One jump into the air. Her feet lifted. Wind fluttered against her jodhpurs. Her hand stretched out, reaching for the rocky ledge of the creature’s eyes. Her fingers brushed against that teary glimmer.
It stopped. Aasha was left dangling, her fingers turning white from the tight grip.
Finally, she dropped to her feet.
Adrenaline jolted through her and Aasha felt a burst of awareness. She felt and saw and heardeverythingin that second. Bird wings knifing into the sky. Stones settling in the creature’s joints as it turnedstill. Even the shadows creeping over the trees. It felt… divine. For a split second she wondered whether this was what Gauri felt when she whirled through battlefields and led military drills. Maybe she should start getting up at the crack of dawn with her…
“Well, that was entertaining,” said Zahril.
Aasha grimaced. What was the point of imagining training with Gauri if she couldn’t even guarantee that she’d be let back into Bharata after this?
Zahril stood unmoving, arms crossed. The indifference sobered that surge of power.
“Entertaining?” she repeated.
“It’s always entertaining to watch sheer panic collide with danger. It forces the body into survival mode, producing feats that are otherwise unexpected.”
It took a moment for Aasha to unpack everything she was saying.
“You think it was a onetime incident,” she said flatly.
“Tomorrow will put that theory to the test.”
“I did it on my own merits!” she said.
And that, Aasha realized, was true. She had been trained to do a great many things, but the things that she picked up, the things that spoke toherabilities, were unique. It made them all the more precious for they belonged neither to her acquired human instincts nor her naturalvishakanyacharm.
“Did you now?” asked Zahril. “On your own merits, you forced your perspective to search for a spot of calm? On your own merits, you stared down a thing that scared you? No. That was a construction imposed by myself. Your only merits were your reaction, and even that was a product of circumstance rather than any actual initiative on your part.”
Aasha deflated.
“But who cares?” repeated Zahril, twirling her fingers. “What do you want from me, Aasha? A pat on the back? A congratulatory embrace?”
Her cheeks flushed.
“No, I just wanted—”
“That’s the first mistake,” she snapped. “Don’twantanything. Do you understand? When you take on this role and you’ve saved a group of people with nothing more than a word, you don’t get to run out to them and tell them all about it and demand their adulation. It will never go to you. You may even be poisoned, spat upon, cursed from a distance. Pandering to anything or anyone other than yourself will earn you a swift death if you’re not careful.”
If she could, Aasha wished she could unzip the earth and throw herself into it. Was it so hard to say “good”? Maybe the other contenders for the role hadn’t been brutally squashed by a rock giant. Maybe their egos had just shattered and cut them all from the insides and they had no choice but to leave. If Zahril wouldn’t acknowledge what she’d done, then so be it.
She could do it herself.
“Aasha, you’re an upstanding individual. And also almost obscenely attractive,” she said out loud. She patted her head. “Your reward is a foot rub. That you will give. To yourself.”
And then she gave herself a round of applause.
Zahril stared.
Aasha was smiling so widely that she almost didn’t notice until it was too late. Beneath her, the ground turned black. A flower that she had plucked as a celebratory reward withered between her fingers. Without intending to at all, thevishakanyastar had flared to life on her throat.
She tamped it down, willing it away and holding her breath until it disappeared.
When she looked up, Zahril was clomping out of a stairwell concealed in a mess of banyan tree leaves.
She hadn’t seen.
Aasha shuddered. She still remembered Zahril’s venomous words from yesterday when it came tovishakanyas.She didn’t want to imagine what would have happened if she had seen the blue star. Because it wasn’t the rock giant that she should be worried about when it came to her livelihood.
