Page 96 of The Burning Mountain
Silence descended, the hiss of rain loud on the paved stones. Virat stood with his head tilted back defiantly, the thin rainplastering his threadbare clothes to his gaunt frame. An ugly expression crossed his face.
“So this marks the end of our relationship, then,” he said quietly. “Well done, Veer. You’ve made an enemy of your best friend.”
“You don’t deserve that epithet. Better run and hide, Virat,” growled Veer. “Next time I won’t be so lenient.”
Virat’s jaw clenched, but he seemed to come to the same realization as Veer. This was a fight for another day. He tapped his staff, and the storm broke in earnest.
“Until next time,seheri.”
He disappeared amid the downpour.
46
POURAVA’S PLAN
Her prison was dark and dingy and, in one corner, damp. Chandra listened to the steady drip of water over the stone. It was strangely hypnotic, allowing her to use the cadence of it to go into a trance.
She sat cross-legged on the stone floor, eyes closed, trying to access the higher plane where she always went when she wanted to use her powers. In front of her were seven tiny stones she had foraged from a windowsill set high up in her cell.
She blew out a frustrated breath when she felt nothing. It was as if a passageway that had always been open and welcoming was now barred to her. She needed herrudrakshabeads, after all. Nothing else would do.
Chandra got up and went around the cell, wishing for something to do. After she was “escorted” to Vivisamti’s capital city, the guards led her straight to this tower and she remained imprisoned there ever since.
She ran her hands over the walls of her cell, which was made of stone blocks. She tried to find a chink, a loose stone or some weakness, but there was nothing.
Not that she expected them to be that careless. She was given a solitary cell, which appeared to be mostly empty, apart from the occasional patrol of guards. There was no one standing outside her cell. She was alternatively thankful and furious, for although it gave her privacy, it also made her antsy without anyone to talk to.
No news of the outside world made her thoughts go inward, imagining worst-case scenarios.
She had some idea of the passage of time at least, courtesy of that high narrow window, and therefore knew it was a few days since she was thrown there. She wondered how Billadev was doing, if someone was treating the wound he had gotten on his back.
They kept her fed well enough, but confiscated all her weapons, including the odd ornaments that doubled as weapons. And her ancestral daggers. How she missed their comforting weight in her hand. Almost as bad as she missed herrudrakshabracelet.
But she felt the most loss with their seizure of the Lotus Key. Veer had entrusted it to her, and she couldn’t manage to safeguard it. She felt her failing keenly.
Footsteps sounded in the short corridor.
She saw his shadow before he came into view. A man in the finest qualitykurtaanddhoti, adorned with many necklaces on his chest. A bejeweled turban sat on his iron-gray curls, wreathing a face she saw once before—in a mirror hanging on the wall of a hut in the temple city.
King Pourava. Veer’s uncle.
“They tell me you were meditating,” he said, his voice pleasant as if they were well-regarded acquaintances. His eyes went toward the neat row of small stones she had placed on the floor. “Not working I see?”
“Will you get to the point, Pourava? I must get back to my meditation.” She deliberately dropped the honorific and watched, satisfied, as his eyes narrowed with dislike. Ignoring him, she sat on the floor, cross-legged once again.
“You are rude. I honestly don’t understand the attraction. You are nothing compared to my daughter.”
Daughter?Chandra just got confirmation of a suspicion she had been entertaining.
“Why do you need to get back to meditation?” asked Pourava scathingly. “Your powers are gone. Veer told me all about them. You are nothing without those beads.”
Chandra’s jaw clenched. Suspecting it was one thing but having it confirmed—that it was indeed her husband who had revealed it to Pourava—was completely different. Granted it wasn’t a big secret, but still felt betrayed by Veer’s confidence in his uncle about what she thought was a private matter about her.
“I may be nothing without the beads, but imprisoning me won’t get you what you desire. Veer won’t marry Revathi.”
Surprise lit his eyes as Pourava stared hard at her. “He told me you were clever,” he mused, as if to himself. Then his eyes turned crafty, watching the play of emotions on her face. “In fact, he asked me to imprison you.”
Her brow cleared at that, and she gave him a derisive smile. “Now you are lying. He wouldn’t do that.”
