Pain flashed across the other man’s face.“I am no woman…. I am Shikhandi.”He let loose his arrow….
And the vision went dark.
Aru shook herself, staring around her. Beside her, Mini scrubbed at her eyes and Brynne looked disgusted. Aiden’s face was twisted with pity.
“I have been born many times, but never once have I lived,” said Shikhandi. “Even when I got the very thing I asked for, Bhishma refused to see me as I was. I have found peace now, but I might have had it sooner, had I not sought the destruction of another.”
“Idon’t blame you,” said Brynne angrily. “I would fight!”
Shikhandi smiled. “Ah, but this test was not about whether or not you could fight…but whether or not you knew when tostop.”
Shikhandi reached for Kubera’s eye and held it out to Aru. “Remember what it felt like to let go of your fury,” he said. “Remember the freedom in it, daughter of the gods.”
With that, Shikhandi dropped the eye into her palm. “Now go,” he said. “For you still have one more trial, and the army of the Sleeper inches ever closer to Lanka.”
Aru closed her fingers around the eye, but couldn’t stop herself from asking one last question. “Why don’t you fight with us?”
Shikhandi eyed her solemnly. “As I have learned over my many lives, sometimes the best way to win is to walk away. My fighting days are over. It is your battle, Pandavas, but it will not be mine.”
The back wall of the small concrete room melted into a glass tunnel lined with glowing silver filaments. The passage stretched far across the dark seafloor. Aru turned to say good-bye to Shikhandi, but the prince had disappeared.
In the place where he had stood lay a single blue petal. Aru picked it up carefully, remembering both the stiff-silk sensation of the lotus and the way it had felt to let go of her anger. She didn’t know when she’d need to summon that feeling again, but she wanted to keep the petal close just in case.
The Pandavas stood at the tunnel entrance, Kara floating a few feet away from them.
“What’s next?” asked Brynne.
Aru looked at Kara guiltily. The other girl had dove in front of Aru to protect her. “We can’t just leave Kara like this.”
“Shikhandi said that light will heal her,” said Mini. “What aboutourlight? Or even Kara’s? Sunny is literally a beam of sunlight.”
The trident lay across Kara’s chest, its glow softly flickering with the rise and fall of her breathing. Brynne tried to tug on the handle so she could shine the weapon’s light more directly on Kara, but it wouldn’t budge. Maybe no one but Kara could touch it, Aru thought.
Aru called to Vajra and it coiled down her arm, stretching toward Kara’s hand.Gently, said Aru. Her lightning bolt gave a little sizzle, like the sound that came from walking over a carpet in socks and then touching a doorknob.
But that bolt of electricity didn’t affect Kara in the slightest.
“My turn!” said Mini, touching the tip of Kara’s nose with her Death Danda. A faint violetpop!lit up the air, but Kara still didn’t move.
“Should I try a little fire?” asked Brynne, hoisting her wind mace.
Mini leaped in front of Kara, her arms out wide. “Ireallydon’t think that’s a good idea!”
“The whole point is to revive her,” said Aru. “Not accidentally burn her to a crisp.”
“I was just trying to help!” grumbled Brynne.
“Maybe we’ll find the right light in the third trial?” said Aiden. “I mean, it isliterallyin the sky.”
Aru hadn’t thought of that. She replayed Kubera’s rhyme in her head:
Three trials I grant you, one for each day!
To start, the land shall test your heart!
Next, the sea shall try your might!
Last, the sky shall judge your sight!
