Page 65 of Damned and Broken Gods
Blood On The Deck
LEELA
Gruel for the fourth day running. But I was so hungry I gobbled it up. The mess hall was empty at this hour, barely dawn, but my growling stomach had woken me. Here, on the Vairanya, Araz and I had separate cabins, side by side. Real privacy for the first time since we’d been bonded.
I didn’t like it.
Had I considered sneaking into his quarters that first night? Yes, yes, I had. But I didn’t. Instead, I’d waited for him to come to me. But he hadn’t.
It was just as well. This journey would help us reset the boundaries between us.
Friends.
That’s all we could be.
The journey was going to take seven days if the weather held, and we’d all been given chores to do around the ship. The Vairanya had no real crew; she steered herself, the route from the coast of Sharana, the large island above which Aakash Sansar was built, to Shantivan, hidden deep in her core. We werethe crew, the hands that would tend to her on her journey. Today I was on rota to scrub the deck and the surrounding land…or shell, whatever it was that we were sitting on.
A living, breathing creature.
I’d dressed appropriately in one of the outfits provided for us. Trousers that stopped at the ankle, cinched at the waist but loose on the leg—enough to allow decent movement—and an undershirt and brown V-neck tunic with three-quarter sleeves. The shoes were flat-soled with a decent grip and fit like a glove. I’d made sure to pull my hair back in a braid to keep it out of the way.
I was ready for work.
Blue’s voice filled my head.You got this, chickadee. Show ’em what yer made of.
Gods, I missed him. Waking up wasn’t the same without his beady eyes staring at me followed by a witty quip or two and whiskery kisses. My heart ached. How was he coping without me?
The door creaked. I looked up, expecting to see Araz, but it was our green-haired captain Ramashi who entered. At first glance, he’d reminded me of Pashim, but now that I’d spent some time around him, it was easy to see all the ways that he was different. The similarities only existed because they’d been kin.
“Ah, an early riser.” He poured a bowl of gruel and joined me at the worn wooden table, taking the spot opposite me on the bench. “Gruel…Mmmm, my favorite.”
I bit back a smile. “It’s not so bad.”
He arched a brow. “And she lies so sweetly.” He ate a spoonful and made a face. “I cannot wait till we get back to Shantivan.”
“Have you been stationed there long?”
“It is my home. I was raised in Prashikshan, but my tribe lives on Shantivan. We are the keepers of the land, connected to the Kaalmukha, Vairanya, and her offspring the Shattiraksha.”
“And…Pashim?”
His eyes darkened. “He was chosen to remain on Prashikshan. We are both warriors, but I protect the seas, and Pashim?—”
“Protected me.” I swallowed the lump in my throat.
Ramashi knew the story of his cousin’s demise. But he didn’t know what he’d meant to me or I to him.
“My cousin was a noble drohi, and yes, he would have laid down his life to save an innocent, but something tells me that you were more to him than just an innocent.”
The gruel stuck in my throat. “He loved me.”
“Yes…Of course he did.” He smiled sadly. “And you, bound to another? How did you feel about Pashim?”
My chest hurt, and tears sprang to my eyes.
“Ah…Leela. There is no need to explain. I see it plainly. You loved him in the spaces allowed by your bond to another.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way, but now he said it, it made sense. I’d loved Pashim. Not with the burning intensity that I knew at my core I could love Araz with but with a steady, consistent hum. A frequency that wouldn’t have dimmed. Where Araz was the storm, Pashim was the eye.
