Page 117 of The Burning Mountain
“He…he’s controlling my actions.” Tears leaked out of her eyes and ran down her cheeks in silvery tracks. “Please, I’m begging you, leave.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to. He’ll kill us both. Leave and warn the others.”
“I can feel your pain and fear,” interrupted the wizard, licking his purple lips. “It tastes so sour. And your desperation mixed with hope…” he trailed off, closing his eyes in seeming bliss. “It’s been a while for me.” He opened his eyes. “Your warning is useless, though. I just need one body before I can fulfill my dream.”
Paarth finally decided to listen to Kanchana’s warnings. But the minute he tensed to sprint, the wizard brought down his staff and a blinding white circle erupted around him, an intricate design of interlocking squares and triangles adorned with an unknown script.
Just as Paarth was wondering how he had managed to draw this on the forest floor, the wizard explained. “It’s a binding circle. A crossroads between this and the spirit realm.” He moved closer to the soldier, who stood frozen with fear.
An unearthly wail began, and ghostly white hands appeared, reaching through thin air and grasped his arms and legs, imprisoning him.
“Go on, Kanchana. Tell him how much you love him as you stab him to death with this dagger,” said the wizard, handingher the bone-turned weapon. “My body grows weary, and I don’t have much time.”
Virat took a deep breath,filling his lungs with air. His hands rested on his hips as he stared at the remnants of his previous body. Nothing but dark ash remained, even the bones had disintegrated. The bone dagger was back in his chest pocket, cleaned and wrapped in a cloth for protection.
He had cut it close this time, waiting until his body was falling apart. It had been difficult for him to climb to higher altitudes in a deceased, rotting cadaver. A couple hours longer, and he would have died again.
Virat felt something unpleasant coil through him as he recalled the last time that had happened, when his old body was ready to be cast off and he didn’t have a readily available fresh carcass. He had resorted to occupying a stray dog’s corpse, a singularly unpleasant experience he never wished to repeat again, but he knew that was still a possibility unless he fixed his problem.
“Did Paarth have magic?” he asked Kanchana, who wept softly on the ground. She had tried to make a run for it while he was at his most vulnerable—the few brief moments right after a soul transfer. Virat could have told her that her best bet would have been to kill him before trying to escape, fortunately the foolish woman had no idea.
And now, she lay on the ground, her leg broken, perhaps anticipating her own demise, as she raised tear-soaked eyes to him. “He had incredible stamina. It allowed him to climb to higher altitudes. It’s why he was posted here.”
Virat blinked. Where was the expected pleasure from this statement? His teeth gritted as the answer came to him in degrees. He had lost the ability to feel pleasure. A treasured emotion that lessened the feeling of imprisonment caused by the need of a physical body.
Without joy, what was the point of existing? As he was now, his emotional landscape felt like a moth-eaten leaf, with great empty patches hanging by a thread and ready to collapse at any moment.
He no longer knew if he was supposed to feel sad, and if he did, he couldn’t find the wherewithal to express that. The happier emotions were worse. They were the first to go. He desperately chased the elusive high of happiness, finding it in the final moments of other people, when he killed them with his bone dagger, allowing for soul transfer. For those brief moments, he felt almost human. Except it would fade. It always faded.
“Please, let me live. Let me go. I…I can help. I can fetch more bodies,” came Kanchana’s voice.
Virat barely glanced at her. His emotions might be stunted, but he felt stronger.
And if he felt stronger, it had to be because of the magical abilities. He should have come back here sooner. There were more people with magical ability in Rajgarh and Vivismati than the rest of the Saptavarsha. His mind traveled on a tangent as he wrestled with how he could put this new information to better use.
Kanchana’s pleading continued until he grew tired of it and crouched to her level.
“Why bother lying to me?” he asked. “I know you mean to warn people about me. And there is no way I’m going to let you leave.”
Kanchana didn’t stop weeping but defiantly lifted her eyes to him. She seemed to have realized her end was near. A fleeting feeling of…something close to glee came and went before he could savor it properly.
“If there’s any justice in the world, then may you die the same death you dole out to others,” she spoke her curse.
“Ah! That’s more like it,” he said as he drew his staff, which had morphed into a sharp blade, across her throat, silencing her forever. “Unfortunately for you, fair play is dead in this world.”
58
A MOTHER’S ADVICE
Veer braced his hands against the stone balustrade. High up in the royal palace was a stone platform that connected two adjoining minarets, which provided a bird’s eye view of their city. The wind lifted the short locks of his dark hair. He leaned more into the breeze, willing the unease dogging his heals to sprout wings and leave.
“You aren’t wrong in your wish, but she isn’t wrong in what she wants either.”
Veer gave his mother a confused stare. “What do you mean?”
“I disagree with what you’re doing, and you’re being foolishly stubborn about it. You need to come clean with Chandra before you leave for Meru. I can see its messing with your mind.”
