We Shall Be Monsters, page 28
“No one thinks you’re a monster, Adi,” he said carefully.
Advaith’s smile was pitying. “Of course people think the asura is a monster. The asura always works for the demon lord. They’re associated with rakshasas. They could raise an army of demons, if they so wished.”
Kajal thought back to the vendor Tav had been aggravated by in Suraj. The drawings that had rendered the asura with hideous features.
“For too long, Martya has been crying about the horrors of demons,” Advaith continued. “Never mind that the majority keep to themselves and don’t interfere in humans’ lives. Never mind that yakshas are not always benevolent—that they are capable of greed, anger, and capriciousness. From the hungry ghosts who waylay travelers to those who drag unsuspecting creatures into their dens.”
Realizing white powder still clung to his hand, Advaith brushed it carelessly on his new clothes. “But humans seem to have forgotten this. Just as they forget that every living thing within the Brahimada carries the same three energies. Although the yakshas are high in sattva and the rakshasas high in tamas, they’re both necessary in balancing out Martya’s rajasic energy. But when the hunting of demons became commonplace, tamas receded, and the yakshas’ energy surged. The natural balance of Martya was thrown off, and rakshasas suffered as a result.”
His gaze grew distant. “There was a field full of oleander shrubs. A herd of aga ghora liked to graze on them. Do you remember, Tav, how we used to race the horses across the plains? They were so fast, and so beautiful. We’d sit and watch them for hours.”
He flexed his hand, red light flickering at his fingertips. “When the herd grew, do you know what the yakshas did? They poisoned the flowers. Do you have any idea what it was like, seeing the field strewn with their bodies?”
His voice broke. Tav made an aborted move toward him.
“Lord Dukha revealed to me that the yaksha deities do not care for us,” Advaith went on softly. “He himself suffered great hardship due to their neglect, and knew they favored humans over rakshasas. So we planned to create an abundance of tamas, to balance out the overflowing sattva.”
“How?” Tav asked.
“Conflict. Lord Dukha helped Bakshi gather power, with the intention of killing him once he’d served his purpose. Then Lord Dukha told me we had to set the stage for a battle.”
“What? Why would Lord Dukha bring such chaos to Dharati?” Tav demanded. “And why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
“Because I knew you would try to stop me.” Advaith stubbornly lifted his chin. It reminded Kajal of the moments she had tried to pester Lasya into doing something she wasn’t comfortable with. “Because this was our attack on the gods.”
Tav reeled back, and even Kajal was stunned by his audaciousness. Attack on the gods?
“We would find a way to make them retreat, to let the rakshasas grow in number until proper balance was attained,” Advaith explained. “We would show the world that we are not things to be hunted or killed. That we are not evil.”
“And starting a war would accomplish that?” Tav retorted.
“It wasn’t only about starting a war.” Advaith kept running his fingers over his sutures, tracing each black x sewn into his skin. “As Lord Dukha explained it, the battlefield was to be our stage. One where you and I had to face each other as opponents.”
There was a flicker in Tav’s eyes, like a memory was trying to break free. “Opponents…?”
“It was the only way to produce the kind of tamas that would make the yaksha deities go into hiding.” Advaith turned to him. “A clash of opposites. Of the asura and deva.”
Kajal’s mind spun back to a night by a diseased lake, the nagi’s sibilant voice traveling through the dark:
“Churning waters and blood-soaked ground,
Metal strikes with fearsome sound.
The venom swells below their feet.”
“Halahala,” Dalbir said, coming to the same conclusion. “The cosmic toxin.”
“So what the nagas said was true.” Kajal started at Jassi’s voice, having forgotten she was there. The young woman’s face was slack with shock. “Halahala is the blight. That’s what has been slowly killing Dharati.”
And it had been created when the asura and deva had turned against each other.
Advaith frowned at Jassi, then looked at Vivaan for confirmation. Vivaan hesitated before inclining his head.
“The bl— The halahala has spread wide these last two decades,” Vivaan explained.
“It started after the battle on the Harama Plain,” Sezal added delicately. “And lately, it’s growing worse. It’s finding its way into farms and fields. Animals. Even people.”
The living warmth that had returned to Advaith’s face leached away. “It…? No. No, it was never supposed to spread that far. Lord Dukha would have stopped it.”
Vivaan and Sezal had one of their silent conversations until Sezal said, “We haven’t seen Lord Dukha in many years. According to the nagas, no one in Patala has.”
Kajal’s head flared with pain. The whine was almost loud enough to drown out the others’ voices.
“I don’t understand.” Advaith pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead like he was also in pain. “The whole point was to make for a more equal world, to balance Martya. Why wouldn’t he stop halahala from destroying everything? Why did—?” His breaths stuttered, the red in his eyes growing brighter. “Why did he allow Bakshi to kill me? I was supposed to rule. He— Why is he on my throne?”
The ache in Kajal’s head made her want to scream. She doubled over with the sound caught between her teeth, fingers digging in her hair. Tav grasped her shoulders, but she couldn’t hear him over the droning whine, the buzzing hum of Lotus Blossom.
Kajal forced her head up. Lasya’s bhuta floated in the middle of the room, wind whipping so violently around her that pieces of broken limestone rose and crashed into the walls, the ceramics and decorative weapons falling from their hooks.
Vivaan and Sezal instantly dropped their glamours and flanked Advaith. At the sight of the two demons, the Sodhis screamed and dragged Dalbir with them against the wall.
Kajal expected Lasya to be invisible to Advaith. Instead, his eyes widened, and he quickly muttered something under his breath that sounded like a mantra; Kajal heard the word trishul. But just as the sudarshana chakra had refused to materialize for Tav, the asura’s weapon didn’t come to its master.
Lasya rushed at him. The bhuta rammed into the demons’ shields, hissing and making terrible, high-pitched keens.
“Don’t,” Kajal gasped around the agony in her skull. “Stop her!”
Tav flung his arms out, and blue light engulfed his hands. The walls around them groaned until cracks splintered from the ceiling. Through the cracks floated white yaksha butterflies, descending on the bhuta with single-minded purpose. Lasya twisted away from them, their light paling her contorted features, until she shrieked once more and disappeared.
Kajal collapsed. Her head rang in the aftermath, the corner of her mouth wet with either spit or blood. Tav turned her over, saying something she couldn’t register.
Advaith appeared upside down above her, lips parted and eyebrows furrowed in thought.
“So you can bite with more than words,” the crown prince murmured. “You grow more interesting by the minute.” He turned to his aides. “Find a place to keep her locked up for now, until we can figure out our next moves.”
“N-Next moves?” stammered one of the Sodhis, still staring in horror at the danavas.
“I’m getting rid of Anu Bakshi. I will need you to tell me every piece of information you have on him.” Advaith looked back down at Kajal, and she had the disorienting view of his face above Tav’s, so similar and so different. “Then I will open the gates to Patala and demand answers from Lord Dukha.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Vivaan shoved Kajal and Tav into a dark cellar below the estate, filled with dusty jars of wine and sura. Kajal charged at the demons but only ended up running into the heavy door as they slammed it shut and turned the lock.
“Take me to my sister!” she screamed. “At least bring her body to me!”
“Wait here until His Majesty decides what to do with you,” came Vivaan’s uncaring voice from the other side.
A murmur from Sezal was followed by a scoff, and then they were gone.
Kajal’s vision spun, her heart beating too fast. It was like being holed up in that cell in Kinara, Kutaa howling outside while she waited for dawn and the promise of poison.
Her hand slipped into her pocket. The demons had taken her dagger, but she still had the pouch containing Lasya’s finger and the vial of bitter almond extract. What a pointless thing to make, she thought. It wasn’t as if she could grab the demons and shove the extract down their throats. Would such a base poison even work on them?
Her fingers brushed the edge of something wooden. She pulled it out and stared at the little Kutaa figurine Tav had carved for her.
A touch on her shoulder. “Kajal.”
She jerked away. “What are you even doing here?”
Advaith had been baffled when Tav had insisted on being locked up with her. “Bhara, come and help me,” Advaith had wheedled. “We need that tactical mind of yours.”
“Help you with what?” Tav had spat. “Killing yakshas? Making demons the superior power in Martya?”
Advaith had blinked. “It’s not about killing yakshas, Tav. It’s about balance.”
“The halahala has thrown everything off-balance!”
“Which is why we need to work together to end it. We’ll stop Bakshi and the blight.” He’d taken Tav’s hands in his. “Let me make it up to you. The things that went wrong, I…I can make up for them. Trust me.”
Advaith had even allowed Jassi to sit in on his counsel with the Sodhis, after being told she’d helped resurrect him and that she had considerable knowledge of Ayurveda.
Kajal hadn’t missed the hurt on Advaith’s face at Tav’s stubborn refusal.
“I don’t need your…your protection, or whatever this is,” Kajal said now. She threw the carving at Tav, and he caught it.
“I’m not doing anything with Advaith until I know more about the deal he made with Lord Dukha.” Tav’s hand strayed to his mostly healed wounds. “And what about it went wrong.”
“You’re more useful with him than rotting in some cellar, then.”
“You’re here,” he said softly. As if that were any rational justification.
A feverish heat swept through her—fury and desperation, and something so small and weak it couldn’t possibly survive if she acknowledged it. She held her head in her hands even though the pain had long faded, still caught in its spindrift.
“Kajal—”
“Don’t.” Somewhere in this estate lay her sister’s body, and in a twisted sense of fate, it was now Kajal beneath the earth. A broken laugh tumbled from her lips, and once she started, she couldn’t stop.
She’d thought all her problems would fall away once the prince was resurrected, once the rebels had their ticket to the throne, once she reunited with Lasya. But the situation was so much more hopelessly knotted than that. She was a gnat stuck in the web that Advaith and Bakshi and the demon lord had spun years and years ago. A web that not even Advaith fully understood.
A web she had tried to untangle, with fatal consequences.
“I couldn’t do it.” She sobbed, or maybe she was still laughing. “We tried, but nothing worked. And I thought…When you said you were the deva, I thought…”
Thought that everything would be fixed. That she would be absolved. Forgotten. Left to do as she pleased.
She should have known that fate had other plans for her.
“What are you talking about?” Tav asked.
She didn’t answer.
Several minutes passed until the tide of mania washed away, leaving her exhausted. Not two hours ago, she had brought a boy back to life. She swayed, and Tav propped her up against him.
“You should lie down,” he said.
But her thoughts were racing. “He never said anything to you about his plan?” she mumbled into his chest.
She heard the click of his throat as he swallowed. “I always agreed with him that Martya’s view of the rakshasas was unfair, that we should look for ways to unify them.” He took a deep breath, which expanded his chest beneath Kajal’s cheek. “I didn’t think Advaith would resort to something this extreme. That he’d work with Anu Bakshi, or that Bakshi was under the patronage of Lord Dukha.”
I remember how you two fought, toward the end, Vivaan had said. “He didn’t act differently before the Harama Plain?” Kajal asked.
He thought about it. “It’s difficult to say. When Bakshi began to rise to power, everything was chaotic. Advaith frequently went to Patala. I thought he was asking for Lord Dukha’s assistance, since the demon lord doesn’t normally interfere in Martya’s affairs.” A wry laugh. “Apparently, it was the other way around.”
Kajal’s mouth was so dry. She pushed away from Tav and found the nearest jar, shoving off the lid before tipping the rim toward her mouth. Distilled liquor the color of honey dribbled down her chin. She’d only tasted sura on a couple of occasions, both times finding it less than ideal, but now the astringence was a welcome reprieve.
“Kajal,” Tav whispered, half admonishing.
She ignored him and took another large gulp that burned on the way down. It immediately kindled a warmth in her stomach to combat the chill of the cellar. “All I wanted was my sister. That’s all I wanted.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t want all of this asura-and-deva nonsense. I didn’t want to be involved in bids for a throne.”
“I know.”
If he noticed the tears making tracks on her face, he wisely kept it to himself. Instead, he sat near her—with enough space between them so she wouldn’t feel crowded—and held the amber pendant in one hand, the figurine in the other.
A low sound filled the cellar, and it took her a moment to realize it was coming from him.
Lotus Blossom. The song she’d sung to Lasya on lonely, desolate nights. The song Kajal had woven into the muscle and tissue of who she was until it had gotten warped through the bhuta’s perversion.
Kajal squeezed her eyes shut to stop the tears, but they only came on faster, the sobs trapped in her throat hardening into walnut-shaped knots that refused to crack open. Unthinking, she reached for her sister’s bhuta, frantic for any trace of her. But either the sura was dampening her connection or Lasya had tired herself out on the demons’ shields, because the only hum she heard was Tav’s.
We’re in this together, he’d told her in the old palace, and here he was proving they hadn’t been empty words. That no matter how much Kajal bit and pushed, revealing the feral thing she was underneath the skin’s surface, he stood resolutely at her side.
She wanted to be angry, wanted to fight and claw until he finally saw what she truly was and abandoned her. But for the first time in a long while, she was not alone. As selfish as she was, she would not give that up.
The night crawled on until the cellar door was unlocked with a loud scrape. Kajal was sufficiently numbed by this point, and needed Tav’s help to stand as the door swung open. Sezal stepped in, carrying a tray.
“Lasya,” Kajal began, but Sezal held up her hand. The young woman remained in her demon form; clearly, there was no more need to hide.
“His Majesty is speaking with the Sodhis. While that happens, you should eat.” Sezal set the tray on the floor, but Kajal barely looked at it. “He also asks if you’ve changed your mind.”
She’d directed this at Tav, who said nothing. Sezal sighed and turned to leave.
“Sezal,” Tav blurted. “Did you really not know what Advaith was planning with Lord Dukha? You and Vaan were always with him.”
Sezal hesitated. Some of her hair slipped over one of her horns. “I knew he was speaking with Lord Dukha about Bakshi, though not about their plan to create halahala.” Kajal wondered if she was imagining the resentment in her voice. “Regardless, we all want to see it come to an end.”
“I want my sister’s body,” Kajal pressed.
Tav put a steadying hand on Kajal’s arm. “I’ll help put an end to halahala, but he’ll need to tell me everything first. Everything he can remember. And Kajal gets to bring her sister back. Now.”
Sezal nodded and left. Kajal sank to the floor and cradled her emotional-support jar of sura, staring into the shadows while Tav restlessly paced.
The lock scraped open again much sooner than either of them anticipated. But it wasn’t the demons or Advaith who stood in the doorway.
“I just want to say,” Dalbir panted, “that adventures are overrated.”
Kajal knocked the jar over in her attempt to get back up. “Dalbir? What—?”
“Shh, I’m trying to do a heroic rescue here.” They gestured for Tav and Kajal to hurry. “Come on, before my parents notice how long I’ve been gone.”
The sura’s effects became far more obvious once Kajal tried to walk. Tav clicked his tongue when she stumbled, and held on to her elbow as they followed Dalbir into the dark hallway.
“What’s happened so far?” Tav asked.
Dalbir led them to the set of curving stone stairs they’d descended hours earlier, which immediately became Kajal’s worst enemy. “My parents have been filling the prince in on current affairs, like how the Vadhia are roaming Dharati unchecked and targeting citizens. There’s even a group of Vadhia who passed by not too long ago on their way to the border. What is wrong with you?” they snapped at Kajal when she tripped again.
“What’s Bakshi doing at the border?” Kajal mumbled. Her hazy mind was floating several steps beyond the conversation, and she had the feeling she wasn’t nearly as worried as she should have been. “Weeding out more witches?”
