Page 127 of The Burning Mountain
A sudden searing pain in her right hand made her fall to her knees. Up above, Vihari screeched in agony as he fell from the sky, dipping past her view, their bond broken. Her eyes turned temporarily blind.
A scream came from the depths of her being and she kept screaming until she had no breath left. It was like being cut with a hot knife.
In disbelief, she beheld her hand, her vision returning in splotches, revealing a gruesome sight. First, the skin around her wrist vanished, exposing the underlying muscles. Blood pumped through the naked arteries. Then they disappeared as well, and she could see down to her bones.
Writing appeared on the small bones of her wrist, as if someone were carving with a sharp quill. Letters of an obscure alphabet she vaguely recognized appeared, in a swirling sentence, wrapped around the delicate bones.
Black dots blossomed before her eyes. Her head swam; she was near fainting and wished she would. Anything to get away from the pain.
But as quickly as it had started, the pain stopped. Her hand regained the muscle and skin, leaving the echoes of pain still pulsating through her body.
The metal structures in the crater started to glow. Hollow, reverberating sounds came from within the cylinder as thebridge and the mechanism repaired themselves. The telltale clunk that had plagued the mechanism had faded, the rocks that obstructed the bridge and the patchy areas where it had melted away were all restored to their previous state.
The glow faded away, leaving nothing but silence behind. The heat from the lava in the crater seemed to have cooled by degrees, the bright orange fading to a deeper red.
Meru was quiescent once more.
61
WHAT IS THE WORTH OF A PERSON’S LIFE?
Chandra gave a sudden shiver and realized she was covered in sweat. Slowly, she brought up the hand she had been cradling to her stomach.
Outwardly it looked and worked like a normal hand, but she knew, deep in her soul, that everything had changed.
“Get up, Chandra,”thundered a voice in her ears. Her body obeyed, even the hand that recently was used like a chalkboard, that still felt sore, followed the command without her thought.
With dawning horror, she realized the voice she had heard was in her head.
Virat!
He was controlling her.
“Stand up.”
“What is happening? Why are you…?”she answered.“Vihari?”she tried to call with her mind.
Virat replied instead, by speaking aloud, as if for Veer’s benefit. “When you use the Lotus Key, the magic of the mechanism nullifies all magic around it. The supernatural beings who constructed this structure designed it that way, so no one could be controlled into using the key. They must do it oftheir own free will. And that means Vihari can no longer remain connected to you.
“Your father and his ancestors were such fools, Princess, to burn such a valuable treatise regarding Meru. I’m glad I was able to procure and safeguard the only remaining copy. It certainly gave me a lot of information such as this.”
Nausea rose in her quickly, she tried to throw up. But her body wouldn’t obey. She only gagged.
“Stop that.”She stopped.
“Better. Now come here.”
“Get out of my head!”
Virat only laughed.
“Wonder what happened to Vihari, though?” Virat said, his eyes reflecting a savage intensity even if his visage remained frozen. “The severance must’ve been painful. I hope he died.”
She made her steady way toward Virat, stumbling over the still-repairing parts of the bridge. Her eyes aimed unblinkingly ahead.
“Let her go, Virat. I’ll help you, all you need. There has to be another way to restore your body. Just…just let her live.” She could hear the entreaty in Veer’s voice, underneath the alarm.
“On the contrary, Veer,” said Virat, his voice still pleasant, but Chandra could feel his black rage now that they were connected. The mess of emotions felt odd, jumbled together, and so raw, she wanted to curl in on herself to escape the onslaught. It was as if all the feelings that remained were now in overdrive, in reaction to missing his only chance to open the portal. She was a drowning island, buffeted by the currents of his sentiments.
