“Tell me,” I said as my vision became blurry. “Tell me what I can do to heal you.”
The snake slowly lifted her head, her fangs protruding from her mouth, a golden drop glistening at the tip of each. I thought she was going to bite me and I would have welcomed it. I knew she’d been able to heal Kelsey in that way. Maybe the bite would help her somehow. But instead of sinking her fangs into me, she pressed her mouth against the phoenix egg.
Rearing back her head, she struck. I heard a pop and her fangs penetrated the shell. Her body pulsed as she pumped golden venom into the egg, and then she extracted her fangs and fell back onto the bed. Her white belly was exposed and her unblinking eyes glowed green and then faded to black. Fanindra’s body gave a final shudder and then she died.
Chapter 16
Too Little Too Late
“Fanindra!” I cried.
As I scooped up the body of Durga’s prized pet, the companion who’d been with us for years, tears filled my eyes. The breath hitched in my lungs when her body slowly turned to dust in my palms and then the sparkling powder lifted in the air. It surrounded me in a golden cloud, little sparkles of light snapping and popping. Stretching out a hand in a hopeless attempt to capture her escaping essence, I marveled at the fading beauty of my longtime friend.
“Don’t go,” I pleaded, but the golden light dissipated until there was nothing left. My shoulders shook as I tried to hold back the sobs. I’d failed. I couldn’t protect Anamika and now I’d lost Fanindra. Kelsey and Ren never messed up their quests this badly. Slumping down on the bed, I swiped my hand down my cheeks to brush away the wet on my face and stared at the ceiling.
It was quiet. Everyone had retired for the evening. With Fanindra gone and Anamika taken, I felt utterly alone. The many years of solitude in the jungle were self-imposed. I’d told myself I liked it that way. That I wasn’t like Ren. That I didn’t need people. It was a lie. When Kelsey and Ren suddenly burst into my life, asking me to leave the jungle, I’d been sorely tempted to go with them. My relationship with my brother then was too fragile. I thought he’d blame me, hate me for what had happened with Yesubai. Even after centuries, I still wasn’t ready to face him.
Now I missed him. Missed all of them. Even though seeing Ren and Kelsey on their wedding day was difficult, the memory now was bittersweet. They were happy. He was jubilant when he danced with his new wife, and her expression when she looked at him was full of love. I couldn’t take that away from them. More than anything else, I wished they were here, with me. The three of us on one final quest.
Ren could logic his way out of anything. He’d probably have charmed his way into getting the info he needed from Ana’s mother just by giving her his trademark smile. Kelsey had always been so good at distracting me and keeping me focused on the positive. She would have a journal full of Kadam’s research and would already be working on a rescue plan. I loved that about them.
I loved them period. Not even distance or time could change that. They were my family.
But so was Ana. The girl had grown on me. For better or worse, we needed each other. She was brave and stubborn and loyal to a fault and I…I had to save her. I was responsible for her. It was my fault she’d been taken. My carelessness had put us all at risk. That she wasn’t dead already was a blessing.
Sucking in a breath, I rose from the bed and made my way to the door, bumping my head against the rough wood trim of the entry. I’d forgotten how low the door to my chamber was. Stealthily, I made my way to the next room and saw Sunil sleeping. The adjacent bedroom belonged to Sunil’s parents. His mother rested on top of her bed, fully clothed, as if expecting to hear the cry that Anamika had been returned at any time.
The next chamber was Ana’s. Crouching down to study the floor, I cursed the fact that I no longer had my sense of smell or my enhanced vision. The thought came that I could get Fanindra to use her eyeshine, but no, Fanindra was gone. I swallowed the wave of sadness and went to work.
Her chamber didn’t look much different from the one she kept as an adult. She liked collecting things. There was a pile of smooth white rocks, dried flowers in a clay pot, a pretty ribbon, a hairbrush. Anamika’s belongings were simple. Everything had a proper place.
Though she had just been taken the night before, there was no sign of a scuffle. There wasn’t even so much as a speck of dust. I frowned. If a boot print had been on the floor before, it had been swept away since. Ana’s mother had likely cleaned the room in anticipation of her daughter’s return.
I looked out the window, pushing back the fluttering curtain. It was easy to see how her kidnappers had gotten in and pulled her out without too much difficulty. The building had easily navigable steps that I imagined even Ana had used from time to time to wander about after everyone had gone to sleep. Bending halfway out the window, I saw the dried print of a boot. Picking up a fallen twig lying on the window ledge that must have snapped off from the nearby tree, I leaned out as far as I could and scraped the dried mud.
Lifting it to my nose, I inhaled. The scent was weak but unmistakable. Camel dung. Anamika had likely been taken by a caravan. Traders often went from place to place trying to ply their wares. Ana was beautiful enough, even at her young age, to catch the attention of the unscrupulous. She could easily be sold into slavery or traded to a rich man as a play thing. The idea of it chilled my blood.
Quickly, I returned to my room and gathered up my things. If I’d had paper and a pen, I would have left Sunil a note, but then I thought better of it. Knowing him, he’d try to follow. I crept out of the house and started down the path, following the tracks Anamika’s father had taken, the moon lighting my path.
I didn’t split off from the trail of the rescuers until the second day. The group of riders who tracked Ana followed the imprints left by the camels well enough, but then the marks of the beasts mysteriously disappeared. The trail that Ana’s father and his hunters rode showed that they’d stopped and circled about but then ended up continuing along the same path.
Moving quickly, I followed it myself for an hour and found it led to a well-traversed road. Many prints—horses, wagon wheels, even elephants—were there, but no camels. That fact didn’t appear to deter the hunters, and they pressed on down the road, their trail disappearing into the fading sun. For a moment, I considered continuing after them, but something about the missing tracks nagged me.
I circled back to the area where the tracks stopped and then studied the ground carefully. It took me the better part of the afternoon to figure out what had happened. The ground in that area was particularly stony and it led to a deep ravine. From the top, it appeared too dangerous for a large pack of animals to traverse, but after spending several more hours carefully studying the underbrush, I found a way in.
It had been well hidden and the trail had been swept clean, easier to do on stony ground, but now that I knew what I was looking for, the path was unmistakable. That night I climbed up the side of the cliff and slept in a shallow depression overlooking a wide expanse of river far below. If I rolled too far, I’d likely plummet to my death. Still, I hadn’t slept in two days, and I was slowly draining the firefruit juice just to keep my body going.