I frowned, surprised at the question. “No. No one ever told me that.” Suddenly I became very aware of our position. Every single inch of her very lush body was pressed against me. We were thigh to thigh, stomach to stomach, and chest to chest. Her hands trembled where they rested against my chest. “I…I’m sorry,” I said as I awkwardly extracted myself from beneath her. “Here. Let me help you get up.”
“Why are you sorry?” she asked as she rose to her feet.
“I didn’t mean to… I know you don’t like…” I began lamely, then finished with, “I’ll be more careful in the future.”
“Careful?” Ana looked around at the chaos. “You did not cause the rock to fall. It was my doing.”
“Yes, but I grabbed you, pulled you off the rock, and possibly put you in more harm than if I’d left you alone.” I cupped the back of my neck and sighed as she looked at me quizzically. Attempting to explain more clearly, I said, “I feel a need to take care of you and protect you, Ana. I keep forgetting that you are powerful enough to keep yourself from harm.”
“Yes, that’s true,” she said. Together we exited the cave, and with a wave of her hand, rock filled in the entire structure. “But sometimes, even a goddess wants to be taken care of.”
I peered back at her, sensing there was more she wanted to say, but she fell quiet. As we backtracked through all the traps we’d set, the ground rose behind us, trailing our footsteps and hiding the Cave of Kanheri, burying each passage as if it had never existed. Even if someone tried to explore it in the future, they’d find no evidence that the goddess or her prophesy were ever there.
When we got to her bugs, she called to them. They encircled her, climbing over one another to get closer like very ugly iron filings clinging to a magnet. Their grasping legs and clicking mandibles didn’t appear to bother her at all. I grimaced when one made it to her shoulder and disappeared beneath her hair. She mumbled instructions and opened a hole in the cavern above us, exposing the night sky. As one, the creatures fluttered their wings and rose in a cloud, disappearing into the blackness overhead as they obeyed their goddess.
“Where did you send them?” I asked.
“To a place and time they will prosper.”
“And where’s that?” I asked, hoping I wouldn’t find them in my bed when we got home.
“I sent them to Egypt,” she said. “Their magic will be appreciated there.”
“I see,” I said, not really wanting to know how magical her newly fashioned bugs were. As we continued, I pondered how it was that Ana seemed to know things. She reminded me of Kadam in that way. Just because I, too, had access to the amulet didn’t mean I understood the workings of the universe. Perhaps I was just a dumb beast—a soldier unversed in the ways of scholars.
Ren had called me brave, and I was in some cases, but the idea of traveling among the stars, being undone by time, and seeing all things past, present, and future disturbed me. I’d thought that Ana was much the same as me, but perhaps being a goddess gave her more insight. Someday, when I actually was brave enough, I’d ask her about it.
“What’s next?” I questioned when we’d finished our work.
She perused the list. “It says clean up the compound after the battle with Lokesh and help the Baiga. As a side note, Kadam added a phrase. ‘Tell Kishan it’s the battle of the jawbreakers.’” Anamika frowned. “He wants us to break jaws?”
I laughed. “No. Jawbreakers are a type of hard candy. So, we’re the ones who made all that disappear. Kadam had said everything at the compound mysteriously vanished. He’d assumed it was Lokesh’s doing.” Sucking in a breath, I continued, “I suppose I can take the lead on this one. I’ll have to time it carefully not to run into myself.”
After taking us back, or, I guess forward, from the time of the cave, we paused on the outskirts of the trees in the deep forest of the Baiga and watched as a wrath-filled Lokesh sped away from the building. If Ana was shocked to see vehicles or lights or modern technology, she didn’t show it. She was remarkably resilient in that way.
We started outside. Any injured men who served Lokesh were sent to the outskirts of a large nearby city. Anamika didn’t want to help them too much. The Baiga she found were healed, and they trailed after us like faithful servants, remarking on the goddess who saved them and helping us pick through the debris to search for the fallen.
She ignored any attempts to engage her for the most part, and we quickly dismantled the equipment in the main room. The damaged wood from the guard towers turned to ash and blew away. The metal pieces from the building melted, and I watched as the ground opened up to swallow what was once a room full of computers, cables, video records, and cameras.
When we came upon the area filled with candy, Ana picked up a red jawbreaker and rolled it between her fingers with a raised eyebrow. I popped one in my mouth, bit down, and regretted it. “Ow!” I said with the candy balled up inside my cheek. “I get it now. It breaks your jaw along with your head.”
“How did Kelsey fashion this?” she asked.
“With the Golden Fruit.”
“Inventive.” Tentatively, Ana touched her tongue to the candy. “I like it,” she said. “Perhaps if you lick instead of biting down, you will appreciate the sweetness.”
“Yeah,” I said, watching her eyes close, her face enraptured, as she licked her candy. My throat suddenly felt tight and I nearly choked on my jawbreaker. While she wasn’t looking, I spat out the sweet onto the pile that rolled around our legs and used the power of the amulet to transform it all. It turned into a glittering powdery mass that Ana swept out the door with a flourish of her hand. The candy she’d been holding transformed as well, and she blew the chalky dust from her palm. I tried to ignore the becoming red stain on her lips as we moved ahead.
At the other end of the building, we came upon the prison where Lokesh had kept Ren. Ana paused briefly at the cage where Ren had suffered for months and ran her fingertips across the bars. She began the work of making all the innards of the room disappear, starting with his cage. I stood on the other side, utterly transfixed by the tools Lokesh had used to hurt Ren.
I’m not exactly sure what came over me. I’d been there before, knew what Ren had gone through. But back then, I’d been focused on Kelsey and on getting Ren out. Now, seeing the evidence of the brutality Lokesh had inflicted upon my brother, I could no longer shut my eyes to what was done to him. The evidence lay before me in streaks of dried blood on the table. My hands shook as I touched my fingertip to the handle of a spiked hammer. It shifted slightly and disturbed one of the four manacles on the table. The chain attached to it clinked softly.
Suddenly, it was like I was back in the circus, smelling his anxiety, his fear. My blood pounded and my breath hitched in my lungs. The entire scene was too much for me to handle. Why hadn’t I rescued him? Why wasn’t I going back in time now and stopping it? I wasn’t brave at all. I was a coward. Too weak and spineless to protect my loved ones from unnecessary pain.
I swept the tools aside and, with a mighty heave, tossed the table across the room. It splintered against the wall. After changing into tiger form, I tore cabinets and wood apart with my claws and broke a chair with my teeth.
Something touched my shoulder and I whirled, snarling, and roared loudly. The scent was fresh, like flowers, but I was enraged and wouldn’t be calmed. I swiped at the soft thing and heard a cry. With that out of my way, I turned back to my task, attacking again, and when I could no longer reach anything as a tiger, I switched back to a man.