“The land-goddess did not agree with Anu giving godly abilities to mortals, so she created plants to temper bhuta powers and told the secrets of them to the brethren.”
Someone from the Brotherhood must have sent the formula to Healer Baka. She suspected that I was a bhuta, yet she spent years treating me as though I were sick. My apprehension stretches tighter, and I am uncertain if I am prepared to find out once and for all what is true.
“Once we begin, we cannot stop,” says Hastin. “Understood?”
Deven and I answer together. “Yes.”
Hastin appears in my peripheral vision. “Kalinda, shut your eyes.”
I inhale a steadying breath and follow his instructions.
“How many lights do you see?” Hastin’s deep voice has a grumbly quality, like he has pebbles in his gullet.
“Dozens.”
“These lights are the fire in your soul. Every mortal can see them when they close their eyes. For a Burner, these are your powers suppressed.”
“How many lights should she see?” Deven asks.
“When she has finished the Razing, there should be one perfect light—the essence of her soul-fire. Viraji, pick a light as a focal point.”
I concentrate on a single star in my vision, and my body heats up, as if a cinder has fallen on a bed of dry leaves. Warmth crackles through my muscles. Deven jumps back from the surge of heat, and I am so startled that I let the tiny glow slip from my focus.
“Don’t let go of that light,” Hastin commands. “Hold it like you would an oil lamp.”
I picture myself as he says, cupping the shining star in my palms. The heat of the light buzzes fast, emanating from my skin. Either the room is on fire or I am burning. I cannot decipher which. The flames are around me, on me, inside me.
A sharp pain lances across my back. I scream, and the small light pours out of me, fading away with my trickling blood.
“Good,” says Hastin. “Pick another.”
“How many times must I do this?” I pant.
“Until all but one light is gone. We must rid you of the extra fire. As it is released, the toxins will seep out as well.”
I am less inclined to select another star in my vision, for I know that agony waits, but I hold another precious light in my mind’s eye. A wildfire roars through me, blazing through my veins like they are dry brush. I hold on to the scorching light, although everything within me is shrieking to let go.
Another incision on my back. I clamp my teeth down on a scream. The pain brightens as a sun under my skin flares its singeing rays.
“Stop. Please, stop.” I dig my fingernails into the table. I feel as though I am being dipped in a pool of flames. I cannot do another. I cannot.
“She’s done,” says Deven. “That’s enough.”
“The gate has been opened,” Hastin says. “We cannot stop, or she will smolder to ash.”
Does he not see that I already am smoldering? I open my eyes to sneering shadows. Steam fills the air, blurring light into the dark. Indira swings her hands in circles and sprays a light mist to cool the room, but it vaporizes before it reaches me.
Deven bends over near my face, his brow puckered. Sweat drips off his nose, and his cheeks are red from the heat. “Kali, close your eyes.”
“I cannot.”
Urgency disbands his calm. “You must finish this.”
Tears stream from my eyes, puffing to steam before they roll down my cheeks. My chest scalds so badly that I fear someone has replaced my heart with blazing coals.
“Close your eyes and pick a light.” More calm. More urgency. “You can do this, Kali.”
I do as Deven asks, and the light explodes as I am cut three times at once. I scream, a feral cry, and buck against the table. Agony leashes itself to my spine. Hands lash me down. I have no words, only sobs that rise up from a place of anguish, like a pressure exploding from my center. The stars behind my eyes fly at me. I have no stamina to hide from them. Upsurge after upsurge strikes, each fiery whirlwind accompanied by a quick, deliberate cut on my back. Bleeding quells the firestorm, and the swells of agony shrink to waves, then ripples, until finally, the biting scores diminish from a lancing pain to a sweet release.
My body hums a steady flow of heat, but the intensity is softer, gentler now. A banked fire. A cooling pot of boiling water. A warmth that does not destroy but feeds.
A tender hand strokes my damp face. “Kali, it’s done.”
I pry one eye open and see Deven’s concerned gaze. “Did I hurt you?” I say.
He tucks his hand away, but not before I spot blisters on his palm. His mouth slides up on one side. “To touch you, it was worth it.”
I use the last of my strength to smile; then I close my eyes and drift off beneath the light of a single perfect star.
I cannot say if I am out ten minutes or ten seconds, but when I awake, my back does not burn. Across from me, Indira wraps Deven’s hand. Beside them on the table sits a mound of bloodied towels and an empty water pitcher.
“You did well,” Hastin says from my other side. I turn my head to look at him. He fingers a lock of my hair. “Tarek always had a weakness for women’s hair. Your hair is like midnight, as was Yasmin’s.”
“You knew her?”
“She was close to our previous bhuta leader, Kishan.” He releases my tresses. “He was a Burner, like you.”
“What are you?”
“A Trembler.”
I remember what I have read about Tremblers. Hastin can wield the land as a weapon. Reminded of how dangerous he is, I redirect the conversation back to Yasmin. “How did Yasmin and Kishan meet?”
“Rajah Tarek invited us to Vanhi to discuss reinstating Virtue Guards. Bhutas served on every rajah’s council up until Tarek’s great-grandfather did away with them. We were in talks about joining Tarek’s council when Kishan met Yasmin. He loved her at first sight. Neither I nor anyone else could keep him from her.” Hastin’s gaze drifts inward, remembering. “Before long, Yasmin was with child. Tarek believed she was carrying his heir, but Yasmin knew it was Kishan’s child. They knew she couldn’t hide their child’s paternity once it was born, as the infant would be a bhuta, like its father, so when Yasmin was heavily pregnant, she and Kishan tried to run away. Tarek caught them before they left the palace. He confined Yasmin to her chambers and executed Kishan. Yasmin’s grief over losing Kishan started her labor early, and ultimately, that was the end of her and their infant boy.”
I cannot believe that I have not heard of this scandal. Tarek speaks worshipfully of his first wife. I never would have guessed that Yasmin had betrayed him.