Page 88 of The Burning Mountain
“Oh no,” came the gruff voice of the captain, interrupting her meditation. “I apologize, Princess. I didn’t realize where I was placing the trunk. Was just tidying up by moving stuff around.”
Chandra opened her eyes and blinked. She felt disoriented, wrenched abruptly from her trance. Usually, when she was meditating, she was left alone. Until now.
Her eyes fell on the heavy trunk that appeared to have been dropped in front of her. Something misshapen rolled out from underneath it and stopped at her crossed legs. She picked it up, her eyes widening when she realized she was holding the broken half of arudrakshabead.
With a dismayed cry, she shot to her feet and heaved off the trunk. Her beads lay crushed under the heavy box. All seven of them. Unless someone dropped a heavy object on them with an intention to destroy, there was no way all of them would shatter like that.
How could the captain have missed seeing them? When she was meditating, they usually hovered in the air in front of her.
She met the captain’s eyes and saw that there wasn’t a hint of remorse. In fact, his eyes gleamed with something that looked suspiciously like anticipation. He was waiting for her to break. Waiting for her rage. And then the truth hit her—he didn’tmissanything. This was done deliberately.
The captain stepped closer, scattering the remaining fragments of the beads even farther.
“Sorry,” he said, sounding not in the least apologetic about it.
Chandra was too shocked to reply immediately. A tremble began in her limbs. Anger was slow in coming, but when it did come, she went lightheaded with it. A ringing sounded in her ears, and she opened her mouth to unleash her fury on the careless captain. But a split-second clarity reigned.
She could see the barely there smirk on the captain’s face, the cold-blooded gleam in his eye. If a mere captain had the audacity to do things like that, then she had to concede the possibility that perhaps he was doing it on orders from his higher-ups.
And if she got upset like he was hoping, then she would be playing right into their hands. Perhaps give them power to restrict her even more.
“Your anger is not your enemy, Princess, but when others attempt to rouse it for their purposes, take care, for they see it as your weakness. You should act to eliminate that liability.”
Guruji’s teachings rang in her ears. Her best course was to not let his actions rile her.
She took a deep breath and reined in her emotions with almost a superhuman effort.
“I accept your apology,” she said, the words scratching her throat on the way out. “But please see to it that you replace the things that you’ve broken. They’re very precious to me.”
The captain’s eyes narrowed. Her lack of an angry response gave him nothing to fight against. Cheated out of an opportunity to retaliate, the captain grunted and walked away, his fingersswiping the toy lute Billadev had gotten her from Swara to the ground, where it broke into two.
Chandra fell to her knees and scooped up the broken beads as best as she could, her fingers trembling. She had worked for seven years, refining her capabilities, and these particularrudrakshabeads, which had only one face, were very rare. She had infused them with the rigors of her meditation. They were irreplaceable, even if she were to find replacements.
A sob locked in her throat. Why was it so hard for her? Her brother was able to achieve his fullest potential. He didn’t need the assistance of a string of beads to access the powers the goddess granted to their clan. Unlike her.
Despite training as hard as him, she had difficulty accessing the seventh level, the seventh chakra. Nor could she bypass the need for physical objects, like these holy beads, to activate her powers. Gaining control over her powers had been a hard task, coming at a time in her life when she needed to feel good about herself. That she wasn’t a complete waste. She had celebrated every victory over the chakras, every ascension to each of the planes. And now she had nothing to show for it except dust and broken fragments.
Water dripped onto her hands. Chandra touched her face and realized she was crying.
42
THE BATTLE WITH THE MAKARA
The sun was dying a red death, sinking past the watery horizon when they ran into the sea monster named the Makara. It rose out of the water in front of their accompanying ship, its sinuous body breaking the waves, its scales translucent, reflecting both the cool blues of the ocean and the fiery reds of the sky. Immensely long with a horned head, and true to the legend, it appeared to be a mix of a snake, fish, and a giant crocodile.
All their efforts, hunting it down, bore fruit when they ran across him, midway in the waters between Angaradweep and Thianvelli. Exhilaration sang in Veer’s blood. Finally, they were getting somewhere.
A minute in this monster’s presence was enough to confirm it was one of those mythological monsters, the same as the ones Veer had met in the caves of Amaravathi. It was similarly immune to his powers.
But this beast was so much larger, as it reared up, higher than the masts of their sister ship, revealing a long white stripe running through its underbelly. Veer watched as chaos descended on thePrahari. Bells rang in warning, sending menscurrying, the first mate’s voice rose above the ruckus, shouting commands.
Veer lurched as theGajagamini, too, turned abruptly. Their situation was the same, everyone working in a seemingly haphazard, but actually, a well-rehearsed, coordinated manner. After all, dangers such as this were the norm on the high seas and the seafaring people were well used to emergencies.
Veer felt his vision divide momentarily as he sent a call to Vihari, who had been visiting one of the sea cliffs a fewkosasaway. Shota came to stand beside him, appearing for once, less sick than before. Prince Bhupathi found them soon after.
“Where is Virat?” asked Veer, watching the monster with narrowed eyes. A distance away, something broke the surface and waved sinuously in the air. He realized it was the creature’s tail. It had the same hued scales and ended with a delicate transparent fish tail complete with side fins.
“God, it must be several feet long,” came the awe-filled voice of a young deckhand as he paused briefly in rolling up a length of rope.
