Dev was floating in the middle of the lagoon. He waved.
“How do I get there?” she shouted.
“Jump!”
“Are you crazy?” She estimated the distance in her head. It was about fifty feet to the water.
“You can do it!” Dev’s voice floated up to her. “It’s the only way down.”
“I think I’ll just stay here,” she shouted back.
Sera sat on the edge of the rock, contemplating whether she could get hurt in her own world or not. If she broke her leg here, would it be broken in the real world? A mosquito sat on her leg and bit into her skin. She swatted it, watching a tiny smear of blood stain her skin.
She didn’t know why she was so afraid of jumping. She’d jumped more than thirty feet on sky-coasters, those funny-looking bungee-type structures, with Kyle. But this was different. She had no idea what was under the mirror-like surface of the lagoon.
“What are you afraid of?” Dev shouted.
Dev was right. What was she afraid of? She’d come there to escape the fear of the real world. She stood, swaying unsteadily. The height made her dizzy, but she felt exhilarated too. She was immortal—it wasn’t as if she was going to die or anything. She hoped.
“OK, I’ll do it.”
She stepped across the outcroppings of rock until she came to a flat ledge. A thin pool of water streamed across it, and she was careful to step firmly on the slippery surface. Sera took a deep breath, closed her eyes, then opened them. She didn’t want to be afraid. She wanted to see every second of her free fall.
She hurled herself off the edge.
It felt as if she left everything heavy behind, and she was as transparent as the air that embraced her. The fall lasted for what seemed like eternity, wind rushing against her face, until her body plunged into the cool depths of the lagoon. She was surrounded by velvet. Her heart thumped in her chest, her lungs filled to bursting, and she kicked upward, breaking the surface in a shower of droplets.
Dev cheered her arrival.
“That was amazing!” she exclaimed.
“You always loved doing it,” he said. “You used to say that it freed you.”
She stared at him. “You’re not pulling my leg, are you? I really have been here before, with you?”
“Sera, what do I have to gain by making this up? We came here a lot to escape. It’s why we created this place.”
“I thought you said I made up this world? And to escape what?”
Dev floated on his back and looked up at the sky. “You did dream it up. I only created it for you, made it real. And we used it to escape life. In Illysia.”
“Illysia?” she sputtered.
“Yes, where we lived. Before.”
“Before what?” He turned to look at her, treading water with his arms. His hair was slick and shiny, and tiny droplets of water glistened on his eyelashes. His eyes held hers and the silence was charged and electric. For an instant, Sera wanted to disappear beneath the water to calm her suddenly overheated body. “Before what?” she repeated, her voice shaky.
“Before you died,” Dev said softly.
Sera swallowed a mouthful of water before Dev pulled her over to the grassy bank and hauled them both out of the water. She coughed, spluttering, and hugged her knees to her chest, hardly able to look at him.
“Start from the beginning,” she said. “Tell me everything.”
Dev shook the water from his hair and lay back against the grass, his head cradled against his palms, elbows flaring out on either side. Sera stared at him, silent, noticing the bruise on the corner of his mouth. “What happened to your lip?” she blurted.
He touched a finger to it. “Nothing. A small disagreement earlier today,” he said.
Sera felt a rush of guilt. “I’m sorry about Kyle. I didn’t know that he hit you. I don’t know what’s going on with him right now.”
“It’s OK. He needed to get it out of his system.” Dev paused, letting the silence run between them for a minute. “So, are you sure you’re ready for this?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Her voice was hoarse but didn’t waver. She had to understand what drew her to Dev so completely, and why she trusted him—a boy she’d only known for eight months—more than everyone else in her life. She needed to know why parts of her loved him so completely.
Dev propped himself up on one elbow and stared at her for a long time, his golden eyes searching, before taking a deep breath. “You’ve been gone for a very long time. It’s why you can’t remember any of this … or me. Millennia,” he said gently. “But in another lifetime, in Illysia, we were inseparable. You loved me, and I loved you.
“We lived in the Mortal Realm too. Your name was Sita then and mine, Rama. We always found each other, no matter the lifetime.”
Sera gasped and Dev reached over to hold her cold hand in his, running his thumb along the sigil branded into her palm. She let him. His touch was comforting, the slow soothing circles hypnotic against her skin, erasing the sudden flashes of her nightmares.
“But that’s not possible!” Sera said without thinking and then, more quietly, “How do you know for sure?”
“I would know her anywhere,” he said thickly. “You are one and the same.” His eyes grew distant as he remembered. “Everything was different back then. Daeva and Azura both walked the Mortal Realm. Both were served and summoned equally by humanity. It was the only common ground shared by both sides. The Trimurtas allowed it because it represented balance … balance between the dark and the light. You loved it there for that very reason. Often, you’d disappear for months at a time, which in Illysia is but the blink of an eye. In your innocence, humanity was a tornado of color that you couldn’t help but fall madly in love with. And so you did. I never faulted you for loving them, the mortals, as much as you did. You loved their ability to live so passionately, their unending capacity for emotion from fury to torment to bliss. You loved it all.”
Dev stared into her eyes and brushed a copper strand of hair out of her face, holding it between his fingers thoughtfully. “You once told me you envied mortals the very brevity of their lives, and that immortality was self-indulgent.”
Sera felt calm. It felt as if she were listening to Dev’s story from outside of herself. It seemed surreal, but she still felt a connection to it in an odd way, as if something within her recognized and accepted what he said as truth.
“Is that why there are things here that aren’t beautiful? Things like snakes and bats and mosquitoes?” she asked.
Dev laughed. “You liked the balance. You used to say that one couldn’t appreciate true beauty without appreciating its opposite—two parts to create the whole.” He smiled at her again.
Sera thought about the words she’d heard in her head the last time she’d been here. He’d failed her once. She had to know how it ended. “Please finish the story.”
“Things started changing in the Mortal Realm. Both sides wanted to own humanity, but the Trimurtas wanted to ensure that man would always have free will to decide his own destiny. Thus the Daeva and Azura were created to guide them and to provide the balance for both Illysia and the Dark Realms. After I … I mean, my incarnation Rama, defeated Ravana, demons were forbidden to come to the Mortal Realm. Samsar and Azrath were appointed to guard the portal into the Dark Realms.”
“My father,” Sera murmured.
Dev smiled. “The man you chose to bring you back as your father, yes.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I ever understood you as much as I do now. I see why you chose him, and why you chose Sophia. Light and dark have always been your symbols.” He stared into space as if lost in memories he no longer could give voice to.
She brushed his fingers lightly. “Dev?”
His smile was sad. “I told you before that I won’t ever fail you. And I won’t. But I did once.” Dev sat up and grasped her shoulders, turning her to face him. “Do you recall what happened after Rama freed Sita from Ravana in the story?” Sera shook her
head. “Well, he … I mean, I never believed that Sita had been faithful while in Ravana’s captivity. I was foolish and thought she had betrayed me, and I banished her, forcing her to go through the fires of purgatory to prove her innocence. Once I realized what I had done, I forgave her, but she chose to return to the earth instead of to me.” To Sera’s horror, a tear fell down his smooth cheek. She brushed it away, but it was only replaced by another, and then another. She pulled him to her as he cried against her neck, his body rocking against hers. Her fingers slid through his silky hair. “I’m so sorry. How can you ever forgive me?”
“Please, Dev. It’s OK. Look at me,” she soothed. “I’m sure she forgave you. Sita. How could she not?”
He raised eyes that were like pools of golden light to hers. “Can’t you remember? Remember me, us, this place? Remember this?”
And then he was kissing her, and all she could taste was honey and marigolds as the kiss splintered her into a million pieces and then brought her back together again. She pulled away, her eyes widening.
“I do know you,” she whispered, her fingers trailing against his face, across his lips, his eyes, his nose. And then she was the one crying as he kissed her again, the salt of their tears mixing into the sweetness of their embrace, their reunion.
After several minutes, Sera sat back, her hand falling to grip his.
“I remember now,” she said slowly, piecing together the memories his kiss had awakened that now filled her head. “I begged you to believe me. Ravana had never touched me—he’d wanted me to marry him, but I was yours. But you didn’t. I felt I’d failed you, so I chose to become mortal and leave Illysia, to return to the earth.”
Flashes of recollection came back to her, and suddenly she was no longer sitting on the bank of a pool. She was elsewhere, a waking dream. It could only be Illysia, it was so filled with light and beauty.
She saw Dev surrounded by other deities with their ethereal beauty, only he was older than he was now. His whole body was blue, including his face, but it suited him. He was dressed in gold, his dark hair falling to his shoulders. He had never looked more unbearably handsome, and she felt love as piercingly as she’d done then.
She had loved him.
Trumpets blared and the sound of wind chimes filled the hall like bells. She saw herself, with dark red braided hair and dressed in a vibrant pink sari, holding his hand. They walked toward a dais with three thrones, the last of which was empty.
“My Lord,” the other deities murmured as they walked past. They bowed. The Yoddha at the end stood at rigid attention, the gold deifyre of their wings matching the beautiful silks draped on their bodies. Deifyre lanced in a glowing arc from their arms to the ceiling as she walked beneath it. And lastly, nearing the dais, she saw the Sanrak, their auras the color of silvery white light, some of them so beautiful she could scarcely bear to look upon them.
But she did and gasped when she saw Micah, who also seemed much older, and then her mother, in all their divine glory. She had never looked more magnificent. A tear slid down her cheek. Sophia had been her most faithful guardian. And in the end, her spirit had selected Sophia because she had chosen to love an Azura Lord. Sera smiled softly.
Light and dark—the metaphor for her existence.
Dev’s voice penetrated her thoughts. Distracted, she blinked, and the images dissipated.
“After you returned to the Mortal Realm, I searched for you forever but you never came back to Illysia,” he said.
“She … I didn’t.” Sera frowned, trying to remember, separating Sita’s newly fresh memories from hers. “I mean, I stayed in the Mortal Realm even after I died. I always felt I belonged to the earth. I didn’t want to return to Illysia so I chose to stay there.” She smiled, realizing something else, and then laughed aloud.
“What?” he prodded.
“Now I understand why I saw your face when I saw Ra’al in Xibalba. Yours, out of everyone else in my life! Can you imagine my confusion? But you were the one I trusted the most, and the one I still trust even after so long.” She stared at him. “I never forgot you, not even when it seemed that I forgot everything.”
“Sera, I never stopped hoping that I’d find you one day, that I’d have the chance to redeem myself. Until now. I came right away after Micah told me he’d found Sophia.”
Sera tried to piece together the remaining parts of the puzzle but they were still elusive. She didn’t know why Sita had chosen to come back, only that she had. She didn’t press it, diverted by something else that started to click in her mind, something she’d seen in her memories combined with something that Dev had said.
“Wait, what do you mean you came right away? You mean from Illysia?”
Sera thought about the empty throne and turned to him swiftly, gripping his arm with her right hand. Dev winced as something flared hot and red between them. He jerked backward cradling his arm. The mark on her palm glowed with an angry light, and she rubbed it against her leg.
“What’s wrong?”
His voice was raw with pain. “Your sigil. It is the mark of the Dark Realms. Xibalba, as the Azura call it. I can’t touch it. My body may be mortal now but it still hurts worse than anything I’ve ever had to endure.” He held her left hand gently. “This one, though, is mine. The symbol of the Protector and the mark of Illysia.” He traced the outline with his forefinger and the sigil glowed white. He outlined the outside semi-circle, and then the two interlocking curving lines within it. “The shield, and the wing.”
“What did you say?” she rasped. “The symbol of what?” But she’d heard him. He’d said “the Protector.” She heard her mother’s voice telling her about the hierarchy of Illysia and the reverent voices of the deities in her earlier vision, and started shaking her head in denial. But the truth was irrefutable. Because if in Illysia, she’d been Lakshmi, then he had to be …
Dev’s eyes were gentle. “The Protector,” he repeated. “My rune.”
“But you’re mortal!”
“It is the only way I could come to the Mortal Realm. It’s not the first time, Sera.” All she could see in front of her was the empty throne. “Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve been saying?”
“But you … you’re … Trimurtas,” she stuttered. “You’re Vishnu.”
“Yes. An avatara of myself in this human body.”
Sera started laughing hysterically, then whirled toward him so quickly that he almost fell backward. It probably wasn’t quite the response he’d been expecting. “Are you crazy? Everyone is looking for you!”
“I know. I blocked myself from them.”
“Why? Surely you know how dangerous it is. You can be killed in mortal form!”
“No one knows who I am or that I am here, and I needed to find you. You had to trust me on your own. I couldn’t very well woo you with scores of Yoddha trailing my every step, could I?”
“But you’re one of the Trimurtas,” she repeated dumbly.
He rolled his eyes. “Did you expect something different?”
“No, it’s just weird. You’re like a really important person. And you’re here wooing me. It just seems … weird. Don’t laugh, wooing was your word.”
“I’m not laughing at that.” Dev leaned forward to squeeze her shoulder, the laughter draining from his face. “Sera, does it not occur to you that you are also a really important person? I came here for you, to right a wrong I made years ago, to find my missing half. Honestly, you have become a little clueless in this incarnation of yourself,” he chided with another smile.
She swatted his hand away and punched him in the shoulder. “I’ll have you know that cluelessness is cool in this day and age.”
“I don’t think it is in any age,” he said dryly. They shared a laugh, but Sera quickly sobered.
“What does this mean, Dev? I can’t go back to Illysia with you. My uncle, I mean Samsar’s brother, Azrath, has been planning something terrible.”
“What did you just say? What ab
out Azrath?”
“Micah went back to the other two of the Trimurtas to let them know. I think he and the rest of them have been looking for you all this time, but, of course, they were unable to see you. We don’t know for sure, but it looks like Azrath has been ingesting Fyre.”
“Deifyre?” Dev’s face grew dark, his jaw clenched.
“Yes. We think Azrath and his minions are killing Daeva for the deifyre from their bodies. Azrath has been taking it into himself to get past the celestial wards preventing him from being able to portal to the Mortal Realm.”
Sera stood and walked to the edge of the lagoon. “You need to go back to Illysia. The Trimurtas need your guidance on how to fight whatever Azrath is planning with Ra’al.”
“I won’t leave you, Sera. Not again.” He came up behind her and buried his face in her hair. Sera pulled his hands around her waist and hugged them to her, careful not to let the sigil of Xibalba touch him.
“I’m not going anywhere, Dev. But this isn’t about you and me right now. This is about the future of all the realms, of all of us. For now, Azrath doesn’t know about me, but that’s not to say that he won’t find out. Our window is slipping closed. They need you.”
Dev turned her to face him. His face was unreadable. “You’re different than you used to be, but your passion is the same. And your love for humanity … your desire to save them hasn’t changed.”
“It won’t.”
“I know,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t want it to.”
“So, you’ll go back?”
His smile was radiant, lighting his face and eyes in an instant. Sera felt her breath catch at his grin. “They don’t call me the Protector for nothing.”
STRENGTH
Kyle stared at the phone in his hand—Azrath wanted to see him. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. He felt confused, not himself. He didn’t want to be around Azrath if he couldn’t even trust his own instincts, and after what had happened with Sera, he wasn’t sure what to expect. Being anywhere near Azrath now would put Sera and all the others at risk. He knew too much about the Trimurtas and the rest of the Daeva.
Alpha Goddess Page 19
