8
Natesa and I endure the next five days of incessant rainfall boxed inside the carriage. Our guards have grown quiet, the drizzle dampening their moods.
Soon after we break camp on the sixth morning of stormy skies, the carriage jolts to a halt. Manas opens the door and asks us to step out. A rock has torn away from the sodden hillside and sideswiped the carriage. Natesa and I enter the rain and watch the soldiers repair broken wheel spokes. My face warms as we wait. I have yet to swallow my daily tonic, and my vials are hidden in my satchel inside the carriage.
Once the wheel is repaired, Deven orders his men to prepare for departure. We have not spoken since he reverted to formalities days ago. He sends Manas to deliver our meals, and with the heavy rain showers, there has been no nightly bonfire to sketch near.
Deven helps Natesa into the carriage and then offers me his hand. I clasp his fingers and search his face for any sign that he is pleased to see me. He stares politely back, his thoughts hidden behind propriety.
A deafening boom thunders overhead.
Deven’s chin jerks up. The firmament releases another tremulous roar, and I cover my ears. A thunderhead materializes on the horizon. Thick black clouds tunnel toward us, seeping across the sky and blotting out the murky light. I have never seen weather appear out of nowhere; clouds always flow from somewhere. But these are suddenly here.
Bel and Ehan spread out to corral the horses that scattered during the thunderclap.
Deven directs me toward the carriage door. “Get in!”
I step onto the footrail, but my attention is detained by four black-cloaked figures appearing on horseback above us on the rise. They look like men, but there is an ominous spirit about them, as if the demon Kur has escaped from the Void.
Deven and his men swing onto their mounts. Jeevan, our coachman, hurtles into the forward seat. Ground-trembling thunder booms overhead, rattling straight through me. The light rain intensifies to a shocking downpour. My sari is drenched in seconds.
The cloaked riders race down the incline. I shield my eyes and watch their galloping horses tear down the sopping hillside. A tumble of land and rocks unlooses behind them but does not overtake their horses. Coldness entrenches my core. The landslide is following them.
Deven hollers from his saddle. “Kalinda, go!”
I break from my daze and vault inside. No sooner do I shut the door than Jeevan cracks his whip at the horse team. I am thrust backward into the seat.
Natesa braces against the bench. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.”
Another rumble of thunder shudders around us. Who are our attackers? What are they? I do not understand how, but they brought upon the unnatural storm and held a landslide at bay.
We charge over the bumpy road. Natesa and I fly to the ceiling like feathers in a puff of wind and then hit the floor like bricks. Jeevan shouts for the horses to go faster. We stay down. I lift my head when I hear roaring hooves behind us. We are being followed.
I open my satchel to retrieve my slingshot, and the tonic vials spill out across the floor. My temperature creeps up, escalating with my fear. A wave of warmth ripples from my veins. I load the slingshot with a firing stone. Natesa stands ready with her dagger. Her fierce stance reminds me of the water-goddess.
We throw open the side door. Several of my tonic vials fall out, bursting into twinkling showers. Rain pelts my face. We are alongside a cliff. I look down, and wooziness spirals through me. A riderless horse gallops to our rear. No one else pursues us.
I lean out over the drop and look for the missing rider. At the front of the carriage, Jeevan wrestles with a black-cloaked figure. The reins lie slack at their feet. I struggle to steady my balance and aim for the assailant, but the carriage swerves erratically. I drop my attack and grip the doorsill.
“Here.” Natesa grasps a handful of my sari. She holds my weight, and I suspend myself out the door, over the cliff.
My head spins from the perilous drop. Arming my slingshot, I look up. The attacker grabs Jeevan’s throat, and Jeevan’s face leaches of color. His eyes shrivel in their sockets. His nose and lips wither. His skin sags from his bones. I gape in rapt horror as Jeevan crumbles into a mound of ash, and the wind and rain sweep away his remains.
Our cloaked assailant picks up the reins to control the horse team.
“Bring me in!” I say.
Natesa hauls me inside, both of us crushing glass vials beneath our feet. I shut the door, pressing a hand to my heaving stomach.
“What is it?” she says.
“Our coachman is dead. A bhuta is driving the carriage.” That has to be who is attacking us. I recall the sisters’ stories. Bhutas can make fire with their hands. Others can conjure winds and storms or call upon the land.
Natesa’s eyes broaden. “We have to get out of here!”
“We’re wedged between the cliff and a wall. We have nowhere to go.”
The horses slow. I rearm my slingshot, and Natesa raises her dagger. We will have to fight our way out. I quash my panic and focus on her frightened yet determined face.
Our carriage halts at the same time the rain ceases to drive against the roof. The bhuta disembarks from the coachman’s seat, rocking the carriage. Footsteps ring out as he comes around the side, but I barely hear them over my thundering pulse.
He stops at the door. Natesa points her blade there, clutching the hilt so hard that her knuckles turn white. I wrench back on my slingshot. A sizzling noise starts, and the door glows, turning to embers. I shrink against one wall, Natesa against the other. The wood disintegrates in a cloud of smoke. I blink my stinging eyes, and Natesa coughs. The haze clears, revealing the cloaked bhuta.
The bhuta is no hideous, gnarled demon, but a man. Startling eyes the shade of honey peer out from the shadow of his hood. He skims the broken vials on the floor and narrows his eyes at us.
He dismisses me with a succinct once-over and concentrates on Natesa.
“Are you the viraji?” he says to her. His silky voice is dangerous. I am sopping wet from the rain, while Natesa, with her beautiful looks, fits the role of royalty.
“No.” Natesa points at me. “She is.”
The bhuta turns his attention to me, and Natesa jabs at him. His hand whips out and seizes the blade of her dagger. I expect the red of blood, but the metal in his palm turns another red—fire. He heats the blade to malleability and bends the hot steel, angling it sharply to the floor.
He lays his hand over Natesa’s on the hilt. I do not know what power he pulses to her through his touch, but her eyes roll back into her head, and she flops to the floor, unconscious.
The bhuta tosses the warped dagger out the door and picks up one of my intact tonic vials. “Where did you get this?”
I aim my slingshot at his right eye. “Leave or I will shoot you blind.”
“Answer my question and I may spare your life.” He opens the vial and sniffs. His whole body recoils. “Is this yours?”
“Yes.”
He flings the vial out the door. It shatters, and I jolt. But I do not release my firing stone. His golden eyes slim to slits. “Who are you?” he says.
I tip up my chin and try to sound imperial. “The viraji. Who are you? What do you want?”
“You are the final viraji?”
He steps closer so that I can see his shadowed head: he has dark hair with brassy streaks, and sharp cheekbones. He is younger than I supposed for his abilities, about my age. I memorize his features, and he does mine.
“You’re the viraji.” The bhuta throws back his head and laughs.
I admit that I am not much to look at even when I am dry, but his mocking goes too far. I release the slingshot. The bhuta lowers his head at the snap, and my mark goes high, hitting him in the forehead. A gash opens. But before blood swells in the cut, he seizes my throat with both hands.
“You have fire in your blood. It would be a terrible waste to kill you.”
His skin buzzes with heat, adding to my rising fever. “I saw what you did to the coachman,” I say. “You’re a demon.”
“You call me a demon when it’s you who has been chosen to wed one.” He throttles me, sealing off my lungs.
My skin flares. I claw at his wrists for freedom and kick him in the shin, but he does not relent.
“I admire your spirit,” he says. “Remember that I spared your life when we meet again.”
He releases me with a shove. I stumble back and drop to all fours. Gasping, I look up at the empty doorway and hear the beat of retreating hooves. I crawl to Natesa’s side. Her chest rises and falls with each shallow breath. Where there was once a door is now a singed gap in the carriage wall. Tonic and shards of glass are scattered around us. I follow the glittery path of destruction to charred spots on the floorboards.
My mind replays the attack. Once. Twice.
Dismay lashes at my cringing heart. I cannot deny what I see. The bhuta did not touch that area on the floor. I placed my hands there when I fell.
Those are not his burn marks. They are mine.