My stomach quivered. “Priti, why are you here now, after so long?”
“Long?” She frowned. “How long has it been here?”
“Four years…How long has it been for you?”
She shook her head. “Time has little meaning in my world.”
The first trickle of unease skated up my spine. “You’ve changed so much.”
It was her turn to look down at herself. She blinked, exhaling softly, and her body morphed, changing shape into the one I knew so well. The starlight melted out of her hair, and her smile warmed. “Is this better?”
My chest tightened. “Priti, what’s going on? I don’t see you for years, and now you show up on my balcony?”
She slow-blinked. “I planned to come back sooner but…time got away with me. A consequence of breaking the rules, I suppose.”
“What rules?”
She smiled wryly, and for a moment she was my Priti once more. “Plucking a soul from the battlefield before a death blow could claim his life.”
Battlefield? Realization washed over me. “Keyton? Youdidsave him that day.”
“I saved him from pain but not death. That he embraced willingly once on the other side. It was his time, but…I could not bear to see him mortally wounded. I guess I still hold some attachments.”
“Some? Priti, you’re still you. Even though you carry the mantle of death, you’re still Priti.”
She blinked sharply, and then her expression relaxed. “I am, aren’t I? I need to remember that.”
She’d been there to take Keyton. Had she been there for the others? “Did you…did you see Ravi and Kalani when they passed?”
“They did not pass.”
“What? But…they’re gone.”
“Gone, but not dead.”
But they hadn’t come back which meant… “They’re still in Patala, aren’t they?”
“They are where their destinies call to them.”
“So why are you here? I’m pretty sure it’s not just to see me.”
She smiled. “No.” She took a step to one side. The air beside her shimmered, and a young woman stepped forward. I’d know that heart-shaped face anywhere.
“Nani?”
She beamed at me, her eyes filling with tears. “There you are, beti. My Leela.”
My mouth trembled, and I took a step toward her, vision blurring.
“You can’t touch her,” Priti said. “She’s not form or flesh.”
I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat and focusing on the woman who’d raised me. “I’m sorry, Nani, for what happened back at the?—”
“No, beti. No…there is nothing for you to be sorry for. I’m honored to have protected your bloodline. To have raised you. Loved you. You have been my greatest achievement, and I will pass on now with no regrets. I love you, Leela. Always.”
My chest tightened, and I took a shuddering breath. “I love you too. Always.”
“Until we meet again.”
