Siya tightened her grip on her bear. “I only need you, Daddy,” Siya said quietly.
She’s such a sweet little girl, Vir thought. The scene warmed Vir’s heart, but he sensed something off. Her arms and her legs looked thin—too thin, even for a small girl like her.
“She can’t walk, can she?” Vir asked.
The scene froze.
“The symptoms started manifesting when she was only four,” Ashani said, looking at Siya with sadness. “With each year that passed, she lost more and more control over her body.”
“I thought you said the Imperium had solved disease? That you’d become immortal?”
“We had,” Ashani said, walking around the frozen simulation. “Siya’s case was an exception among exceptions. For all our magic and our technology, we proved no match against a single disease. It was why Janak devoted the last two decades of his life to his research.”
“Research? He was an academic?” Vir asked. “Wait, two decades? Siya doesn’t look that old. Or did Imperium children age slower?”
“No, Siya was twelve at the time.”
“Which means Janak knew about the disease before she was born,” Vir said. “How?”
“Her mother, Bhumi, had the same condition.”
“Wait. If Janak was still researching it, then that means…”
“It claimed Bhumi’s life, yes,” Ashani whispered. “Her mother subjected herself to test after test, but her condition stymied our most prominent minds.”
“I don’t understand,” Vir said. “If everyone could become as smart as everyone else, how could any disease stop you?”
This was the Prime Imperium. Living gods. For a single illness would stymie them for so long seemed absurd.
“And yet, this is the truth. I now believe her illness was one that attacked the spirit, not the body.”
“The spirit…” Vir said. “Like the chakras?”
Ashani frowned. “Chakra. Circle. I am familiar with the word, though not in this context.”
“It’s… Well, I don’t understand it all that well myself, but it has to do with the spiritual. It can be made to attack the soul and the metaphysical. At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”
“I see. Then, yes, it is likely exactly as you say. My people were entirely blind to the existence of the spiritual domain. Advanced in the ways of prana though we were, somehow, we knew nothing of the metaphysical. Indeed, I had felt the same, until I obtained my own power.”
“The Ash Gates,” Vir said.
“Yes. I feel the source of this power is beyond anything based in the physical realm. Perhaps that is why it is able to ignore reality, bridging two places that would otherwise never have met.”
“Just surprises me that your people wouldn’t have known about it.”
“Rather, I feel as though the spiritual realm has grown stronger after the Fall. As though it had been dormant, only manifesting when my people fell.”
It was an interesting thought. If whatever the gods had done fundamentally reshaped the world, who was to say that the concept of chakras only came into being after? He’d always thought of the fall of the gods as a period of destruction. But what if it was a time of creation, too?
“There was nothing wrong with her or her mother. Not physically,” Ashani said. “She just… stopped functioning. Bhumi’s illness began with her lower body. No matter what my people did, her impediment did not regress or slow. Siya’s mother died just before I was created.”
Ashani allowed the simulation to play out again. The young Ashani did her best to speak to Siya, but both were clearly very nervous. Their interactions were stilted and awkward, and Janak’s presence did little to help.
Vir now understood why the young Ashani looked so distraught earlier. She was created quite literally to be Siya’s companion, and yet the girl was rejecting her.
“The search for a cure consumed Janak,” Ashani said. “It became his sole purpose in life. Every second of every minute of every day was spent in research. It… swallowed him in the end. In his desperation to save his daughter, he lost himself.”
“He’d just lost his wife,” Vir said. “I… I think I know how he felt.”
I’d do exactly the same, wouldn’t I? Vir’s heart clenched at the thought of losing someone dear to him. He didn’t have to imagine—Vir had Narak’s memory. The feelings he’d had when he’d lost his wife, Reyi, had nearly crushed Vir. The feeling had faded with time, and Vir took solace knowing it was just an echo from a prior incarnation.
What if it was Maiya? What would I do? Vir didn’t know. Would he break down and lose his way? Would he endure and carry the wound with him for the rest of his days? He couldn’t say, and that scared him. Deeply.
“The tragedy of Bhumi’s death was eclipsed by the time he lost with Siya. The precious, precious time he had with his one and only daughter. For someone like me, whose memories never fade, those emotions feel as raw as the day they happened, all those years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” Vir whispered, balling his fists. “I can only imagine what that must feel like.” Reliving such memories, feeling everything she’d felt back then… It must have eaten at her.
Ashani bit her lip but kept her silence.
“Come, my little rajni,” Siya’s doting father said. “Why don’t you explore the new park with your friend? I think you’ll get along just fine.” Janak cast the young Ashani a stern glance only she could see.
Ashani’s younger self stiffened.
“Janak never lost hope,” Ashani said. “Right until the end. He never accepted that Siya’s condition couldn’t be reversed.”
“Was it her disease that brought down the Imperium? Did it spread?”
“A good guess. But no. No, I’m afraid our Fate was far worse.”
The scene shifted abruptly around them. Siya’s bedroom faded, replaced by the bustling foot traffic of a busy road. A young Ashani pushed Siya’s floating chair, navigating around the crowd.
“I bring you now, to the moments before the end,” Ashani said.
Vir gasped in shock.
While the Automaton looked identical to the day she’d met the young girl, Siya certainly did not. Her limbs had all visibly atrophied. The frail girl of before now looked like a stiff wind would break her. And yet, despite her miserable state, there was an unquenchable fire in her eyes. Her condition might have attacked her spirit, but as far as Vir could see, the girl blazed brightly despite it all.
“Do you think he’ll like it, Shani? I think he will. He really likes Water Affinity jewelry,” Siya said, chatting animatedly with her friend.
“Little rajni, your father will treasure any gift you give him,” Young Ashani laughed, and Siya giggled back.
“You really think so?” Siya asked, smiling bashfully.
How can she be so cheerful, knowing what was in store for her? Knowing what happened to her own mother, Vir thought, tears trickling down his face.
“I know so, little one.”
“Shani, that’s rude!” Siya huffed. “I’m not little! I’m just… petite.”
“Of course, dear,” Ashani replied.
Their relationship had progressed so much, Vir could hardly believe it. The stilted dynamic of their first meeting was gone without a trace, and if someone said the two girls were sisters, Vir would’ve believed it.
“Siya was like the sun to me,” Ashani said, freezing the world in its tracks. “She was so strong. So blindingly bright. Never once did she complain. I envied her so very much. All I could think about was how this precious girl, my only friend, would soon leave me. Her life should have been measured in millennia, not months. For it to be robbed so cruelly was… It was unbearable for me. Those days were the happiest of my entire life, and my saddest.”