need to get up. If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to sit with you a while.” In my mind, I spoke to him but it quickly became apparent that he couldn’t hear me.
Kadam placed his hand on my back and spoke to me of love and loss. He talked of his wife and how difficult it was to live without her for so many years. It made me think of Ana and of Ren and how he believed Kelsey was calling to him. Kadam droned on, his familiar voice comforting and calm, adding to the serenity of the quiet forest. I felt drowsy and sighed as my eyes closed.
Then I heard a sort of hum. A breeze kissed the fur on the back of my neck and I smelled wildflowers, no, jasmine. My heart stilled and if I were in human form, I would have smiled. The brightness of the dying sun pierced my closed lids and Kadam’s voice became fainter and fainter. Instead, I heard the rustling of leaves overhead—a tintinnabulation that became richer with each passing second.
As the last breath left my weary body, I felt the press of soft lips against my ear as they whispered.
Sohan.
***
My hand stilled when the tiger let out his final breath. I let myself cry a little, for my boy, my son, who died thirty-five years before he’d even been born. I hugged his body, the soft fur tickling my face. Gently, I removed the Damon Amulet from around his neck and used its power to bury him in the same patch of ground where I’d someday inter his parents, where I, myself, would be laid to rest.
There was still more work to be done. It seemed never ending, but of all people, I was very aware an end was indeed coming. I’d have to break apart the Damon Amulet, find Ana in the past, and take her with me to gift the five pieces—one to each leader of the five armies who’d helped defeat Lokesh on the mountain. Then I needed to go to the first temple of Durga and destroy the fifth pillar before Anamika got a chance to see everything carved there.
After that, I needed to respond to a summons that I, myself, wrote to Phet when I asked him to help with Ren’s memory. Though the list had felt long once, it was coming to an end a bit too quickly.
Thinking of both the white and black tigers, I rubbed my thumb across the face of the tiger on the amulet and placed a hand on the mound of dirt covering Kishan’s body.
He deserved more.
Prince Sohan Kishan Rajaram should have had a magnificent funeral. Been honored by all his many descendants. Esteemed by all the people he and his wife had helped over the centuries. He should have been more than a footnote in the annals of history or a reference in a book of mythology. At the very least, he should have been laid in a sepulcher near his wife.
But this was the place I’d always found him in all the timelines I’d seen, and after all we’d done together, I didn’t think he’d mind so much being buried here. Rising, I dusted my hands and looked up at the sky. The sun had set and the insects were chirruping in the trees, a final song for a fallen hero.
“Good-bye, my son,” I said, pressing my hand over my heart, letting the tears flow. “I’ll be joining you soon.”
Wrapping my hand around the amulet, I leapt through time and space, trying to find consolation in duty and the knowledge that I’d soon be among those I loved and lost once more.
A Dream Lost
By
Sohan Kishan Rajaram
(his one and only attempt at poetry)
Once I had
A kiss upon my brow
An everlasting vow
From one I longed to make mine
Now
Another has taken
Away from me, hasten’d
The one I longed to make mine
Once I beheld
A babe tiny and warm
A mother finely form’d
A fam’l
y I longed to make mine
Now
My love’s with another
The man I call brother
Took the fam’ly I longed to make mine
Once I believed
My heart would forget her
My soul would not fester
O’er the one that I longed to make mine
Now
My world is left broken
My love she’s forsaken
The one that I longed to make mine
Since
My love has departed
I stand broken-hearted
O’er the one that I longed to make mine
And
What is left can gladden
This river of sadness?
She who I long to make mine
But
Alas! It truly seems
I must still all my dreams
Of the one that I longed to make mine
And, yet…
If pitying fate deems
My soul mark’d and redeem’d
For yielding one that I longed to make mine
Then perhaps I shall find
Not the one my heart pines
But the one who longs to be mine
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Colleen Houck is the New York Times bestselling author of the Tiger’s Curse series and the Reawakened series. Her books have appeared on the USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and Walmart bestseller lists, among many others. She has been a Parents’ Choice Award winner and has been reviewed and featured on MTV.com and in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Girls’ Life magazine, and Romantic Times, which called Tiger’s Curse “one of the best books I have ever read.” Colleen lives in Salem, Oregon, with her husband and a huge assortment of plush tigers.
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Tiger's Dream (Tiger's Curse Book 5) Page 65