I must have fallen asleep because the moon had risen when a sound alerted me. Unmoving, my eyes snapped open and I scanned the forest. There was a splash and I caught the scent of jasmine. My tail twitched as everything in me came alive and I lifted my head. Repositioning my body, I centered myself and waited. My nose wrinkled and my whiskers lifted in a silent snarl. The intruder crept closer, the footfalls barely making a sound.
When she was in just the right place, I sprung from my hiding place and barreled toward her. At just the right moment, I leapt in the air, claws out and jaws open, a specter of death as dark as the night. My victim didn’t run. Didn’t scream. Instead, she turned her green eyes on me, her expression resigned, and opened her arms to the attack.
Trying to stop my momentum was impossible. I made the attempt anyway and likely made the impact worse. The full weight of my tiger body hit her with enough force to break bones. I twisted, ducking my head so my teeth wouldn’t impale her, and retracted my claws. But it wasn’t enough. We went down. My body hit the ground and rolled. I felt her arms wrap around me and realized we were rolling together.
We came to a stop when my back thumped roughly against a tree. My tail was the only thing that didn’t hurt, but I knew she would be much worse off. I tried to move away, but I was pinned between her and the tree and I didn’t want to hurt her worse than she already was. With her hand on my ribs, I opened my connection to her to assess the damage and was happy to find that she was bruised but not broken, though she did have a wicked scratch from my claws on her thigh.
“It’s fine,” she said out loud when I made a husky sort of whine. She lifted her hand to my face and stroked my fur. “You are right to be angry with me, Sohan,” she said. “I don’t blame you for attacking me.” Sighing, she shifted away and I rolled to my belly and crouched, studying her as she used the scarf to bandage the wound in her thigh. It was deep and bled freely, but once the material of the scarf touched it, the bleeding slowed to almost nothing.
Now that I knew she wasn’t irreparably damaged, my wrath returned. What she’d done had been cruel and hateful and yet I knew that wasn’t who she was. Her actions caused a discordant note to thrum in my veins, and try as I might, I couldn’t find a way to justify what she’d allowed to happen. A boy was dead because of her, and she’d wielded her power over me in such a way that I’d been incapable of stopping it.
Rising to my feet, I paced around her. Scrunching my nose, I hissed and spat, narrowing the distance between us as I circled. I knew it wasn’t the gentlemanly thing to do, and it should have scared her down to her boots to be cornered by a tiger like that. Kelsey would never have forgiven me for such a display. But Ana sat there, matter-of-factly watching my posturing, and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, the only sign that my actions disturbed her at all.
Finally, I pounced, landing right in front of her, and roared loud enough to break her eardrums. The quiet that came after was as immense as the roar had been. She didn’t move. Didn’t defend herself. She didn’t even flinch, which was either a sign that she had absolute trust in me or, the more emasculating thought, she had absolutely no fear of me.
As I peered at her, my nose twitched, and I realized she was crying. The great goddess Durga had lowered her head, her long hair hiding her face, as she wept silently. If I hadn’t smelled the tang of salt from her fresh tears, I might not have even known. Never in my long life had I seen a girl cry in such a manner.
The thread that bound me to her tugged at me forcefully. I sat quickly and just stared at her. When Kelsey cried, it was a wild, messy thing. It was a wet sorrow—purple bruises on the inside and red rage on the outside—and tangled knots of feelings. Her emotions raged in such a way that it was difficult to reel her in and try to soothe her. Afterward, she’d end up utterly spent and would sleep for twelve hours.
With Anamika, her tears were almost ghost-like. She allowed only the barest hint of her feelings to even enter her heart, let alone spill over. It reminded me of a warrior’s tears—an almost shameful, hidden thing that happened in the dark by a campfire. The traces of tears wet the blankets that warriors rolled up in after a wearying, deadly battle.
If it wasn’t for the connection I had with her, the one still open between us after I’d assessed her for injury, I might have wondered if she was even upset at all. The wet paths down her cheeks might have been the glint of moonlight. She was so controlled. So restrained in her grief. But she was grieving. In fact, she was almost drowning in it. I heard the crack of thunder somewhere overhead and lightning hit a tree in the forest.
I didn’t want to feel her pain. Didn’t want to give in to the temptation to comfort her. Not after what she’d done. But almost without meaning to, I stepped closer. She reached up and wrapped her arms around my neck. Ana buried her face in my fur and the already muted sounds of her sorrow disappeared altogether. It surprised me that she didn’t automatically close off our connection. In fact, she pressed closer and took all my anger and betrayal into herself. She processed it and accepted it.
Slowly, my fury abated enough that I opened my mind to her thoughts. I could sense the burning in her throat as she swallowed back her sobs. With the lulling stroke of her hand on my back, she at least let me see what had happened through her eyes. Kadam had appeared. I should have guessed as much.
He’d come to her in the hall before she returned to me to tell me the whereabouts of Lady Silkworm. After a lecture on allowing history to unfold the way it was supposed to, he insisted that she prevent me from saving that boy, that I needed to let destiny decide the boy’s fate.
Kadam had been the one who prevented us from changing the horse back to a boy in the stable. He then told her that if I saved the silk maker, then Lady Silkworm would never meet Kelsey, would never guide us on our journey to the dragons. That pulling that one young man out of the fabric of the universe would cause an unraveling that would destroy everything we’d accomplished. His words and demeanor had frightened Ana, filling her with dread regarding his all-too-righteous purpose based on his otherworldly perceptions.
At that moment I wanted to rip into my old mentor and fling him down to hell, or at least to the awful place where Ana and I existed, which was a sort of hell to me. For the long months since Kelsey and Ren left, I felt as if I’d been caught in a terrible limbo where we were wedged somewhere between mortality and immortality, lost in time.
Then I remembered Kadam was trapped in the same awful loop as we were. He was just as much a victim as the two of us. Only now, he actually was dead. It was ironic and sad that I could be so angry at a dead man. Every time he appeared to one of us, he was just an echo of the man who was now gone forever. When would his last visit happen? Had it already?
His death had left a giant wound in my heart. Like the hollowed-out space in the ground where a large tree had been uprooted. We’d already grieved for him, but Kadam didn’t truly leave us, not entirely. He had left little scattered seeds behind, and even as we tried to make our own way, we’d stumble over one of his other selves and his impact would be felt once again. I wondered if the grieving over him would ever end.
Trying to avoid the path he wanted us to take was as fruitless as kicking over an anthill. He’d just rebuild or figure out a way to go around us. Whatever the case, I couldn’t blame Anamika for listening to him. Kadam had been her teacher as much as he’d been mine. She trusted him in her way as much as I did. He’d put us on this path together, and no matter what, I wasn’t planning on leaving her to face this strange life alone.
Closing my eyes, I shifted to human form and drew a trembling Ana onto my lap. She wrapped her arms around my neck more tightly and I stroked her back. “Shh, Ana. I don’t blame you. Everything will be all right.”
“The silk maker is dead because of my decision,” she whispered against my neck.