by Davis Ashura
“Not entirely,” William answered. “She makes some of it, but I think most of it comes from Lord Shet.”
“Ah, yes. Lord Shet.” Afa appeared skeptical. “Our histories say he’s dead.”
“Serena and her sister say otherwise. They’ve actually met him,” William replied.
“I like our history better,” Afa said, “and for all our sakes, you should too. A dead Shet is the best Shet.”
“What if he isn’t dead?” William asked.
“Then we’d all be in mortal danger if he ever finds a way back to the land of the living.”
The morning after that first meeting with the raha’asras, William, Jake, Jason, and Mr. Zeus had breakfast at the table underneath the backyard pergola. Sunlight beamed down like spars of light through the slats, but most of the backyard remained in cool shadow. Somewhere a songbird trilled a counterpoint to the water gurgling down the cliff.
William remained concerned at his lack of progress, but Mr. Zeus assured him he had nothing to worry about. He tried to take the old man’s advice and set aside his fears while they had breakfast. No need to bring everyone else down.
Jake glanced at his food and snapped his fingers. “I forgot the OJ.” His wrought-iron chair squealed on the flagstones as he pushed it back.
William shouted at his retreating back. “Get me some water.”
“Get it yourself.”
William mentally shrugged before resuming the serious job of eating. He piled French toast onto his plate and drenched it in sugared apples.
“Save some for the rest of us,” Jason complained.
“You snooze, you lose,” William said. He held his fork and knife, ready to dig in, but the utensils suddenly burned like fire. He dropped them with a curse. Only then did he notice the barest scent of sulfur.
Jason. He’d woven a tiny braid of Fire.
“That’s playing dirty,” William said.
“You snooze, you lose,” Jason said, mocking William with his own words while he snagged some French toast.
“You realize there’s a second platter in the kitchen?” Mr. Zeus asked.
“Look what I found,” Jake said. He stood in the doorway leading outside, appearing triumphant as he held a plate of bacon in one hand and a glass of OJ in the other.
“Did you get my water?” William asked.
“Get some from the pond,” Jake said.
“That’s a ‘no,’ then?”
“Affirmative.”
William scowled. “Nobody better touch my food,” he warned as he retreated to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water.
“We’ll totally protect your food,” Jason shouted after him.
“In our bellies,” Jake chortled.
William rolled his eyes, knowing he’d return to an empty plate. He drained a glass of water before grabbing the other platter of French toast and sugared apples Mr. Zeus had mentioned.
As expected, only a few smears of food remained on his plate when he returned. Jake and Jason wore insufferable grins, but the joke was on them. William plopped the platter of French toast on the table and proceeded to start eating directly from it.
“Hey!” Jake protested.
“Hay is for horses,” William said around a mouthful of sugary goodness.
“Trade you bacon for some toast,” Jason offered.
“Deal.”
“What about me?” Jake asked.
“I’m thirsty,” William said even though he’d drunk a glass of water less than a minute ago.
“Fine,” Jake huffed. He stomped off to the kitchen.
Mr. Zeus ate his food with a long-suffering air.
“Afa doesn’t believe us about Seminal either,” William told Mr. Zeus when Jake came back.
Jason sighed. “This again.”
“Yes, this again,” William said, annoyed at Jason’s ongoing dismissal of his fears. “How can you be so sure I’m wrong?”
“Because asrasins all through history have written about Seminal,” Jason answered. “Not one has found any proof of the place. It’s like Atlantis.”
“Except Atlantis was real,” Mr. Zeus murmured.
Jason frowned. “Fine. Atlantis was real, but Seminal isn’t.”
“I think it is,” William said. “Serena and Selene have both been there, and they described the same thing. Plus, it makes sense when you think about how thick and filthy Sinskrill’s lorasra is.”
“Maybe it’s the way it is because of their culture,” Jason said. “Didn’t you say that Serena had to watch her mother get whipped to death? Any society capable of that has to be evil, and it’s bound to skunk up their lorasra.”
“Then what about how potent it is?” William challenged.
No one had an answer for that one.
“Why is this so important to you?” Jason asked after a moment of quiet.
“Because we have to be prepared,” William said. “If Seminal is real and Shet is as powerful as Serena claims, then we have to be ready for him. Stealing their only raha’asra and troll is a good start. They might know something that can help us.”
“No one is stealing anything until you figure out how to escape from Sinskrill with the troll,” Mr. Zeus said. “More importantly, if you want to start proving your notions, you need to test them.”
“Which notions?” Jake asked.
“The one that says Sinskrill’s lorasra seeps out into other saha’asras,” Mr. Zeus said. “I’d be more willing to believe in Seminal if that turns out to be the case.”
“How do we test it?” William asked.
“I spoke to Serena, and she says there’s a saha’asra in the outback of Australia connected to Sinskrill,” Mr. Zeus said. “There also happens to be one linked to Arylyn no more than eight or nine hours’ drive from there. All we need to do is go to the saha’asra linked to Sinskrill and test the flavor of its lorasra.”
William caught on to the idea and bobbed his head in building excitement. “And since I can visualize lorasra, I can tell if it’s leaking out of the anchor line to Sinskrill.”
Mr. Zeus nodded. “A good point. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“When we go, we should take Rukh with us,” William said. “You know, just in case.”
“Another good point,” Mr. Zeus said.
Rukh and Jessira’s log cabin perched on the edge of a high, mountain meadow of phlox, lavender, dianthus, and yarrow. Wildflowers in colors of pink, purple, baby-blue, and yellow waved in the cool breeze, before giving way to spindly cattails where the field edged against a crystal-clear lake. Beneath the afternoon sunlight, the water glowed golden and provided a perfect reflection of the hardwood forest covering the surrounding foothills.
As Serena and William approached the cabin, her breath frosted, and she smiled. She loved being cold.
“I wonder why they live all the way out here,” Serena mused. “It’s so isolated.”
William smirked at her. “Where do you live again?”
“That’s different,” Serena explained. “I chose the lagoon cottage because I wanted something Selene and I could fix up together without everyone staring at me because I was a mahavan. This,” she gestured to Rukh and Jessira’s home, “is something else. I mean it took us two hours to get here.”
“Maybe they wanted some privacy,” William said. “After all, people stare at them a lot, too.”
Serena scoffed. “So they built a log cabin an hour north of Janaki Valley? They need that much privacy?”
“I don’t know,” William said. “Why don’t you ask them?”
“Like they’d tell me.” Serena snorted in derision. “Those two probably have secrets that have secrets.”
William frowned at her. “What’s with you? You’ve been acting weird all morning.”
Serena hadn’t realized anything about her behavior had been noticeably amiss. “What do you mean?”
“You’re acting . . . I don’t know . . . nervous or something.”
“I’m not ne
rvous,” Serena protested, although maybe an inkling of anxiety did trickle down her spine. “I simply don’t like mysteries.”
“Well, Mr. Zeus knows something about Rukh and Jessira,” William said. “So does the Village Council, and they all apparently trust them.”
“And that’s good enough for you?”
William shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? The people in charge know something, and we’ll likely only learn what it is if Rukh and Jessira feel like telling us.”
They reached the front door, and Serena took a deep breath to settle the flutters in her stomach.
William rapped on the door and footsteps from within approached. An instant later, Rukh opened the door. Serena stepped back despite his welcoming smile.
“Hi,” William said. “We wanted to ask you something.”
“And you came all this way to learn the answer?” Rukh wore a teasing grin, but he opened the door wider. “In that case, come on in. Have you had lunch?”
They both shook their heads.
“Good,” Rukh said. “Jessira’s making something from back home. Dosas.”
“Aren’t dosas some kind of Indian dish?” Serena asked. It made sense since Rukh looked like a tall, lean, muscular Indian.
“I think so,” Rukh said.
Serena frowned. How could he not know whether it was an Indian dish?
Rukh led them into the house, and Serena was once again struck by the man’s grace. He moved easily and smoothly, more like a stalking tiger than a person.
A second later, she shook her attention off Rukh and gazed about his home. Perhaps it would reveal something about the man.
A long, open room held an unlit fireplace, fronted by an upholstered couch and wooden rocking chairs with plaid cushions. On the far wall—the rear of the cabin—an open timber door that led out back. It stood centered between an eating area with a rough-hewn table and a galley kitchen tucked into a corner with a window opening out on the lake. A closed interior door presumably led to Rukh and Jessira’s bedroom.
Jessira, her golden hair and ruddy-gold skin glowing in the sunlight streaming through the window, stood in the kitchen and offered them a bright smile. “I think you might be the first visitors we’ve had since we fixed up the cabin.”
“They wanted to ask us a question,” Rukh told her.
Jessira arched an eyebrow in challenge.
Serena made herself smile in response, but her instincts told her to run. Something about these two scared her. Not merely Rukh’s obvious power and deadliness—traits Jessira also possessed—but something more fundamental, something she couldn’t put her finger on.
Was it Jessira’s beauty, her forceful sense of self? Or Rukh’s handsome features? Or the way the two of them seemed so perfectly matched and so perfectly relaxed all the time? Maybe all of it?
Serena shook off her wandering thoughts when she realized William was talking.
“. . . the saha’asra is in Australia, but I’m worried,” William said.
“About an ambush?” Jessira asked.
William squirmed. “I don’t know,” he finally answered. “It’s a feeling I’ve got. I think we need the two of you there.”
“Then we will be,” Rukh said.
“You will?” Serena blurted out. “You don’t have any questions first?”
"Not really," Jessira answered. “We trust William and his feelings.”
Serena settled down with a scowl of frustration. They hadn’t even talked it over.
Jessira went to the kitchen counter and fixed four plates with dosas stuffed with fried potatoes. “Lunch?” she asked.
Serena’s mouth watered, but she forced herself to take dainty bites even while she wished she could take bigger ones. “Where did you learn to cook like this?”
“Someone in Rukh’s household, in our first home together, taught me,” Jessira said.
“Cook Heltin,” Rukh said, his tone fond and wistful.
Serena’s eyes narrowed in thought. A household and a cook implied wealth. But where was their home?
“You can dig in,” William said to her.
“I have a certain image to maintain,” Serena said.
“Why? That version wasn’t the real you,” William said. “She was a lie.”
Serena’s lip curled. There was his ever-ready reminder again.
Rukh and Jessira shared a glance.
“I learned some of what Serena did to you,” Jessira said to William. “And I understand how difficult forgiveness can be in such a situation.”
William reddened. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” Rukh said, “but you have a choice to make. Release any chance of friendship with Serena, or find a way to forgive her. In this, there is no middle ground.”
“Remember, forgiving is not the same as forgetting,” Jessira added.
William scowled. “It’s not that easy.”
Serena kept quiet, feeling like an observer as the conversation swirled around her.
“I know what it’s like to befriend an enemy,” Rukh said. “It requires patience, and it certainly isn’t easy.”
“Life rarely is,” Jessira said. “I once knew a woman who should have known better, but she fell in love with the man most wrong for her. She ruined his life and he ruined hers, but in the end, they forgave one another.”
They were obviously talking about themselves, and Serena wondered anew about them. How could two people who appeared so young sound so old?
“Jessira’s telling you to keep your heart open to forgiveness,” Rukh said to William.
“And Rukh’s saying to be patient,” Jessira spoke to Serena.
William appeared to consider the advice, and the conversation quieted. “I’ll try to do better,” he eventually told Serena, “but like Rukh said, it’s not easy.”
“I wouldn’t expect it to be,” Serena replied.
The rest of the meal passed by, and when he finished eating William rose to his feet. “We should get going,” he said.
“Stay a little longer,” Rukh urged, “and let us show you our home.”
After lunch, Rukh and Jessira took them on a long hike through the lands around their home.
The four of them stalked through the nearby wildflower meadow and along the mirrored pond that drained the range of foothills cupping the mountain valley in which the cabin stood. They climbed rugged outcroppings and hiked the conifer forest surrounding the field. The hills and trees blunted the occasional gusts of wind and left the area in a microclimate that resembled New England rather than the tropics.
Afterward it was too late to head back to Lilith, so William and Serena decided to stay the night.
Rukh built a fire in the hearth, and the wood smoke and crackling flames triggered fond memories. William recalled autumns back home, watching football with his dad and Landon, raking leaves with them, and tossing baseball with fall’s crispness as tart and sweet as the best apples.
He wondered again how Landon was doing. He hadn’t heard from him in so long. Where was he? How was he doing?
“How do you get back and forth to the village?” Serena asked Jessira.
“We bike,” Jessira answered. She pointed to a pair of heavy-framed bicycles with thick tires parked in a corner.
William hadn’t noticed them before.
“Going downhill is a lot faster than walking or riding a horse,” Rukh said.
“What about uphill?” William asked.
Rukh grinned. “Uphill we cheat. We use Air and Earth to help us along.”
William studied their bikes, having never seen a pair like them before. “I didn’t know they made bikes with frames that thick.”
“They’re called mountain bikes,” Jessira said. “The man at the bike shop in Cincinnati said they started making them out west and only recently brought them east. Rukh took one look at them and decided he had to have one. He said the bikes reminded him of what he rode growing up.”
How was that possible? The bikes were new to Cincinnati but not where Rukh grew up?
“Where’s home for you?” William asked. “Your home, I mean.” He didn’t expect an answer.
“The city of Ashoka,” Rukh said. A note of longing filled his voice. “An ancient place of grace and beauty.”
“Ashoka?” William asked. He wondered if he might finally get some answers.
“It's a world away from here,” Rukh answered. He clapped his hands once. “Enough about my history. Serena’s eyeing the bikes like a child would a dish of candy.”
Serena broke into an embarrassed smile. “I was thinking how fun it would be to ride one of these through Janaki Valley.”
“We can teach you how to make one,” Jessira offered.
Serena beamed, her earlier distrust of Rukh and Jessira apparently gone. “I’d love that.”
Later on, the fire burned to coals and Rukh and Jessira retired to their bedroom. William lay in a sleeping bag that Rukh had let him borrow, while Serena took the couch.
William stared at the ceiling, and Rukh and Jessira’s counsel echoed in his head. Keep your heart open to forgiveness.
It was good advice, and William steeled himself for a long overdue conversation.
“I know what you almost did to Jason,” William said, his voice hesitant.
Serena eyed him in confusion.
“A few months ago, when the two of you were arguing on Clifftop. I saw the braid you wove. The one Fiona sometimes used on me and Jake. The one that causes pain.”
Serena’s features became guarded, flat like a mahavan’s.
“I’m glad you didn’t use it,” William said.
Serena didn’t reply at once. Instead, she seemed to study him. “You’re not mad at me?” she asked at last.
William shook his head. “On Sinskrill, you would have struck Jason down without a second thought. Here, you didn’t. I’m proud of you. I should have told you a long time ago.”
“Thank you,” Serena said, her voice grave but giving no indication of her thoughts.
William hesitated again. Here went the bigger risk. “And if you like, maybe we can build a bike together?”
Serena didn’t answer at first. “I’d like that,” she eventually said in a husky whisper.
