by SGD Singh
“And it has a date, right?”
Aquila looked. “Oh. Yeah, it says they’re born during our year.”
“Not a regular twelve month year, though,” Asha said, pointing at him. “An Infernal Guard sixteen-month year—May until the next year’s September first.”
Aquila shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.” He studied the Prophecy silently. “We should definitely have Wei Feng re-read this thing. It’s complex as hell.”
“We don’t need to.” Asha reached out and lowered the scroll. “It’s not me.”
“What do you mean, it’s not you?” Aquila put the scroll aside. “There’s no other Seer in our year, Asha.”
“Says who? The year isn’t over until midnight tonight.”
Aquila raised one eyebrow and scowled adorably, “Seriously? It says our year, meaning the last day?”
Asha shrugged.
Aquila gave the paranda tassels hanging at the end of Asha’s braid a tug. “You can heal with a thought like it says. And people follow you, you’re a Commander. And Jodha.” He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her to him. “Plus, you bring joy. And love.”
Asha laughed, shoving Aquila, and he flopped back dramatically to lay on the bed.
“I’m telling you, it’s not me. There’s another Seer out there. Has to be.”
Aquila grew still, studying the painting above the bed. “You’re sure.”
“I’m sure.” Asha climbed onto the bed and straddled him, her knees on either side of his slim hips. “And the instant one meets this Seer, mark my words good sir, one shan’t mistake said Seer for any other.”
Aquila lifted himself onto his elbows. “One shan’t?”
She leaned forward until her lips almost touched his. “One mustn’t.”
Wrapping his arms around her, Aquila rolled, and Asha squealed, pinned beneath him.
Their eyes locked and Asha felt his desire matched by her own.
How much longer do we have to endure this torture?
Until our glorious wedding night. Aquila smiled and wiggled his eyebrows. Why? Would you like me to move?
Asha’s grin matched his. Depends on what you mean by… move.
Evil temptress… Aquila kissed her once, softly. “First, we go back to the party,” he said, kissing her again, less softly. “And second, you dance with me while we wait for our postings.” He stood abruptly, pulling Asha to her feet and spinning her around and back against his chest with a smile. “The Seers will know something, right?”
“Yes.” Asha wriggled out of his arms, keeping her fingers laced in his. “They will.”
There would be two Seers there tonight besides herself, the only two besides herself who survived Ranya’s attack on The Guard the previous year. Asha glanced down at her own Seer rings, their emeralds flashing in the light. “Yoki is supposed to see where a graduate should go just by holding their hand. And Inala sees what’s right, whatever that means.”
She placed the scroll on the table, and they left the room.
Kelakha met them in the hallway, breathless—or as breathless as Kelakha ever became. “There you are. Barindra’s looking for you, Asha. He said to report to the main office, like, now.” The three of them broke into a jog together. “Oh, and Jax decided to stay.”
Asha grinned, holding up a hand for a high five. “Told you.”
They arrived at the offices and found Barindra standing outside the carved office doors, waiting.
He turned to the three of them. “The Seers said you two should go in with her.”
The three friends glanced at each other, and Kelakha pushed the doors open as Barindra leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms, obviously preparing to wait for them.
The room looked like a large home library. Worn leather furniture surrounded colorful Persian rugs, framed by walls of books. An enormous carved desk stood in one dark corner.
Two men sat in armchairs. The first looked ancient, Asha guessed that he was at least ninety. His skin was black as ebony, and a wild tangle of snowy hair framed blue-green laughing eyes. He wore tattered shorts and an oversized, worn-out T-shirt that read Harvard Law, then beneath that, Just Kidding. Across from him sat a neat, well-groomed Japanese man of about fifty, who wore an immaculate business suit and shimmering silk tie.
Inala and Yoki.
Two impossibly large men stood, still as statues, behind Yoki. They were armed in every conceivable way, and Asha noticed that their hands were deeply scarred.
Both Seers turned their eerie eyes on Asha, and she met their gazes evenly.
“Asha Sandhu,” Inala called, teeth shining within his white beard as he smiled. He gestured to a small couch across from them and Asha sat, Aquila and Kelakha on either side of her.
Silently, Yoki held out one slender hand, watching her intently, and Asha placed her right hand in his, noticing that his long nails were painted blood red.
“Sydney,” he said immediately. Then his brow furrowed, “But before that…”
“Ha! I told you. Didn’t I tell you?” Inala’s strong aboriginal accent made it difficult for Asha to understand what he said next as he burst into laughter. “Pay up, Yoki.”
Releasing Asha’s hand, Yoki made a lazy gesture to one of the men behind him and the bodyguard handed a fifty dollar bill to Inala.
Asha, Kelakha, and Aquila glanced at each other.
“You are a Seer, Asha.” Inala’s eyes twinkled as he began twisting the money into tiny folds with his wrinkled hands. “You tell us what this something is.”
This is it.
Asha turned to Yoki, who watched her with an expression of indifferent boredom.
Never taking her eyes from his, she said, “To find the Seer of the Prophecy.”
Yoki’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second and Inala burst into laughter again.
“And you wondered why most of the graduating class wants to be posted with her!” he said. “Very good Asha.” He reached a hand out, snapping his fingers, and Asha reached her hands to join his.
Yoki glanced back at his bodyguards, rolling his eyes.
“A convent in southern Arizona,” Inala declared. “Saint Someone’s Shrine of the Blessed Something…”
“That’s specific,” said Yoki dryly, and with a sound of irritation, the third Seer leaned forward and joined his own hands to Asha’s and Inala’s. The instant their six hands touched, Asha’s senses were flooded, and she gasped. She felt Aquila’s sudden alarm beyond her own pounding heart.
She turned to Inala like a drowning person would reach for a lifeline, and the Seer just laughed.
“No reason to panic, Asha. What is meant to happen will happen. One does not change the future by seeing it. One simply trusts.”
Asha, what the hell was that? Tell me that wasn’t the future. That what we’re going face isn’t as bad as that felt.
Asha shook her head, ignoring the despair that clawed at her mind, and it began to fade. She kept her eyes on Inala. Yoki let go of their hands and leaned back, but Inala continued to hold her fingers in his gentle grasp. “It will take time for your mind to process the… jolt. Just relax.” He patted her hand. “Put a team together. Immediately. Then prepare to go, and to bring the Seer back with you.”
“Bring him to Australia?” asked Asha.
“To wherever.” He shrugged, releasing her hands. “Now we know that this Seer must be your first priority. You must reach him, and quickly.”
“Why didn’t we see him before?” Asha said.
Inala closed his eyes. “Guard and Underworlders alike have been waiting for him. But as you felt, he turned seventeen only yesterday. He is finally showing up on our radar. And on the radar of all Underworlders capable of finding him.” Inala’s glowing eyes looked sad for a fleeting moment. “For us, it must be you, Asha. You have seen that as clearly as I have.”
Yoki snorted. “This is what happens when there’s only three Seers in The Guard—one a trainee.”
Inala’
s laugh filled the room. He reached into a box on the table and tossed three brushed-steel rings at them. “Graduates, Yoki. Graduates. And there are four Seers now. And the fourth is more powerful than any of us can imagine.”
Asha, Aquila, and Kelakha caught their full-access security rings. Taking off her key ring, Asha replaced it with the new one, admiring the intricate maze-like carving on the metal as it heated, fitting itself to her finger. And yet the excitement of reaching the moment she’d worked more than a year for was stolen by the Seer’s cryptic vision.
“Whatever,” said Yoki, bored. “The mission is urgent. That much we agree on.”
Inala leaned toward Asha. “You will know what to do. Trust your heart, Asha. Let it guide you.” He motioned for her to open her hand, and placed a fifty dollar origami-spider in her palm.
A chill filled the room as icy breath seemed to whisper against the back of her neck, and Asha felt Aquila studying her with concern, resisting the urge to touch her, feeling her dread returning tenfold.
It’s fine, she assured him. Everything will be fine in the end. That much we know, too.
Yeah but… only after… what kind of hell?
Only after what has to come before.
Aquila took her hand then, a crooked smile playing across his features. Spoken like a true Seer.
After a long silence, Asha stood, Aquila and Kelakha following her. They bowed slightly to the Seers, and Inala made a gesture of good luck while Yoki turned to his bodyguards.
When the door closed behind them, Kelakha said, “I’m confused. Asha’s not the Seer in the prophecy anymore?”
“Apparently she never was,” said Aquila.
Barindra straightened. “What?”
Asha said, “I’ve said it all along, only no one would believe me until now.”
Aquila told their old Commander what the Seers had said. Barindra listened with a frown, his massive arms crossed, then turned his yellow eyes on Asha. “So your very first mission as Guard is to find the savior of the world and bring him back, and for some cosmic, unknowable reason, more experienced Jodha aren’t meant to assist, am I right?”
“I’m to put a team together,” said Asha simply, “and leave as soon as possible.”
Kelakha added, “In and out of some church in the desert, Commander. Hardly worthy of your talents.”
Barindra squinted suspiciously. “Let me guess. You want Avinash on your team.”
Asha smiled. “Yes sir. We’ll need him.”
The Tvastar had recently been cleared to rejoin The Guard as its first official Werewolf member. The thought of seeing Avinash again was almost enough to erase the feeling of impending doom that had taken hold of Asha’s mind the instant the paper spider touched her skin.
Barindra shook his head. “I’ll send him to you.” He held a hand out to her, and Asha tried not to wince as her fingers disappeared in his crushing grip. “We leave for Hong Kong within an hour. Good luck, Asha. I know you’ll make a great Commander.”
He turned to Aquila and Kelakha and spoke in rapid Punjabi, pulling them into a hug before they could touch his feet.
As they walked away from their old commander, both boys tried to hide the tears in their eyes.
Chapter 11
A short half hour later, Asha sat in her room with Lexi, Aquila, and Nidhan, sorting through survival gear on her bed.
“And Ariella makes ten, counting Jax,” Asha announced.
Lexi turned a small pack marked “tent” in her hands. “Maybe this whole thing is, like, one of those, ‘you are not The One now, so that later, you are The One’ kind of things.”
“You’ve watched The Matrix way too many times,” said Asha. “It is nothing like that. Trust me.” She inspected the inside of a jacket, letting it fall to the pile on the bed. “Look at all this stuff. I’m guessing it’s cold in our neighboring realms.”
Aquila said, “If you end up in the Underworld, believe me, the cold will be the least of your problems.”
There was a knock on the door, and Nidhan opened it for Kelakha and Jax, followed by Ursala, Ariella, and the triplets—Kai, Kenda, and Koko.
“You have broken our hearts, Asha,” Kai called, pressing his hands to his chest and stumbling dramatically.
“But we forgive you,” said Kenda, bowing with arms outspread.
“Because we’re coming with you whether you like it or not,” said Koko, flipping hair over his shoulder and crossing his arms.
Asha shrugged, nodding at Aquila, and Nidhan told them, “Dude. You guys can go down to the armory and get your own survival kits.”
“All right! Survival kits!” Kai waved his brothers back toward the door. “That’s what I’m talking about!”
Asha rolled her eyes and turned to the civilian. “Jax, you know you don’t have to do this. You can go to Australia—or Miami, with my grandfather—and we’ll contact you as soon as the mission is complete.”
“If you’ll need me,” said Jax, meeting Asha’s eyes with fiery determination. “I’m coming.”
Will we need her? Aquila asked.
Yes.
Is she going to get dead?
I don’t know… maybe. It’s a strong possibility.
Jax spoke as if she could hear them. “I don’t care if it’s life-threatening. I have nothing pressing to live for, anyway. You know this.”
Everyone froze. Lexi lowered the survival pack she was studying. “Asha? We can really do without a suicidal, revenge-crazed civilian tagging along just for the pleasure of getting killed.”
“She’s not suicidal,” Kelakha said, bristling. “Who among us is afraid to die?”
“That’s different,” said Lexi.
“Why?” demanded Kelakha, crossing his arms. “Because she’s a civilian?”
Ursala stepped in. “There’s a difference between not fearing death and not wanting to live.”
Before Kelakha could respond, Bao Chen, Wei Feng, and Hua Tseng stormed through the door the triplets had left open.
Lexi said, “Oh, here we go.”
Wei Feng spread his arms. “Asha, I’m as happy to follow orders as the next man, but what the hell? The K triplets get to go, and we don’t?”
“Where’s the loyalty?” said Bao Chen. “This is just because their hair is so much prettier than ours, isn’t it?”
“I told them it’s a Seer thing,” said Hua Tseng. “They don’t want us here, and we are now officially wasting everyone’s time. Jax? Nice to have met you. I’ve never had a civilian friend. I hope we see you again. Alive, that is. The same goes for the rest of you kuángrén.”
Asha jumped forward and took the Illusionists hands in hers. “Don’t be like that Tseng. We’ll be in Australia within a week. I swear it to you.”
Bao Chen interrupted, looking at the black bags covered in pockets and buckles. “Are those full survival kits? For inter-realm travel?”
Ursala looked. “Yep.”
“Shit,” the three newcomers said in unison.
Bao Chen crossed his arms. “I thought it was a nun’s convent in the middle of the desert.”
Aquila, Ursala, and Kelakha shrugged.
“Extra precautions,” said Asha. “That’s all. The mission is still… fuzzy.”
Wei Feng tugged at his blue hair and faced Asha. “You call us if you need us, Asha. Promise me. We will not be spared because of some misguided sentimental bullshit.”
Asha opened her mouth to protest, but Hua Tseng’s furious expression changed her mind and she nodded. “I promise.”
Jax raised a hand. “I have one question. Is the food any better in the lower realms?”
Nidhan laughed. “I’m really starting to like her.”
“Actually,” said Lexi, “according to reports, there is no food we can eat in the lower realms. Hence the food packets and water purifying tablets.”
Nidhan shuddered. “We’re just preparing for the worst, right? We can still hope for the best.”
“Here,”
said Lexi, throwing a bunch of small grey bags at him. “An extra three days of food, just for you.”
Nidhan stared at them in horror. “These are for three days? For who, exactly? A two year old?”
Ursala said, “They mix with water to become… well, disgusting, actually. But you’ll live.” He looked Nidhan up and down, adding, “Maybe.”
Asha raised her arms. “All right. Everybody out. Get your stuff squared away. We leave at oh-six-hundred hours.”
Chapter 12
Asha lay in bed and watched Aquila dry his hair. He shook his head, tossing the towel into the bathroom and fastened his weapons belt. Wet tangles hung across his face, sticking to his smooth, perfectly soft neck and Asha felt her heart begin to pound. Aquila shrugged a survival-gear jacket over his black T-shirt, and the fabric became a muted brownish-orange, blending perfectly with the dim lamplight. Reaching into a pocket at his chest, he pulled out a pair of dark glasses and put them on, smiling across the room at Asha.
“Cool,” he said. “It’s like enhanced, enhanced night vision.”
Asha stretched her arms over her head, grinning.
Extremely cool.
Aquila froze as Asha’s desire finally registered, and he gazed at her lying across the bed. A slow smile lit his features before he took one lunging step toward her and Asha yelped, scrambling out of bed, laughing as she rushed to the bathroom.
“You better run,” he called after her. “Ten minutes ’til breakfast.”
By the time Asha reached the mess hall, everyone else was almost finished eating. Jax sat with a fork in one hand and a copy of Underworlders We Know Of So Far in the other. When Asha sat down, she turned to her, flipping to the back of the huge volume, where a portrait of the Raurava demon they had encountered in Punjab covered the entire page. Its three hideous faces grimaced, multiple grotesque eyes staring hatefully from yellow cheese-like skin, and the demon’s enormous claws dripped what was supposed to look like poison. Its purple, scale-covered legs crouched above cloven hooves in front of a fiery background.