“Nothing,” I said, and it was the truth. “I simply have a hunch that something important lies within.”
“I’m coming with you. I know you are trying to protect me, but I am also here to protect you. If you leave me here, I will follow. So you might as well just bring me now.”
I considered him. He stood tall, chest thrown back, and I saw Dasharath within him. “All right, then. Be ready with your sword.”
He secured the horses while I examined the surroundings further, and then we pushed our way through a lighter area of the brush.
After about a hundred paces, we could no longer see the path. Next to me, Lakshmana shivered, and I realized gooseflesh was running up my arms. The forest was cold—unnaturally so—and far too quiet. There should have been small animals chattering, running up and down the trees, but they were nowhere to be found. There was no birdsong, no movement in the undergrowth. Without it, the forest seemed an eerie place.
I entered the Binding Plane, standing firm as the ground shifted slightly and cast Lakshmana in its colorless palette.
The forest was unmoving, and so the sudden crunch of Lakshmana’s boot against the ground reverberated, and we both startled before looking down. Brittle leaves of brilliant red and saffron had drifted over the path. I glanced up to see that the trees above had turned color, a blaze of flame. We rarely saw such things in Kosala, but the forests of Kekaya had been like this… in the late autumn. Not in the middle of summer.
“How is this happening?” Lakshmana asked, reaching down to pick up a leaf.
“I don’t know,” I said. And truly, I did not know what sort of magic this was. We pressed on more quickly, the movement keeping us warm as our breath came in clouds of white. Each step felt more and more wrong…
A low whine sounded from ahead of us.
“Do you hear that?” I asked Lakshmana.
We stopped, and the sound came again.
An icy crust coated the plants now, a field of deadly, glimmering frost under a canopy so dense we could hardly see five paces ahead. I knew we must be close to whatever lived in the heart of this strange place.
I reached out to grasp a fallen branch and fumbled in my pouch for a flint. It took a few tries, my fingers clumsy with cold, but finally the end of the branch flared up. I used it to light a second branch, which I passed on to Lakshmana. In the flicker of firelight, the woods were otherworldly. I took every step as carefully as possible, trying not to make any noise.
A clearing appeared ahead of us.
“Come, child,” came a whisper. Lakshmana whirled around, and I grabbed his shoulder to steady him. “Come forward,” the voice said. “There is no need to be afraid.”
I was, naturally, very afraid. But the god—for that is who it must have been, for who else could spin into being entire forests that did not exist in the Binding Plane?—already had the measure of us. So I lifted my chin and strode into the clearing.
A man stood before us, petting the head of a magnificent pure-white wolf. He stopped the motion, and the wolf gave another low whine. The man shook his head, and the wolf trotted away into the forest. I looked more closely at the man and realized he was hardly a man at all. What had looked at first like gray robes actually appeared to be his skin, pale and marbled. His dark hair looked more like pine needles the longer I stared. Something cool and wet stung my face, and I glanced up to see fat snowflakes drifting down toward the clearing.
I knew who this was.
“Very good.” The god smiled, revealing wolfish teeth. “It is not often mortals can find me.”
“Shishir,” I said.
“Lord Shishir,” he corrected, and I bit back on a triumphant smile. My childhood obsession with the gods was good for something after all. “God of the winter and the changing seasons,” he continued, taking a few steps toward us.
Next to me, Lakshmana dropped to his knees, the sword falling from his fingers. “Get up,” I hissed.
The god gave a laugh. “That is no way to treat a god, is it? Kneel, for you are a mortal woman.”
I knew I should. But that feeling of wrongness remained thrumming through me. It kept me on my feet. “Why should I kneel?” I asked instead.
Lakshmana twisted to look at me, horror on his face.
Lord Shishir studied me. “I know who you are,” he said after a moment. “Kaikeyi. You pervert the will of the gods at every turn. Your insubordination does not surprise me, but you must know there are consequences.”
The snow fell more quickly now, and I clenched my jaw to stop my teeth from chattering. Somehow my branch was still lit, but I knew it could not last for long. “Why are you here?” I gritted out. “What is this place?”
He smiled again, that wolf’s smile. “I was on my way to see you.”
The ice that gripped my spine had nothing to do with the cold. “To see me?” I repeated.
“In Ayodhya.”
“Ayodhya?” Lakshmana mumbled through blue lips. “Why are you going to Ayodhya?”
Lord Shishir strolled toward us, and I held out the lit branch in warning. He made a motion toward it, and a gust of wind rattled across the clearing, but the flame did not go out. “We have been summoned,” he said. “For too long you have tried to bend nature. You cannot continue.”
Then, in a motion too swift for me to meet, he leapt toward Lakshmana and pressed a hand to his forehead.
I lunged forward, driving the burning branch into the god. He fell back, just as Lakshmana rose and turned toward me.
“That’s right, boy,” Shishir said, and without warning Lakshmana shoved me hard. His eyes were an unnatural blue. I fell back, hands scraping against the frigid ground as my makeshift torch rolled away from me. Still the fire did not go out.
“End it,” Shishir commanded.
Lakshmana hesitated for a moment, the blue of his eyes flickering. I stumbled to my feet, thanking my luck that he had dropped his sword earlier. It took me a moment to enter the Binding Plane, but then the dark clearing was replaced by stark blankness. Lakshmana lurched toward me, the thin blue cord that connected him to Rama—to divine power, I realized—pulling him forward.
I reached into the depths of my strength, of the power inside me I still did not fully understand, and envisioned breaking the bond.
Lakshmana staggered. With a cry, I shoved again, imagining not just a simple unraveling but total obliteration.
The bond shattered and Lakshmana fell. Sharp shards of sickly blue swirled in the cold air before dissipating like so much mist.
“No!” cried Shishir’s voice, and I returned to the god’s forest.
“Ma?” Lakshmana asked, his voice shaking. He tried to stand but could not rise.
“Stay back,” I told him, and he obeyed, a measure of just how shaken he was. Shishir advanced toward me, and I scrambled to pick up my branch. The flame had burned through half of it, but it was all I had. “What do you want?” I snarled.
“It is not a matter of what I want,” he told me, even as a shard of ice crystallized in his hand. “Even if you prevail against me, a reckoning will come for your precious city.”
The shard flew toward me. I swung the branch, somehow managing to strike it with the flame, and it splintered and fell.
“Who comes to Ayodhya?” I demanded, backing away from him toward the trees at the edge of the clearing.
Shishir stalked forward, and the wind whipped snow in my eyes, ice stinging my skin. “You already know, or you would not be here.”
I had no idea what he meant, but I had reached my destination. I pressed the flaming branch against the trunk of the nearest tree, and as it caught, Shishir howled. “How dare you? This is a sacred grove.”
“Why do you want to kill me?” I shouted. The trees were catching one by one, crackling and spitting as the flames spread unusually fast.
“Because you stand in our way,” he growled, lunging again. I swung the branch to meet him, and he jumped back.