Granted, both of us were exhausted from our efforts of late but that was no excuse. Ren would yank my tail off for such negligence. I ran until dark fell again and then I entered the forest. With my night vision and my sense of smell and heightened hearing, I sped on while the men slowed.
Finally, I came upon their campfire. A spit of some kind of meat snapped and popped over the flames and my mouth watered. I hadn’t eaten in some time. Setting Fanindra on the ground, I asked, “Can you find Ana?” The snake lifted her head, her hood extending, and she turned toward the right, bobbing in the air, then she turned to the left. Slowly, her hood closed and she lowered the top half of her body and slid off into the grass.
I followed her as best I could as she made her way around the outskirts of the camp, but she came too close to a guard, who shouted and scampered back. I ducked so I wouldn’t be seen as he raised his scimitar and struck the ground. My mouth opened but I said nothing as the wary man leapt away and another joined him.
“What is it?” the man asked.
“Snake. Never seen one like it. Albino I think. Not sure I got it. Can’t find it now.”
I was preparing to move again and hoping Fanindra was unharmed when something brushed against my foot. It was Fanindra with her tail missing. I ran a finger down her body. As I did, she wriggled and squirmed, her mouth open, and before my eyes, a new tail grew to replace the old one.
She turned her head as if to inspect her new lower half before moving on through the trees again, giving the guards a wide berth. We circled all the way around the camp until Fanindra stopped and peered straight ahead. Touching my hand to a fern, I moved it aside and saw Ana was tied to a tree.
Scooping up Fanindra, I waited until the guard near her nodded off and crept closer. A large bruise colored her jaw and her head was slumped down to her chest. Her arms were tied to the tree behind her and her legs were bound as well. She wore only her nightdress, which was drawn up to mid-thigh, and the neckline was torn, exposing the upper curve of her breast. I couldn’t tell if it had happened when she struggled or if she’d already been subjected to abuse.
Purple bruises, several of them the exact size of fingerprints, marked her long legs and arms, and I ground my jaw in fury. I would kill them for touching her. The men at the fire droned on in their nasal dialect as they expounded upon their cleverness and rehashed their triumphant raid. One insinuated about what he planned to do with Ana, while another bragged openly. They argued over who had the right to her first and congratulated the man with the magic to keep tigers at bay.
I froze and listened carefully. Now it all made sense. They’d gone and found themselves an ancestor of the Baiga. They had a gunia in their midst. It was a relief to know I wasn’t just faltering in my post. There was magic involved. One that had incapacitated Ren as well. As they continued to threaten the goddess, it was all I could do not to kill them immediately.
Not that I didn’t plan to kill them. I would. I just wanted her to be safe first. Leaning over her, I adjusted her dress and patted her cheek. “Ana?” I whispered. “Ana, love, you need to wake up.”
She groaned and whimpered. Her head lolled drunkenly.
“Ana,” I said again, shaking her shoulder. “I need to get you out of here.”
She licked her lips, which were cracked and bloodied, and jerked her head away from me. “No,” she said quietly. “No!” I covered her mouth so she wouldn’t wake the guard, but she thought I was one of her attackers. She sucked in a ragged breath and I could tell she was going to scream.
I shifted my hand to her jaw and spoke to her in my mind, shushing and soothing her. Even semiconscious, she immediately relaxed, sensing I meant her no harm. Taking the amulet from around my neck, I placed it over her head. I stroked her bruised cheek gently and leaned closer, whispering, “Go home, Ana. You have to go home.”
“Home,” she said, her voice raw.
Before I could lift my hand away, both of us were swept away in time and space, and when we landed, her upper body, no longer supported by a tree, fell with a thump onto the ground. I hissed and lifted her bruised body, cushioning her head on my knee. We’d left all our weapons behind. Anamika was unconscious. And in front of me was a sprawling estate that was unmistakably Indian.
A young boy burst from the trees, followed by a long-legged girl with green eyes.
“Ana,” I mumbled in shock.
We’d come to Ana’s past. The teenage boy was Sunil and the girl next to him, a young Anamika. Wide-eyed, the two of them approached. The teenage Anamika crouched down next to us. “Run and get Father, Sunil,” she said, her eyes full of compassion as she looked at us. “The woman is hurt.”
Sunil took off, and before I could stop her, the young beauty reached out to touch the hair of her older self. The injured woman at my side shimmered and then disappeared, turning into a shower of gold that rose in the air. The amulet she’d been wearing fell to the ground.
“Ana!” I screamed and glanced up. The golden light surrounded the young girl and lifted her into the air. Her eyes rolled back in her head as the light was sucked into her body. When the light was absorbed, she drifted close to me and lowered slowly into the same position Ana had been in before. She slumped in my arms just as her father and brother ran up to us.
The tall man, wearing a jeweled turban, turned a mottled shade of red.
“I’ll thank you to unhand my daughter!” the man demanded.
“Where did the woman go?” Sunil asked.
I said nothing, but rose and placed Anamika in the arms of her father.
Chapter 15
Truth Stone
As the man glanced down at his unconscious daughter, a heavy weight settled in my stomach. I bent over to pick up the fallen amulet and grasp Fanindra’s metal coils with the intention of following Sunil and his father back to the house, but the moment I stood, I knew something was wrong.
My foot wouldn’t move. I opened my mouth to call after them but no sound emerged. Even my attempt to change into a tiger produced no result. Sunil turned back to see if I was following and frowned, looking right and left as if he could no longer see me. He tugged on his father’s sleeve, and he, too, glanced behind and then shouted something, but I couldn’t hear what he said.
Space pressed around my frame. My ears popped and I smelled the electric energy that fills the air right before a powerful storm breaks. The pressure on my body was terrible and the farther away from me that Anamika’s father walked, the worse I felt. It was like she was being violently ripped away, and the tearing was worse than anything I’d ever experienced.
A resonant hum rose and the landscape faded like a washed-out painting left out in the sun. Then a violent thrust shifted my body through space and time. With no ground beneath my feet, my stomach plummeted and I drew in my arms and legs as I rolled head over heels in dizzying circles, my breaths sawing in mighty heaves.
For a time, I blacked out. When I came to myself, I was lying in the grass. I rolled over onto my knees and heaved, but there was nothing in my stomach. Groaning, my head pounding, I collapsed. With my back pressed to the grass, I stared up at the leafy canopy overhead, willing it to stop circling. I didn’t know what had happened to Ana but I knew I needed to fix it. I had to get back to her.
Lifting my head, I drew in a deep breath, and then took in another and another. The scents I normally caught were muted to the point of nonexistent, but regardless, I knew the forest was mine. The same one I spent most of my time in. I recognized the landmarks. Whatever had happened to Ana had thrust me back to my time.
At least I had the amulet.