I didn’t have to wait long before Chandra materialized, hair tousled, either from the night air or from tossing and turning. He was dressed in a cream tunic and loose pants, his habitual nighttime attire now just in case I summoned him…or so he said.
He smiled and sat opposite me. “Would it be awful for me to say that I hoped you’d have trouble sleeping tonight?”
“Not awful at all, considering I told myself you didn’t need sleep anyway so could come and hang out with me.”
He chuckled and started setting up the board. “In that case, let me beat you again.”
“Oh, no. I’ve been practicing. I’m definitely going to kick your ass this time.”
“Only if I let you.”
“No, you can’t say that! Now if I win, I’ll be wondering if you let me.”
He winked.
“Oh you…That’s not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair, Leela.”
His words, although said in jest, hit hard. Life wasn’t fair most of the time. The levity ebbed.
He sat back with a sigh. “Everything will be all right. You will complete the test, return triumphant, and take the throne. Then together we will set this world to rights.”
His confidence in me was kindling to my waning flame.
The past couple of weeks had flown by with intensive training both on the ground and in the air. I’d accompanied Chandra to dinners and meetings with raees and on occasion Authority members as I learned the ropes of the political side of things. I was becoming familiar with faces and names and personalities now, and I was pretty sure many raees had warmed to me. I was ready to take the throne at the equinox in a week’s time.
Araz would be proud of me. The chasm that was the absence of him yawned wider. I sat with the feeling for a moment, allowing the emptiness to wash over me before fixing a smile on my face.
“You’re right. Everything is going to be all right.”
We began the game, taking it in turns to flick the pieces across the board and pocket them. It reminded me of pool orsnooker, except in this game the balls were flat counters that looked like draught pieces, and we used our fingers as the cues.
I pocketed a piece and looked up at Chandra. “So what’s the history lesson tonight?”
Chandra had been educating me on different aspects of Asura history, and I’d learned a lot about the war and about how the deva had decided to leave this world in the Asuras’ hands because they had other worlds to maintain. Apparently, there was some kind of convergence between worlds, a nexus that the deva were now responsible for policing. I’d asked about this, but Chandra had shrugged and said that was all he knew. That there was no way to contact the deva to ask for more information.
He looked up from studying the board. “What would you like to know about?”
WhatdidI want to learn more about? The night the royal family had been killed was one, but we’d touched on that before, and I’d noted how tense he’d gotten. It was a trauma memory for him, and I wasn’t into prodding someone’s wounds.
We’d talked about Araz and his potential connection to Harish, the Danava king. The resemblance was uncanny. The Danava procreated with djinn in the regular way, and a record was kept of any potential offspring. Chandra had checked those records, and there was no mention of Harish having sired a drohi. Araz’s name was linked to a Danava noble who was now dead. But Chandra agreed that the effort the Asura had gone to in order to retrieve Araz was unusual, and the fact that he had been hidden by the Agni djinn was also telling. Both Harish and Araz were gone, and it was unlikely that we’d ever learn the truth, but if Araz had been Harish’s son, then he would technically have been a royal…And that…that made sense to me. Because Araz had never been a regular drohi.
Chandra and I had covered many topics over the past two weeks, so what more could we discuss? “Ooo, how about the whole Vitra saga? Who was he, really?”
He stilled for a beat, then sat back with a sigh. “Vitra…Yes, there are many stories about who or what he was, but my favorite is a lesser-known tale. Would you like to hear it?”
“Yes, please.”
“This story says that Vitra wasnota god. Not in the traditional sense. He wasn’tborn, and he wasn’tmadeusing amrit. He was created by the collective will of the deva. They say he took on tasks for them. He was allowed to live, to love, and to have a family?—”
“The Danava? They descended from him, right?”
He looked across at me in surprise. “Yes, that is what is believed. The Danava have the essence of deva in them through their connection to Vitra.”
Oh, I hadn’t even considered that. Maybe if Vitra hadn’t become evil, then the deva would have left the Danava in charge and not the Asura. “So what happened to Vitra? Why did he go evil?”
“Evil…” Chandra smiled wryly. “Yes, that’s what all the stories say, but this lesser-known story says that Vitra was given a secret task, and when he completed it, the deva decided to eliminate him so that no one but them would ever know what they had asked Vitra to do. But because he was created from their collective will, unraveling him would take a special power.”
