She stared at me for a moment. I felt myself growing tired and forced my eyes away from her divine form. “No, I cannot,” she said, her voice like a soft night breeze, and my heart clenched. “But do not despair. A man walks among you with human follies and the powers of Lord Vishnu himself, and you manage to stand firm with nothing of your own. You are stronger than you think.”
Vishnu? Through these years, I had continued to believe it was Agni whose divinity resided within my son. I had never even considered it could be anyone else, let alone Vishnu. I was glad I was seated, for the more I thought about it, the more my head spun. Vishnu was the protector, one of the strongest gods. He returned to earth, age after age, to save us from demonkind. Rama himself had said something similar—and I had missed it. What if he had not been misguided? What if our world truly did need cleansing, and I had stood in his way?
It could not be. I had traveled far and seen no possible reason for the kinds of all-consuming war Vishnu always brought. “Please. Surely you can do something to help me. You answered my prayer, after all.”
“I answered because I made a promise to you.” She reached out a hand to cup my face. “Of all the godsforsaken I have known in my immortal life, you drew the worst lot. Your fate was written out thus: that you had to exile your own son, and thereby ignite the great battle between good and evil.”
I drew away. “The great battle between good and evil?”
“Yes, between your son, Rama, and the forces of darkness amassing in Bharat,” she said.
“What forces of darkness?” I demanded.
“Rama was sent to your world for a great and glorious purpose. Your fight with him was of his choosing, and I will offer no wisdom on who was right, for it matters little to us. He may not have known it, but he always had to depart Ayodhya, no matter the cost.”
I shook my head, parsing her words to find only terrible answers. “Are you saying that whatever I did had no consequence, because it was destined that Rama needed to depart Ayodhya at a particular time?”
“What you did had a tremendous influence,” Nidra said, but she turned away as she spoke.
“You cannot leave me now,” I insisted, briefly forgetting that I spoke to a goddess. I remembered now Rama’s calm acceptance of his exile. Had he wanted this all along? No. He had been sincere in his desire to militarize Kosala, true in his belief that such might was needed for the war to come. “Please, you must tell me what Rama intends to do.”
“There is a great asura whose influence stretches across the south of this land,” Nidra said. “He does not bow to the power of the gods but instead brings unnatural creations into this world, usurping our authority. It is Rama’s duty to bring the gods’ rule back to this earth. His preparations here have been extreme, but I have no doubt they will prove useful.”
I gaped openly at her. Perhaps Rama had been right all along. An asura threatened our world, and when he had tried to show me, I had accused him of madness.
It struck me then, with the force of a Pushpaka Vimana to the chest.
Rama had told me all along who he thought the threat was, and I had failed to understand. But Ravana was not evil, could not be evil. He had saved Janasthana—or perhaps had manipulated its takeover. He cared deeply for his daughter—or perhaps he looked for a reason to make war on Kosala.
No. Ravana had helped me, done me a great service, and asked for nothing in return, while Rama had turned on me at the first sign of disagreement. And now Rama would carry a fight to his doorstep. I had read stories about what happened when the gods waged open war in the mortal realm. The world burned.
“What Rama intends to do, tell me—can I stop it?”
She shook her head. “You have both done what you had to do, for your kingdom and for the world. What is left now is for the good of all, can you not see that?” She passed a hand over my head, and my eyes began to close. “You do not have to worry anymore, Kaikeyi. Be at peace.”
I stood in the forests of Panchavati, outside a small house. Morning sun filtered down into the clearing. Lakshmana and Rama walked out of the house, laughing to each other as they plunged into the trees. Intrigued, I followed them for a few minutes or maybe a few hours as they half-heartedly hunted and played. I could not help but smile as they roughhoused and threw leaves at each other. They seemed happy, like the children they still were. Though I was standing right next to them, their words came to me unintelligibly, as if through a ring of cotton around my head, but I longed to hear their laughter just once.
Time bled past, blurring my surroundings. The sun was directly overhead when Rama suddenly grew still, his face grim as he held up a hand and wordlessly led Lakshmana back toward the house. They were tiptoeing now, truly silent, until they reached a conveniently hidden gap in the trees and peered through.
There, on the steps of the forest house, stood Ravana.
He was dressed in the robes of a traveling monk, but his bearing was unmistakable. Sita leaned in the doorway, a smile on her face but wariness in her eyes. I didn’t know how I could tell from this distance, but her expression was sharp and clear as her gaze scanned the tree line.
“There,” Rama whispered to Lakshmana. I could hear his every word now as though he was speaking in my ear. “Already he thinks to steal from me.”
“Rama, there is only a monk talking to Sita.”
“No.” Rama’s eyes blazed. “He is an asura, here to continue his conquest.”
A ring of light spilled forth from him, consuming everything in its path until the woods faded and only my son remained. “I will cleanse the world of his kind.”
After speaking to Nidra, it was obvious, painfully so, that Rama’s detour into mortal politics had been a product of his mortal form from the start. He would not need the men or armies of Kosala for his campaign—he had only believed that to be the case.
The ground gave way beneath me. I closed my eyes to brace for the inevitable impact and opened them to find myself in a camp of war. I knew immediately it was Kosala’s.
“What is your plan?” I heard Kaushalya ask, the words ringing in my head, and I entered the large tent in front of me.
“We will attack them in the night,” Shatrugna said. “Burn their tents to the ground. Slaughter them before they have the chance to fight back.” I could see sparks of Rama’s light reflected in his eyes.
Kaushalya stared at him in horror. “That is against the laws of the gods! Surely you know that.”
“Perhaps if we were fighting against equal opponents. But the kingdom we fight is ungodly. They have done us a great dishonor and we must crush them.”
“They are not ungodly,” Kaushalya protested. “Their men have done nothing wrong.” She turned toward Bharata, who stood with his arms crossed and a small frown on his face. His eyes flicked up to her, then back to the ground.
“I am the leader of these warriors. Not you. I will not allow further dissent.” Shatrugna raised his voice, but Kaushalya did not flinch.
“I am your mother and your radnyi,” Kaushalya insisted.
Shatrugna shook his head. “Maybe so. But these men answer to me.”
I fought to come awake.
My body was bathed in sweat. I tasted blood in my mouth, and the inside of my cheek stung fiercely. Half of me wanted to move, to take action and do something to stop this carnage. But the other half of me, the one that had kept me lying in my bed unmoving until noon, paralyzed me. What use was action? My actions had been meaningless. All I had done was hasten Rama toward his destiny. I had failed to protect Sita and consigned Lakshmana to ten years of sleeplessness, and Urmila to ten years of dreams. Ravana’s fate was sealed. I had destroyed my relationships with my brother and my sons, and now they were about to go to war.
I thought of what Yudhajit might feel in his last moments, murdered by his nephew’s army. I wondered whether he would be surprised when death came to him, or whether he would have a chance to fight his way clear.
Bharata loved his uncle. How would he live with himself when this deed was done?