Seeing his wretched state, Kelsey began crying. Ana followed suit, pressing her fingertips to her mouth. “Oh, Ren! What did he do to you?” Kelsey asked.
He told her about Lokesh and that he wanted to find her at any cost. She begged him to hold on and promised we were coming for him.
When he said, “I’m just so…tired,” my heart broke for him. I was surprised when Kelsey’s response was, “Then tell him. Tell him what he wants to know.” Is she crazy?
“I will never tell him, prema,” Ren vowed.
The fire went out of Kells as quickly as it had come. “Ren, I can’t lose you,” she said.
“I’m always with you. My thoughts are of you. All the time.”
Ana cupped my arm and leaned against my chest.
Ren mentioned Durga and that she had offered to help, but Ren deliberately let Kelsey believe the offer was to save him, not her.
“Take it!” Kelsey pleaded. “Don’t think twice about it. You can trust Durga.”
Ana winced at those words.
“Whatever the price is,” Kelsey said, “it doesn’t matter as long as you survive.”
“But Kelsey,” he said.
“Shh. Just survive. Okay?”
Ren nodded, resigned to his fate, and told her she needed to leave. He asked for a kiss, believing it was the last time he’d ever kiss the woman he loved. The way he held her so gently, with such care, anyone watching might have assumed it was because he was in pain, but that wasn’t it at all. To Ren, Kelsey was the most precious thing in the world, and he wanted her to know that. I envied how easy it was for him to express his feelings. Then he went and opened his mouth to spout poetry. Really? Now?
I shifted impatiently, hoping Ana would get the message to speed things along, but she mentally shushed me. The poem moved Ana more than it did me, but I got the point of it, the message he was trying to get across. If I hadn’t felt great sympathy for my brother before, I surely felt it now.
When he finished, Ren moved away from Kells. All the warmth leached from his voice as if he was already letting her go. “Kelsey?” he said. “No matter what happens, please remember that I love you, hridaya patni. Promise me that you’ll remember.”
“I’ll remember. I promise. Mujhe tumse pyarhai, Ren.”
Light shifted around Kelsey. She began to phase in time. If she hadn’t been so fixed on Ren, screaming his name as she was ripped away, she might have turned and seen us. Then she was gone.
It’s time, Ana said.
Summoning her power, she shifted her body, letting it shimmer fully into Ren’s time.
“I will accept your offer, Goddess,” Ren said.
“Very well.” Ana stepped closer to him.
“Will I never remember her again?” Ren asked.
“Your memories will only be blocked temporarily,” Ana replied.
The relief on his face was greater than when she’d taken away his pain. If he’d been able, I think he would have knelt at her feet to worship her. “Thank you,” he said humbly.
“You are welcome,” Ana said and reached into the cage, touching his face lightly with her fingertips. She began her work but then I thought of something. I remembered that moment when Ren regained his memory. It had been when I kissed Kelsey.
“Ana,” I murmured quietly in the dark.
“Hmm?” she turned to me.
“You have to set a trigger in his mind. A thing that will bring his memory back.”
She nodded. “There needs to be a trigger, Dhiren.”
“What do you mean?” he asked. “Who is with you?”
“I am accompanied by my…my consort.”
I snorted, not liking that word at all.
Ana ignored my outburst. “The trigger is an event that will jar your memory. It must be something that will prove to you that she is safe.”
Ren suggested several ideas for triggers, but none of them were the right one—the one that actually happened.
“The trigger was a kiss,” I told her. “When I kissed Kelsey for the first time, he got his memory back.”
Ana gave me a look, frowning. I folded my arms across my chest. If she was going to call me a consort, then she could deal with my past relationship. “Kelsey is safe with your brother, is she not?” she asked, turning back to Ren.
Apparently, when I was phased, Ren could hear me enough to know someone was with the goddess but not well enough to understand my words or recognize my voice.
“With my brother? Yes. She will be safe with him. So, seeing them together will give me my memory back?”
“No. It’s not enough to just see them together. They must be…comfortable.”
Ren laughed. “My brother likes to get a bit too comfortable around Kelsey. He’ll probably take advantage of my absence and try to kiss her at every opportunity.”
He didn’t notice how Ana’s whole body became stiff.
All business now, she nodded. “Very well. Your trigger shall be a kiss.”
“You mean when I see him kiss her, I’ll get my memory back?”
“Exactly.”
Ren pulled away.
“Why do you hesitate, Dhiren?” Ana asked. “Do you not believe that your brother will kiss her?” I raised an eyebrow at the tiny note of hope in her voice.
“Oh, he’ll kiss her, all right,” Ren promised.
“And can you be assured of her safety if you see them kiss?”
“Probably.”
“Ah, you wish there were another way,” Ana said and turned to me. “I also wish there were another way. But what is meant to be is meant to be. Come, Dhiren, it is time to finish.”
As she worked, Ren went into a little trance.
I phased into time fully, knowing she’d take away any memories of me being there. “How much of this will he remember?” I asked.
“Only the parts we want him to,” she answered, her gleaming hand outstretched as she carefully sifted through his memories. It was much easier to wipe a mind completely or to remove everything that happened in a certain time frame than to go about the delicate work of just removing one person and leaving the rest intact.
“Make sure he doesn’t know that I was here then.”
Ana nodded.
I approached and knelt beside the cage. “Hello, brother,” I said.
His bleary eyes shifted to me and he scooted closer.
“Kishan? How…how are you here?” he asked.
“I’m sorry that you have to suffer,” I said, wishing I could take some of the burden away from him. “You’ll be rescued soon. Not that you’ll remember me saying that.”
“I don’t understand,” Ren said, his voice evocative and demanding. “What’s going on, Kishan? Tell me!” he insisted and tried to sit up.
“It’s a veil of concealment,” I said. “We’re hiding your memories of Kells so Lokesh won’t find her.” I reached a hand through the bars to help support him and winced at how skinny he’d become. Touching the amulet, I made the cage just a little bigger. Not so much that Lokesh would notice but even a few inches on all sides would make him more comfortable.
How many years of his life has Ren wasted away in cages?
Guilt for leaving him there nearly incapacitated me, but then I remembered the conversation we’d had. It was months before for me but centuries for him. Even then, when he didn’t know Kelsey, he’d accepted his fate. I was sure if he knew everything now, he’d do the same thing again. My brother was a noble man and one deserving of every happiness he had. He’d earned it.
“But why are you here? I don’t understand.”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I tried to explain,” I told him gently. “Besides, I barely understand it myself. Just trust me when I say that this is necessary.” I touched his shoulder, squeezing it lightly, then left Ren and mumbled to Ana, “Are you almost finished?”
“Nearly.”
Ren’s whole body shook and then went limp. We watched as he transformed into a tiger.