“Will you not greet me, daughters of the gods?” asked Garuda, fixing them with a burning stare.
Immediately, Mini lifted the shield, and the Pandavas pressed their hands together and touched the ground before them.
Garuda nodded in acknowledgment. Then he lifted his gaze to Hanuman and Urvashi. “It is done,” he said.
Hanuman cleared his throat. “And it cannot be undone?”
Aru flinched at that, wondering if her old teacher was angry. But when she looked at his face, she saw hope there. It confused her.
“It cannot be undone,” confirmed Garuda.
Hanuman smiled widely. Beside him, Urvashi positively glowed, clasping her hands in joy. With a warm glance at the Pandavas, Hanuman gently set down Krithika Shah. She looked as if she wanted to run to Aru, but she froze when her eyes darted to Kara. Aru could feel Kara holding her breath just as she could feel her mother’s tense gaze, and neither of them moved.
“Aru Shah,” boomed Garuda, and every nerve in Aru’s body leaped with panic.
I don’t know her?Aru wanted to say, but it was too late for that now.
“Hi?” she said instead, and then immediately wished she’d thought of something else.
“I once asked you what you know of wars and winning….It seems you have shown me the answer today,” said Garuda. “For thousands of years I have been tasked with protecting the nectar of immortality, and now there is nothing left for me to protect.”
Aru frowned, exchanging worried looks with her sisters.
“Are you here to punish us?” asked Brynne.
“Why would I do that?” asked Garuda.
“Because we…I mean,I”—corrected Aru, so the gods wouldn’t blame her sisters—“destroyed the nectar of immortality?”
“Destroyed it?” asked Garuda, looking around him as if he were hunting for pieces of the demolished kalash. “On the contrary, you shared it freely with the world. You turned it into a story that flows from one mouth to the next.”
“Your duty as Pandavas was to end the war,” said Hanuman in his rich voice. “And you did just that.”
“It was a most elegant solution,” said Urvashi, smiling.
“But…But what about the devas?” asked Mini. “If the amrita was solely theirs, doesn’t that mean they lost?”
“It depends on how you look at it,” said Garuda. “From where I’m standing, I see no loss. I see only the gains of many. You brought about a victory for all, daughters of the gods.”
Aru thought of the Otherworld people who had clutched their weapons tighter once they saw what the Pandavas had done. She thought of the Sleeper’s body somewhere on the battlefield and the bright sunset-tinged blades of Kara’s trident.
“It doesn’t feel like one,” said Aru softly.
“Perhaps that discomfort is the mark of a true hero,” said Garuda, before correcting himself. “Or heroine, as the case may be.”
Aru almost smiled, but then Garuda’s gaze turned to Kara.
“As for you, Kara…You may be a heroine, but that does not erase your act of villainy,” said Garuda, and his voice echoed around them. “Your life was taken from you, and you took a life in return. For your good deeds, you will be rewarded. You will return to your childhood home and family. All will be as it was….”
Kara’s eyes went wide, and she snuck a nervous glance at Brynne, Mini, Aru, Sheela, and Nikita. A frail smile twitched on her lips.
But Garuda wasn’t done.
“But you must also be punished. As a consequence of your actions, you will be stripped of your memories of this time. You will have no recollection of the Sleeper or of having powers bestowed by Surya. You are hereby divested of your celestial weapon.”
Kara gasped as her trident, Sunny, flew from her hands. Its light flickered, as if it were panicking, until it was caught in a ray of sun. Then it dissolved into particles of light.
“B-but…” she stammered, looking frantically between Aru and Garuda. “So I won’t remember the Potatoes anymore? I won’t remember that I had…”
