Chapter 5
Voyeur
“You mean Kelsey is marrying Dhiren,” she said flatly.
I nodded without turning and stared at my reflection in the glass. I hadn’t aged in over three hundred years, but my eyes were old, tired. The sting of disloyalty pierced my heart. Even though I knew that Kelsey had never stopped loving Ren, at least not fully, I’d still kept alive the hope that she might have chosen me if she’d had the option.
Again I berated myself for allowing Ren to leave with her. What choice had I given her, really? I’d pretty much thrust her into his arms and said, Have a nice life. I flattened my hand against the sun-warmed window and imagined the power and energy of the yellow light flowing into my fingers. It filled me with a resolve, one I dared not voice aloud, but the idea filled my mind.
I thought of the young version of Kelsey and knew she’d seen something in me even then. She’d believed I was her protector, relied on me entirely. She had needed someone then, just as I had needed her to bring me from the darkness into the light. Kelsey never gave up on me, and one thing was certain, I wasn’t about to give up on her or just leave her to her fate. I needed to know if marrying Ren was something she really wanted to do or if she was just taking the easy road.
Anamika interrupted my thoughts. “She is marrying Dhiren, isn’t she?”
I rubbed my jaw before replying. “We’ll see.” Determination rushed through my blood and spurred me to action. Spinning, I grabbed her arm and said, “It’s time to go.”
Wrenching her arm from my grasp, Anamika backed away, eyes blazing fury. Her hair fell in long sections as my weak effort to contain it failed. She looked beautiful, like a goddess shedding her human form. Power rippled from her skin as she narrowed her eyes at me and said, “You do not seize me in that manner.”
When I dropped my hand, the anger in her slowly diminished and she lowered her lids so that her long lashes fanned out against her cheeks. More quietly, she added, “No man does.”
“I…I’m sorry, Goddess.” An emotion radiated from Anamika, one I’d never sensed in her before. Embarrassment…shame…with a twinge of…fear? I drew a step closer and lifted her chin with my finger, gently, so she could move away and break contact at any time. When her green eyes met mine, I said, “You do not need to fear me, Ana.”
“I do not fear you, Kishan.”
“Then what is it that frightens you?” I asked.
Her face softened for a moment and it appeared as if she would confess what was bothering her, but then her back stiffened and she closed the emotional connection between us. “My past is my own, black tiger. It is something I do not choose to share with you.”
I stepped back and, after perusing her for a moment, nodded. There was something vulnerable about her right then, and I felt an overwhelming urge to comfort her, but the goddess Durga did not want comfort. She didn’t like showing vulnerability either. That much I already knew.
Ready to leave, I offered her my hand and she took it after only a second of hesitation. She placed her other hand on my forearm as I instructed the amulet to take us home.
When we returned to our stone palace in the mountain, she asked, “Why did you choose to materialize in the park and go through the trouble of disguising yourself if we could have simply appeared in your room of glass?”
Rubbing my neck, I shrugged. “It was safer to assume they had given my office to someone else, I suppose.”
I could see her mind ticking, trying to understand the full meaning of office and the transitory state of such a thing. “I wish to thank you for taking me there,” she said. “I liked walking through the…”
“Park?” I offered.
“Yes. Park. I enjoyed the flowers and fountains.”
“I’m glad.” Truthfully, a part of me had wanted to walk through the park with the goddess on my arm. I liked the idea of wandering with her through Kelsey’s era, a place where we were unknown. No one there clamored for our attention or lined up with gifts for the goddess. We could just be ourselves. Two people enjoying a leisurely stroll. I’d almost felt content when we were there. Until I learned about Kelsey’s impending wedding, that is.
As I used the scarf to switch from an Asian auditor in a business suit back into my normal black clothes and my own face, Anamika eyed me shrewdly. “I do not understand why you needed the information from the picture box on your table. Could you not discover the news of Kelsey’s marriage simply by asking someone or perhaps by listening in on conversations between Kelsey and Ren themselves?”
“I—” Why didn’t I want to go directly to the source? I suppose a part of me, a piece that I didn’t want to admit existed, was uneasy about the idea of seeing them together. I wasn’t ready to risk the possibility that Ren was who Kelsey had wanted all along, because if that was true, then my whole future, the life I’d begun planning for myself from the moment I learned Kadam was Phet and cradled a young Kelsey in my arms would be destroyed in an instant.
No. It wasn’t enough to see if Kelsey was happy now. I needed to be fully convinced that she was happy from the beginning. If Ren was truly the right man for her all along, then it would be obvious. I needed a new perspective. Rewinding the past and taking a second look couldn’t hurt. Besides, there was a desperate itch in my brain that screamed what if. To silence that voice, I’d have to study it from every angle. Only then, when I knew for certain that Ren was without a doubt the one for her, would I resign myself to my fate.
Anamika still waited for my reply. “I have reasons for my actions, Ana, and my reasons don’t concern you.” It was an evasive, somewhat cold answer, but the goddess understood bluntness.
“I see.” She blinked as if waiting for me to add something more, but then sighed and said, “Will you be giving me the Damon Amulet now?”
Lifting my hand to the object, I wrapped my fingers around it. “Not just yet. There’s something…something I must do first.”
Anamika stared at me for a long minute before inclining her head and leaving. I knew that she was giving me a gift. Even if she didn’t approve of what I wanted to do, she was allowing me the freedom to make my own choices, and I appreciated it. In a way, her gesture surprised me. It was as if she had resigned herself to the life of a goddess but she didn’t wish me to have to suffer the same fate. Perhaps there was a way out for both of us, I rationalized, feeling guilty about leaving her behind.
Before she disappeared around the corner, I called out, “Keep the weapons nearby. The amulet will be too far away for you to draw from its power.”
She didn’t acknowledge my comment but turned the corner and disappeared into the area of the palace leading to her chambers.
I decided to get started immediately.
***
My first stop was the jungle where I met Kelsey for the first time.
Wind whipped around my body as I reappeared in the Indian jungle. The scents of the forest surrounded me as I switched to my tiger form in a dense copse of trees. I knew that Ren and Kelsey would be making an appearance soon, so I watched for them on the trail I knew he would take. Before long I heard the noise of a hiker and moved stealthily through the brush so I could watch. Ren came along first and kept his nose pointed in the wind, but I was careful to remain downwind as much as possible.
He paused occasionally and I wondered if he had caught my scent, but he kept moving forward. If I were in human form, I would have laughed at seeing Kelsey plodding along behind him with obvious frustration on her beautiful face. She was tired and didn’t have the physical stamina to hike in the jungle for hours yet. That didn’t come until later, after we started training together.
When they struck camp, I sat there patiently listening to him wax poetic about butterflies of all things and then heard him explain that his purpose was to find me. It was obvious to me fairly quickly that though he was very interested in beginning a relationship with Kelsey, he was unsure as to how to go about the process. His attempt at courtship seemed to include two things—touching her at every opportunity and trying to make her as comfortable as possible on their quest.
I kept vigil through the night, though I knew there weren’t any predators in the jungle that would have rivaled me. I’d declared this jungle my territory centuries before, and no other creatures had dared cross paths with me for at least fifty years by the time Kelsey made an appearance. The truth was that I wasn’t even sure how many tigers were left in this century. Kadam had mentioned that they’d been hunted almost to extinction.
Rubbing my jaw, I realized that I hadn’t met any dominant males in my jungle since the 1950s, give or take a decade. The idea saddened me. Tigers were noble creatures. Intelligent. Perfect predators. Of all the beasts I had worked with as a prince and all the animals that I’d come across in my jungle wanderings, the tiger was the one I respected the most.
Despite my jealousy over Ren getting to lead a normal mortal life, I had to admit that I embraced the tiger aspect of myself much more readily than he did. Even though I didn’t need to assume the form of the black tiger any longer, I still did. I preferred dozing in the afternoons as a tiger, and hunting with teeth and claw focused me in a way nothing else could, other than Kelsey.
The next day I trailed Ren as he supposedly was searching for me. Instead, I found him trying to pick flowers only to strip the petals from the stems as they were crushed in his tiger jaws. He spat petals and leaves and sneezed often, growling softly before giving up. Eventually, he settled on bringing her mango fruit. He harassed monkeys in a mango tree until they began pelting him with the heavy orbs.
Snatching up several in his mouth and dropping some along the way, he made his way back to camp. I was watching from the top of a tree in my human form and delightfully tortured him by using the power of the amulet to raise large boulders or move fallen logs in his path to thwart his progress.
He’d stop and smell the freshly unearthed rocks and then head around them until he picked up the scent of his trail again. When he offered up his sad, slobbery gift, I had to stifle a snicker, especially when Kelsey said she didn’t really want them. If only Kelsey knew the pains he’d undergone in tiger form to bring her back so simple a present.
They swam together near the waterfall, and when the rock fell, I had to hold back from saving Kelsey myself. After a few hours of intense speculation, I decided that Ren saving her there might have been the catalyst for her to fall in love with him. She’d seemed largely indifferent to and perhaps a bit afraid of Ren before the waterfall rescue, but after he saved her from drowning, it became rather obvious that she was starting to feel something more than sympathy for him.
Impatient with the long hours, I found out I could skip ahead in time, fast forwarding like one of Kelsey’s movies. The sun set in a matter of seconds; stars moved as if someone pulled a dark blanket full of shining lights across the sky. My stomach lurched with the process, but it didn’t affect me for more than a few seconds. Adjusting to the discomforts of time travel couldn’t happen fast enough.
Around midday, when they sat together again by the fire and Ren was in human form, I slowed time to normal. Ren was saying the last lines of a poem. I rolled my eyes and listened.
…Thee, O slender maid,
love only warms;
but me he burns;
as the day-star only stifles the fragrance of the night-flower,
but quenches the very orb of the moon.
This heart of mine,
oh thou who art of all things the dearest to it,
will have no object but thee.
“Ren, that was very beautiful,” Kelsey said.
She spoke softly and I couldn’t quite hear everything, so I used the amulet to move a bit closer and rematerialized just as Ren was saying, “…permission…to kiss you.”
Black intent filtered through my body. Even knowing their history, I wanted to strangle my brother. It took me a minute to calm down and realize that nothing was happening. Kelsey closed her eyes expecting him to kiss her, and he just sat there like a lump of breakfast porridge.
When she realized he wasn’t going to make a move and began lecturing him about being old-fashioned, I felt happier than I had in months. I actually laughed out loud, caught myself, and used the power of the amulet to turn myself invisible. Ren, who had stalked off angrily into the forest, looked around suspiciously but soon wandered off after seeing nothing.
I watched the camp long enough to see Kelsey meet me for the first time. I heard her say she knew that I was Ren’s brother, the one who had betrayed him and stolen his fiancée. Though it was true, I winced. Ren had already soured her against me in the beginning, and my refusal to go with them on the quest didn’t help either. For a moment I considered revealing myself to the black tiger I used to be.
A swift kick and a brief explanation might be the trick to get my stubborn self to help them get the Golden Fruit. Also my presence on that quest would serve to dampen Ren’s romantic intentions. But Kadam had declared in overdramatic fashion that to meet up with our old selves would trigger a tragic result such as the collapsing of the universe.
Since that was definitely not my purpose, I sat there pondering the ramifications of altering history, but ultimately decided that this was an information-gathering trip. If I was going to change anything, I’d do it after I’d collected all the facts.
Unwilling to take the chance on sending my past self on the first quest, I again berated myself for being an idiot and used the power of the amulet to shift to the next place on my agenda—Kishkindha.
This time I appeared at night, and my dark clothes hid me from the light of the small campfire. When I felt the trees around me come alive and send their slithering vines toward me, I used the Damon Amulet to freeze them. An audible snap and a crack from the dangerous sapling nearby made Ren lift his head and peer into the trees, but he soon settled back down next to Kelsey.
Irritated at seeing him act that possessive of her so quickly, and unwilling to watch him sleep next to her for hours, I bent time. I sped through the minutes and they fell away quickly. The power of the Damon Amulet flowed through my limbs and raised the hair at the nape of my neck. My skin tingled as time flowed over and around my body like fall leaves brushing past me in a stiff wind.
When Kelsey woke the next morning, I paused and watched her trace the lines of Ren’s face. An ache shot through me so thick I had to swallow. She’d never looked at me with such open admiration. Ren woke and cradled her close. The ease he felt with her soon changed, however.
Ren was a fool not to see something was wrong. Instead of being careful with her, letting her have her space, he pushed her too far too fast. He let his pride get in the way of seeing her fear. I watched them retrieve the Golden Fruit and saw her draw further and further away from him.
Perching invisible on the top of an ancient building, I listened to the two of them shout at each other as they were pursued by hundreds of monkeys. The creatures descended upon them like a flood, but still my monkey-brained brother was more worried about Kelsey’s rejection than he was about the horde. I shook my head. Saving her life was more important than analyzing her feelings. He was lucky she wasn’t killed.
When Ren bounced down the drawbridge with dozens of monkeys attached to his fur and Kelsey was safely out, I waved my hand, and the remaining tidal wave of monkeys stopped and headed back to their perches; their quivering mass of bodies became silent as they turned into statues once again. I wondered, if I hadn’t been there, hadn’t taken care of the monkey problem, would the two of them have even made it out of Kishkindha?
The idea was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. What if, at some particularly dangerous time, I’m not there when she needs me? Kadam’s words came back to me in that moment, but this time they were comforting. He’d said that whatever changes, whatever decisions I have made or will make have all been recorded in the annals of time. In essence, Kelsey will be safe because she was safe.
Though it was a relief that whatever I did, or would do, didn’t cause Kelsey’s death, it was still uncomfortable to consider. I hated the idea that all my decisions were subject to the universe somehow and that some unseen agenda was dictating my life. The concept chafed.
“Might as well cage me,” I muttered quietly to myself.
Hearing a grunt, I twisted and studied Kelsey through the trees as she faced the remaining monkeys with the gada. She was proud of herself when she made contact. Her pleased jolt of enthusiasm reminded me of when she landed a solid kick on our workout dummy or when she was finally able to hit a flower with her lightning power.
Content to watch her, I sat back and smiled, zapping the monkeys she hit with a little lightning of my own when she wasn’t looking. They scrambled back to the city with their tails between their legs, and with a wave of my hand, they were inert once more.
I got distracted when Ren emerged from the needle trees as a man, and the baboon I’d been protecting Kelsey from got in a few good swings. Ren soon put an end to that, and I used the power of the Damon Amulet to send the last two remaining monkeys back to their stony beds.
Following them on their walk back, I was hoping to learn more about their budding relationship, but both of them were stubbornly silent, only speaking when necessary. I couldn’t help feeling like I was missing something. Then Kelsey noticed the Kappa, and eavesdropping moved lower down on my priority list. The demons had left them alone on the journey in, but now that they had the fruit and the monkeys failed, I guess they figured it was their duty to intervene.
I heard Kelsey say, “Uh, Ren? We have company.”
The demons flinched when Ren brandished the gada, but when he said, “Keep going, Kelsey. Move faster!” I heard a hiss and they surged forward. Though I was phased out of time, several of them glanced my way. They didn’t try to attack but they didn’t act exactly friendly toward me either. Like I’d done with the trees, I tried to freeze them in place with the Damon Amulet, but they weren’t affected by my attempts.
Ren and Kells did okay even without my help. I kept vigil next to Kelsey when she fell asleep after the Kappa chased Ren into the trees and took advantage of being alone with her. Stretching out my fingers, I stroked her soft cheek and pulled a leaf or two from her hair. More than anything, I wanted to take her in my arms and keep her safe, protect her from the hurt and pain she would be experiencing, but I had to remind myself that this Kelsey barely knew me then. She believed I didn’t care if she lived or died. That I had no interest in the tiger’s curse.
I was tracing the lines on her palm when she smiled and mumbled Ren’s name in her sleep. Gently, I set down her hand and drew my knees to my chest. Was it too late? Was she already in love with my brother by this point? While I was wondering if I should backtrack further in the timeline, she said Ren’s name again, but this time with an alarmed tone.
Something was wrong. I lifted my head and Ren’s battle cry rang through the forest. I rose immediately. Tracking him through the trees, I followed his scent until I came upon him. He was surrounded by the water demons. Remaining invisible, I rammed into Kappa demons, pushed them off of him, and sent them reeling into the needle trees. More demons approached.
Ren struggled to his feet. Weakened enough not to notice the invisible force helping him in battle, he headed toward them, ready to fight with every last ounce of strength he possessed. I’d always admired Ren in battle. He was clever, calculating, never expending more energy than was absolutely necessary, and never using more force than was required.
Through fighting and training with Ren, I knew that he could see holes in defenses when I swore there were none. It was a particular talent of his and one that I envied. He noticed when a man favored a leg or when a horse was eager to dislodge a rider. If I was the brawn, then he was the brain. Together we’d been nearly unstoppable on the battlefield. It would be no different here.
Quickly, I assessed my brother’s injuries. Despite his ability to heal, Ren was bloody from the needle trees and had been bitten savagely by the Kappa. He bled profusely from wounds where chunks of flesh had been torn from his body. Though he’d tried to change tactics by switching from a man to a tiger and back, they had been destroying him. Brutally ripping him apart piece by bloody piece.
Between the Kappa and the needle trees, he stood no chance of saving himself, let alone Kelsey. One of his arms hung limply at his side, and yet he stood, ready to fight until his last breath. I was here to make sure his last breath wasn’t today. Ren never told me how close he came to death in this forest.
Regret and shame filled me. I should have been here with my brother, fighting at his side. The old me had been wallowing in hurt, facing inner demons instead of the ones that could cripple and kill. It was stubborn pride that kept me in the jungle. I had been so determined to be miserable that I blocked out everything. Because of me, Ren could have been torn apart. Kelsey could have died. I didn’t deserve the gift she’d given me—that both of them had given me—but I could make damn sure that they survived the process.
With a brush of power, I instructed the trees to focus on the Kappa and to leave Ren alone. Unlike the Kappa, the trees obeyed the Damon Amulet. As he threw the demons into the trees, I made sure they didn’t get back up. After several minutes of fighting, with no end of demons in sight, we both heard a scream.
With a mighty roar, Ren raked his claws across the bellies of the two nearest demons, spilling their black innards across the forest floor, and then dashed into the whipping branches, heedless of his hurts or the fact that his arm was barely hanging on. Growling, I switched to a tiger and kept the remaining demons at bay, ripping them apart while, at the same time, I instructed the trees to form a wall of branches behind Ren to provide a barrier.
Disgust and anger rippled through me as I tore into the deadly creatures. It felt good. It felt right. But at some point in the fight, I realized that my anger and disgust were not directed at the demons, as filthy as they were, but at myself. That the lowly, dark creature I really wanted to destroy was the man that I used to be. A cowardly, black soul that preferred slinking off into the darkness to standing up and fighting for what he wanted.
With the last few Kappa finished off, I followed Ren’s trail back to Kelsey, desperately hoping that I’d made the right decision to secure Ren’s escape rather than heading back to her myself. Trees came alive and whipped branches in my face, leaving biting little stings everywhere they landed, but this time I embraced the sting. Took it into myself. I deserved the pain, so I reveled in it. Asked for more. Still, it wasn’t enough penance.
When I found Ren again, he was in the process of eradicating the Kappa who’d been suckling at Kelsey’s neck. I cursed myself for leaving her alone. I cursed myself for not remembering that she’d been attacked. I cursed the fact that I hadn’t come on this quest, hadn’t helped. Kelsey was pale. Her limbs fell limply to Ren’s side as he lifted her. Black ooze trickled from the wound in her neck.
I did this. She was hurt because of me. Every pain that she suffered here, every discomfort, every risk, could have been nullified, or at the very least, lessened if I’d acted like a man. I felt each labored step Ren took like a dagger in my heart. I winced at the groans of pain he couldn’t hold back as he shifted Kelsey carefully in his still-healing arms.
Never again, I vowed. Never again will I allow another to suffer because of my inaction.
Ren carried Kelsey to a cave and sought wood for a fire, never straying too far from her side. I perched, invisible, on the hill nearby and forced myself to watch Kelsey’s suffering. The least I could do would be to sit through it with Ren even if he didn’t know it. My silly pranks in the jungle as he brought mangoes to Kelsey seemed childish now. I was a man playing tricks like a spoiled boy.
Even though he should have changed to a tiger to heal faster, Ren stayed in human form so he could care for Kelsey. His human body tried to heal and I winced, knowing the pain he was experiencing.
When we were injured as tigers, the wounds healed at more than five times the speed as when we were in human form. As men, a fever accompanied the healing, one that burned so hotly that a normal human would die. It felt like our veins were on fire when it happened. We still healed quickly as humans, but to endure the pain of it for an extended time was a great sacrifice on Ren’s part.
Gently, Ren pressed cold cloths to Kelsey’s arms and forehead, though his own arms trembled and sweat trickled from his temples. Ren spoke to her unconscious form and his words stung in more ways than one. Already she meant everything to him. He was fiercely protective of her, and he blamed himself for any injuries she suffered while under his care.
A few hours later, Kappa wandered toward their camp. Ren lifted the gada and prepared to defend himself once again. Instead of fixing their eerie black eyes on Ren, they hesitated and lifted their heads to me. Ren looked my way but I remained invisible to him. As one, the Kappa surged forward and Ren lifted his weapon with his good arm.
Touching the water piece of the amulet, feeling the shape of it press into the pad of my thumb, I closed my eyes and began speaking in a language I didn’t know. The words sounded dark, liquid, and they triggered a response in the Kappa, whose shuffling momentum slowed and then stopped. One of them began speaking, and though I didn’t fully grasp the words, the meaning was clear. They wanted. They needed. They hungered. And they considered us their enemy. Their prey. It was their right to hunt us.
I replied in hushed, swirling tones, forming words that felt as murky as swamp water escaping my lips. The shushing of the trees in the wind I’d created carried my words directly to them and hid my voice from the tiger with the enhanced hearing. I whispered not to them since they didn’t heed the power of the amulet but to the water that flowed in them and through their gills, slumber, ebb, vanish, or I will take away the waters that sustain you.
The demons swayed back and forth on their thick legs, blinked their crocodile eyes several times as if considering my authority, and then finally headed back to their watery dens. When I sensed they had all returned to the water, I froze the river so they couldn’t get out, and left a command that it should remain iced over until Kelsey and Ren left Kishkindha.
Ren and I drowsed only occasionally, keeping watch over Kelsey for two days. Though I could have sped up time, I didn’t. It was the least I could do to sit with him. He believed Kelsey was dying. Ren seemed broken. Inconsolable. I’d seen him that way before. He was like that when she left for Oregon. My heart stung thinking about it, but then I remembered that Ren’s love for Kelsey was never the question. It wasn’t why I’d come.
On the evening of the second day, Kelsey took a turn for the worse. She was losing the battle with the Kappa venom. She writhed in pain and I brushed away angry tears. I knew about this part. There was nothing I could do to stop it. Why didn’t Fanindra bite her and stop the vile poison? As Ren tried to get her to drink, I whispered, “Come on, Fanindra. Kelsey needs you.”
At that moment, the golden cobra awoke. She slid from Kelsey’s arm and coiled her body next to Ren’s thigh. He didn’t even notice her. Opening her hood, her tongue flicked out several times, and then she turned and looked directly at me. The snake swayed back and forth as if waiting for me to acknowledge her.
I knew I needed to ask.
Whispering into darkness, I begged Fanindra to help Kelsey, to take away her pain and heal her from the demonic poison. Her head lifted and her tongue shot out as if tasting my words. Then, she wove her golden-scaled body up Kelsey’s shoulder, lifted her head, and opened her mouth widely. She struck quickly and repeated the process several times.
Ren had his back turned; he’d been shuffling through the backpack when it happened. Fanindra was already coiled and inanimate again by the time he brought the bottle of water to her lips. Kelsey gasped and lifted fingers to her neck, which was when Ren finally noticed the puncture marks. Carefully, he cleaned the wound and then lifted Kelsey in his arms.
When Kelsey lost consciousness, he threatened the gleaming snake. “If what you did saves her life, then I owe you mine. But if she dies, then be warned, I will find a way to destroy both you and the goddess who sent us on this quest.”
Something dark and foreboding festered in my brother’s eyes on that black night, something I was very familiar with. Something I never wanted him to know. My thoughts turned to the goddess he’d mentioned. I frowned. The idea that Ren or anyone else could cause Anamika harm was ridiculous, and yet it bothered me when I thought of leaving her alone for so long. Closing my eyes, I tested our connection and was assured that she had come to no harm in my absence. I shifted, feeling a bit guilty, but determined to follow along my course.
It soon became obvious that Kelsey was healing, and after sunrise, she woke. Ren held her close and shared his feelings in a wistful sort of way that I never could have. How was I supposed to compete with a poet who wooed women with flowery speeches?
In truth, Ren openly sharing his thoughts and feelings with Kelsey at this stage in the game surprised me. He trusted her. Told her things he’d never shared with me or my parents or even with Kadam as far as I knew.
That he, too, had been contemplating ending his existence was something we never spoke of. I identified with that. And in the space of a few minutes, I came to see my brother in a new light. Perhaps he had suffered as much as I had. Perhaps when he looked at Kelsey, he, too, had seen a way out, a way through, a way to rise above our sorry lot.
I didn’t blame him for loving her.
I didn’t blame him for wanting to emerge from the jungle a whole man.
I didn’t blame him for taking his chance to have her and running with it.
Closing my eyes, I sucked in a deep breath. Kelsey answered Ren’s heartfelt words by saying, “It’s okay. I’m here. You don’t need to be afraid.”
Keeping my eyes closed for just a moment longer, I pretended she was speaking to me. Putting her hand on my arm. Reassuring the black tiger instead of the white.
Kelsey thanked Ren and then Fanindra for saving her life, and I couldn’t help but feel bitter about the fact that it was really me who had saved her and that she would never know. Grunting, I leapt down to the mouth of the cave to follow them inside and amended that thought to Kelsey didn’t know…yet.
I followed the two of them through the cave and was fascinated by the glimpses of scenes from our past and of their future. The haunted cave had no effect upon me other than to taunt me with images of things I regretted. Anamika appeared near the end. She was young and she was crying, something I’d never seen her do. She had a bruise on her cheek, and if I hadn’t known the nature of that cave, I would have gone after her to see to her injury.
In the tunnel leading to Hampi, I moved as soundlessly as I could, but Ren often glanced back and stopped from time to time to listen. At one point, he sniffed the air, and I realized he might identify my scent, so with a few whispered words to the amulet, I masked my scent like Kadam had, and soon all I could smell, other than Ren and Kelsey, was the scent of the moss growing on the walls.
Kelsey was exhausted and mostly oblivious to both Ren and her environment. The fact that Ren was in love with Kelsey, even in the beginning, couldn’t be disputed. But I already knew that he loved her. The question remained, did she truly love him more than she loved me?
***
Leaping through time, I spied on them. Surges of hope were dashed with tender scenes that tortured my heart and cut me asunder. I forced myself to analyze their intimate discussions, listened to their whispered promises, and saw the love grow between them.
Disguising myself as a waiter, I served them on Valentine’s Day and was barely able to stop myself from pulling his chair out from under him before she perched on his lap. Hidden in the bushes, I watched him present her with an anklet and beg her not to leave him. At the dance in Trivandrum, I saw him shrug off the harem of girls and stalk away with a sober expression the instant Kelsey left in tears.
Invisible, I eavesdropped on their conversation on the yacht right after Ren regained his memory and thrilled for a brief moment when Kelsey said she was going to stay with me. But fast-forwarding a bit, I came upon them locked in a very intimate embrace in his cabin, at a time when, supposedly, she was with me. As I gripped the amulet, the scene disappeared. Anguish tore from my lips as I spun in a whirlwind, not knowing where I should go next or what I was really trying to accomplish.
My mind settled a bit, and I decided that what would comfort me the most, and help me to understand Kelsey’s feelings for me, was to relive the moments when I felt her love. A smile came to my face when I watched our ice cream fight and relived moments in Shangri-La that probably meant more to me than they did to her. She seemed comfortable holding my hand as we walked through the jungle and held on to me tightly when I carried her after she sprained her ankle trying to rescue Ren.
When I got to the day I proposed, I frowned, seeing that she was distracted. It took studying the scene from several different angles, and finally disguising myself as a beach goer lying out on the sand, before I realized that she was distracted by Ren. As my past self was struggling with what to say and how to sound romantic, all Ren had to do was walk out of the water and every female within a mile was lusting after him, including my soon-to-be fiancée.
Ren froze when he saw me offer Kelsey the ring, and then he shot off up the hill like a bolt of lightning, changing to a tiger as soon as the bushes gave him some cover. Even then, at that time, I’d had an inkling that something was wrong. That Kelsey seemed almost sad as she accepted the proposal. I shrugged off the disappointment I felt. The fact was, she did become my fiancée. Even though she knew Ren saw everything, she’d made a commitment to me, and it was obvious by watching the two of us together that she did have feelings for me.
Leaving the beach, I time jumped back to our date on the yacht. From the shadows I watched our kiss again and again.
“You must have been so lonely,” Kelsey said as I watched the scene for the tenth time.
“I was,” the other me responded. “I’d been alone for so long I felt like I was the last man on Earth. Then when I saw you, it was like a dream. You were an angel who’d come at last to rescue me from my miserable existence.”
I still felt that way. The curse was broken for Ren but not for me. I was still stuck in a miserable existence, and this one girl was the only person in the universe who could bring it to an end. I folded my arms and leaned against a post, moving my lips to the words I’d long since memorized.
“I wanted you, and I didn’t care who I hurt or how it made you feel. I was angry when you asked me to back off. I wanted you to want me in the same way, and you didn’t. I wanted you to feel the same way about me that you felt about Ren, but you couldn’t.”
“But, Kishan—”
“Wait . . . let me finish.
“Maybe it’s what that idiot bird did to me in Shangri-La, but I’ve been able to see more clearly since then—not only about my past and about Yesubai but also about you, about my future. I knew that I wouldn’t be alone forever. I saw that in the Grove of Dreams.”
I reflected for a moment on the visions given to me in the Grove of Dreams. Perhaps it had been pride that motivated me to hide the knowledge that Kelsey’s baby had my eyes. That sweet little babe with golden eyes being cradled by his beautiful mother was an image that haunted my every waking moment.
She’d named him Anik. That much I’d told her, but what I didn’t share was that his middle name was Kishan. Anik Kishan Rajaram, my golden-eyed son. Maybe if I had told her what I knew, she would have felt differently. Our relationship might have been easier. Ren less of an influence. But my ego got in the way. I wanted her to choose me because she loved me, not because of a vision.
Stupid! What difference would it have made? Kelsey made a decision without having all the cards on the table. How could I expect her to stay when she didn’t know what I knew? I turned my attention back to the scene playing out in the candlelight.
I saw the Kishan below touch Kelsey’s lips. If I closed my eyes, I could still feel the velvety-smooth texture of them on my fingertips.
“I wasn’t really ready to be in a relationship then. I didn’t have anything to give, anything to offer. Not to a woman of this time. But Shangri-La gave me something more valuable than six more hours a day as a man. It gave me hope. A reason to believe. So I waited. I learned how to be patient. I learned how to live in this century. And now . . . most importantly, I think I’ve finally learned what it means to love someone.”
My old self had at least a drop of common sense. He, or I, had been patient, and that patience had paid off. Perhaps if I could gather a bit more patience, things might end up okay. There was still time. Loads of it, actually. There was no reason a wedding had to happen. I could stop it before it went too far.
I heard a squeak as Ren stepped into view. He crouched on the deck just below mine and watched the couple below with the same fascination and attention I’d been giving. His fingers tightened on the deck chair next to him.
The old Kishan said, “So I suppose the only question remaining, Kelsey, is . . . are my feelings echoed in your heart? Do you feel even a small part of what I feel for you? Is there a piece of you that you can reserve for me? That I can name mine? That I can lay claim to and keep forever? I promise you that I will cherish it. And I will guard it jealously all of my days. Does your heart beat for me at all, love?”
After a brief moment, Kelsey responded, “Of course it does. I won’t let you be alone ever again. I love you too, Kishan.”
I watched the kiss, remembering the power and passion of it, and was jealous of my old self for having that experience at that moment. Kelsey’s words echoed in my mind. A piece of her belonged to me and always would. I knew that to be true. As Ren lost his mind, threw a deck chair, and general chaos ensued, I quietly murmured the words of Kelsey’s promise into the dark, balmy air. “I won’t be alone.”
“Of course you’re not alone,” a scoffing female voice declared behind me.