“A connection?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“What I mean is…” She wrung her hands and paced away and then came back. “I was searching for a…for a companion.”
“A compa… Oh. I see. This is my fault, Ana. This is more than just about duty, isn’t it? You thought I was abandoning not only our work but you as well.”
“Yes…no. I mean, not exactly.”
“No, this is on me. I screwed up everything.”
“What are you saying?” she asked as she summoned an animal.
I slapped a hand against the back of my neck as she did and explained everything that happened with Kadam. Her eyes grew wide, and she held up a finger as she bent down to the snake and the goat-like creature. “Will you serve?” she asked them.
They must have agreed because she smiled and soon a chimera stood before me. The animal dug her head into my gut and sniffed loudly. “Uh, yeah, can you make it so she’s attracted to Ren and not me?” I asked.
Ana laughed while the beast snorted, blowing hot breath over my legs.
“No, I’m serious,” I said, trotting behind her as she started walking off. The chimera followed behind me, nipping my heels. “This one has a thing for tigers.”
“Don’t we all,” she muttered under her breath.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Nothing.” Ana patted her thigh and the beast leapt over to the goddess, her snake tail wagging. “Will you guard the Rope of Fire?” she asked the reptilian cat creature. The animal gave me a sad sort of whine and then huffed and trotted off through the trees.
“You know we’re doing this out of order, right?”
“I know. I didn’t expect to come here. In fact, I wasn’t trying to create Bodha at all.”
“You weren’t?” I frowned. “Then what were you doing?”
“Like I said. I was trying to find a companion.”
“And you ended up with the Flaming Lords?”
“They are the Lords of the Flame.”
“Yeah, whatever. Considering that they drugged you, and you still haven’t explained how that happened, by the way, and almost forced you into marrying one of them, you were certainly lenient with them.”
Ana shrugged. “They did not mean to harm me. Not truly.”
“Uh, yeah, they did. I know them a little bit better than you do. They did something similar to Kelsey. They—”
“You don’t know them, Sohan. Not really. They are not human like us. The way they do things is different. They were born of stars. They aren’t used to being confined to the human bodies I’ve given them.”
“Even now they aren’t exactly human.”
“No. They once lived in crystal cities. They were beautiful; their bodies shone as bright as the stars. The place where they were born was destroyed and they were cast into the darkness of space. The one they loved stayed behind to make certain everyone escaped but I fear she is lost. Perhaps one day they will find her. I do not, however, hold out hope as they do.”
“Fine, but that’s no excuse to kidnap women.”
“No, you are right. But in their hearts, they do not wish to harm.”
I folded my arms across my chest and leaned against a fire tree. “Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“Then why were you scrambling away when you thought I was them? Why were you begging them to stop?”
“They were…they were touching me.”
“Did they hurt you?” I asked quietly, my voice cold.
Ana shook her head. “Not in the way you are thinking, but I feared it would come to that.” She kicked her booted foot in the dark soil. “You know I do not like being forced into an embrace.”
“Yes,” I said softly. “I know.”
“And you know the reason now.”
I nodded.
“I am a leader of men,” she said abruptly. “Sunil protected me until I learned how to defend myself. I was always careful and surrounded myself with those I considered trustworthy. Any soldier thinking I was a simple girl, playacting as a warrior, or someone to be toyed with quickly learned to change his opinion. I earned their respect and did my best to make them forget they were being led by a female.”
My lip twitched and I raised an eyebrow at that but didn’t comment. No man in his right mind would fail to notice Anamika. Even swathed in fabric and layered with armor, Ana was breathtaking.
She went on. “I never wanted to encourage intimate relationships. Firstly, because I wasn’t sure I could be with a man and not feel like I was trapped in a nightmare. Secondly, marriage means children. How can a mother head into battle? How would a husband feel about seeing his wife lead an army? I made peace with what I was. With who I was. That is, until you.”
“Me?” I said. “What have I done?”
“It’s not what you did. It’s…” She glanced up at me and then scowled darkly. “Can you stop looking at me when I say this?”
I laughed. “You want me to turn around?”
“It would help.”
Peering into her large, sincere eyes and then sighing, I turned around. “Fine. I’m not looking at you. If I recall, you were talking about why I’ve derailed your life.”
“Sohan,” she said with a soft exhale. “You haven’t derailed my life. You’ve given me the gift of possibility.”
“Possibility?”
“Yes. I now believe that it is possible for me to live as both a woman and a warrior, as a wife and as a goddess. When I slept in the Grove of Dreams, I saw what could be.”
My pulse jumped. Was she saying what I thought she was?
“Do you not see?” she asked. “That is why I sought out the Lords of the Flame.”
Ah. Of course. “I think I do see,” I said slowly. “You were wanting one of them to fill the empty place in your life.”
“Well, yes. I thought that—”
“No. I get it,” I said, spinning around. “You wanted a husband and only a god will do. So, you searched the heavens until you found not one but two. It makes sense. I totally understand.”
“Sohan, I do not think that you do. What I am trying to say is—”
I held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear any more, Ana. If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to finish Kadam’s list and then we can really take a long, long break from each other. Without our bond, it should be easy. After that, we can go our separate ways. You can go find what you’re looking for and I…I’ll finally have some peace.”
A sort of sharp pain knit in my chest as I stood there, and I was acutely aware of my deep inhales and exhales as we studied each other quietly. Finally, she nodded and said, “As you wish, Sohan.”
She turned away from me and only spoke when she needed to clarify something. I told her of the firefruit trees and of the qilin, and she used the amulet to create an entire forest of the trees beloved by the phoenix. Ana also made vineyards full of glowing globes that looked like a mix between a nectarine and a grape, fields of ripening grain that burst at the top with small flowers that looked like popcorn.
Ana created fire flowers of all kinds and tall waving grasses. Red mushrooms bloomed on trees and rocks. A heavy kind of moth lifted from a tree, and she wove her arms until a thousand of the creatures exploded from a flaming shrub. They made a kind of golden sap and quickly began constructing hives. Everything she touched leaned toward her and swelled with life.
Next, she fashioned hundreds of creatures both large and small. Some looked like rabbits or deer, but others I’d never seen before, even when we’d traveled the forest. Perhaps they had been hunted to extinction by the rakshasa or the Bodha. The idea of it made me sad. She drew up different-colored crystals from the ground and summoned small, long-legged animals. After asking if they would serve her, the animals accepted the gift of the goddess.