The air shimmered, and Nani’s form vanished.
I exhaled, my breath a shiver. “Thank you.” I ducked my head, wiping at my eyes.
“You’re welcome,” Priti said. “You deserved the closure of a goodbye. I’m glad to have given it to you, however…delayed.”
I looked up to find her watching me with an indecipherable expression.
“What is it?”
She lifted her chin, looking down her nose at me. “Today is a big day, Leela. A day when the tide turns toward a new future.”
Today was the New World celebration. A coming together of the people in harmony, but I didn’t feel like she was referring to that. “Priti, what do you mean?”
She bridged the distance between us and lightly touched my cheek. A shiver skated over my skin, precognitive and unsettling.
I searched her face, my mouth suddenly dry. “Priti…”
“Your love is your greatest weapon, Leela,” she said. “Allow it to guide you, and the balance will not waver.”
She vanished, leaving me standing alone on the moonlit balcony with a pounding heart and a serious case of foreboding.
I stood on the balcony,the sense of fullness inside me threaded with unease. My conversation with Priti and meeting with Nani was beginning to feel like a dream.
I wandered back into my bedchamber, coming to stand before the mirror that showed me the woman I’d become.
Regal? That’s what Priti had called me.
But I was just me, in nicer clothes.
“Come on, chickadee, we ain’t got all night,” Blue called from the doorway, pulling me from my thoughts. “Your people await.” He was dressed in a deep blue tunic edged in silver, his dark eyes bright with intelligence.
I couldn’t help but smile at how dashing he looked. “I’m surprised you managed to tear yourself away from your work.”
He huffed. “Those scrolls ain’t gonna organize themselves. Them Authority wankers hid a lot of shit. I’d kick their asses if they were still alive. People deserve access to history. The real stuff, not the bullshit they made up.”
Waking up happened slowly, and for the people of Svargana, it was a work in progress. Our world had almost been decimated by Mizikiel. Now as the hollow places bloomed with life once more, as the earth knit itself back together, the people also healed.
“Priti was just here.”
“No way.”
“Yep.” I filled him in on the visit, on seeing Nani and Priti’s cryptic words.
His whiskers twitched. “She could have been warning us ’bout somethin’ or just telling ya the truth. Loveisyour greatest weapon, chickadee. Look where it got ya.”
The knots in my belly unraveled. He was right. Love had powered me through it all. “Let’s just…get through tonight. We can worry about the future when it arrives.” I adjusted the pleats on my sari. “How do I look?”
“Ya look like a queen,” he said softly. “I’m so fecking proud of you.”
“And I’m proud of you.” He’d taken to being a sage like a duck to water, and even Bhoomika looked to him for knowledge now. He’d been blessed with a connection to the knowledge keepers that none of us understood fully yet. Maybe when theyawoke from their slumber, they’d explain it to us. But for now, we had Blue, and he was all that we needed.
“Where’s tall, dark, and sexy?” Blue asked.
Araz exited the bathroom as if summoned by the description, towel hanging precariously low around his hips, hair damp and spilling down his shoulders.
He paused and canted his head, eyes narrowing. “Something otherworldly was here?” His shoulders bunched, and my stomach contracted in the needy way it did around him.
I ignored the pull. “Priti was just here.”
