“Then build one.” It was my turn to hold his gaze with what I hoped was an unyielding one of my own. “It didn’t take long tobuild one in Prashikshan once you decided to create the anchors, did it?”
He looked down at his coffee, which was probably tepid by now, thinking the logistics through. Finally, he sighed. “I’ll commission the structure. It might take a couple of days, but you shall have it.” He picked up his glass.
“Thank you. And there’s one more thing.”
“Just one more?” He arched a brow.
“For now. I want to train with Pakshiraj. I want to learn how to fly well enough to go into battle.”
He stilled, coffee glass partway to his lips. “Youwantto go into battle?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Ineedto be on that battlefield when we take down the primordial evil.”
I waited for him to protest, to shut me down, but he didn’t. Instead, he fixed me with the kind of look that usually preceded a heavy truth. My gut tightened.
“What? What is it?”
“I was going to wait to tell you this. To find the right moment, but…now is as good a time as any.” He set his mug down and sat back. “The primordial evil cannot be killed.”
“What?”
“The only weapon that may have been able to kill it was destroyed a long time ago.”
“The Vajra? The one that killed Vritra?”
He dropped his gaze. “Yes, that one. Now all we can do is imprison it.”
“Okay, so we put this primordial evil back in its prison and?—”
“No, Leela. That isn’t possible. It would take pure deva power to do that, and not just one deva. We would need several.”
“I don’t understand. Then how do we cage him?”
“We cage it in a body. An immortal body. And we strip it of power.”
Ice flooded my veins. “No…”
“Yes. If we’re going to stop it, then we’ll have to trap it in flesh. Inside Araz.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, blinking away the heat gathering behind my eyes.
“Araz’s soul is gone. It’s just a body now,” Chandra reminded me.
I closed my eyes and nodded. “Okay. So how do we cage it?”
“Not we.You.” He paused to let that sink in before continuing. “There is a blade that acts as a lock. Only a deva can activate it. Leela, you have enough deva blood to wield it.”
A blade… “Wait, are you saying?—”
“Yes. You’ll need to pierce the vessel’s heart.”
The vessel…The breath exploded from my lungs.
The vessel was Araz.
Chandra wanted me to pierce Araz’s heart. I closed my eyes, taking a breath to remind myself that Araz was gone. Hewasjust a vessel now. A suit for evil. And if the bastard liked the suit so much, he could wear it for eternity.
I opened my eyes and locked gazes with Chandra. “Okay.”
