“Well, it’s not far from the truth,” Vir said. “She really ought to be giving you more support, seeing everything you’ve done for her.”
“Tell me about it. I did get a sweet estate, though.”
“I just worry for your safety, Maiya. I wish you didn’t have to do this.”
“I know,” Maiya said, sighing. “With luck, my time in the Children will be over soon. And, y’know? I worried too. I went everywhere with that infernal orb, on the off chance you reached out. I couldn’t sleep the first several weeks you were gone.”
“I’m sorry,” Vir said. “I… didn’t know.”
“Yes, well, I made sure you didn’t,” Maiya said with a small smile. “Can I say something selfish?”
“Anything.”
“Keep worrying? For me. It, um… it feels good. Knowing there’s someone out there who really cares for my safety. Not just as a means to an end.”
“I will, Maiya. I do. Just wish there was more I could do. I wish we could be together.”
“So hurry up and unite the Demon Realm and make me your queen,” Maiya replied, sticking her tongue out.
Vir chuckled. “Right. How careless of me. Let me just get right on that.”
Maiya giggled… and then froze, as the implication of what she’d just said dawned on her.
Vir came to the same realization at the same time.
“I, er…”
“Oh, um, I just…”
A great shadow appeared beside Vir, providing a god-sent distraction.
“Cirayus?” Maiya asked, seizing on the chance to shift the topic.
“Hello, lass,” Cirayus replied, shoving Vir aside, and beaming like a doting father. “Glad to see you’re well! Taking care of yourself?”
“You bet I am. Just wait, when you guys come back here, we’ll have to fight. I need to make up for that trouncing you gave us before you left.”
Cirayus roared in laughter. “Aye, lass,” he said. “I’d like that. Now, I know you two were catching up, but I’m afraid your marriage plans will have to wait. We’ve a long journey ahead of us.”
Both Vir and Maiya went promptly red.
“R-right. Keep him safe, yeah?” Maiya said softly.
“You have my word, lass.”
“Vir? I know you’re going on undercover, and we won’t have a chance to talk for some weeks. So… please give them my regards?”
Vir nodded, all levity gone. “I will, Maiya. Love you.”
“I know,” Maiya said with a coy smile.
With that, Cirayus ended the call.
“Are you ready, lad?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Vir replied, and donned his mask.
Meanwhile, in a decrepit old building in Samar Patag’s slums—a building that was becoming steadily less decrepit thanks to recent funding that allowed restoration work to begin, Hiya knew that today would be the worst day of her life.
Ekta, Hiya, and Svar stood in complete silence, shaking in their shoes, while Janani regarded them with an expression so stern that to Hiya, she looked like someone else entirely. Someone harsh. And cold. And scary.
Janani was joined by Greesha, which showed the girls just how severe this talk would be. Greesha had only lectured them like this once before when they’d been thrown off the wall for trespassing.
“Do you know why you girls are here?”
Ekta stared at her feet. Hiya felt an overwhelming urge to speak up. To take responsibility. But she couldn’t. It was as if Adinat himself had sewn her lips shut. They simply wouldn’t budge.
“You are here because your actions put the lives of other children in mortal peril, as well as the lives of all those who risked themselves searching for you. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
At that moment, Janani’s words could freeze the room. Hiya had never heard her speak like this before.
“I have nothing to apologize for,” Svar said, breaking the silence. “I shouldn’t even be here, with these dregs—!”
The sound of Janani’s slap echoed off the walls, leaving Hiya stunned. She wasn’t the only one. Svar froze in shock, unable to even turn his head.
“Your idiocy has left one of my children in a coma from which he may never awake! Do you know what you’ve done?” Janani’s words came increasingly frenzied, and she looked about ready to choke Svar to death. “He saved you, and this is how you speak to me?”
“Janani, enough,” Greesha said in a soothing voice.
“Yes, put some sense into this woma—”
“Say one more word, and I will have your tongue cut and delivered to your father,” Greesha said in a cold tone that was, somehow, even more terrifying than Janani’s deranged shrieks.
Neither Ekta nor Hiya dared move a muscle.
“Be grateful that I have not fed you to our guardian wolf. It certainly wanted to feast upon your flesh, and I would be well within my rights to.”
“G-guardian wolf?”
“Shan?” Greesha called.
All necks turned as a presence made itself known. Hiya felt its power before she saw it. The terrifying black beast oozed black prana off its hide like fire, and it was all Hiya could do to stare at it. Forget speaking, her entire body had gone rigid.
Are we to be eaten…!
Hiya’s head spun at Ekta, who looked absolutely stricken.
No!
Before she knew it, Hiya had fallen to her knees, clasped her hands, and was pouring out a torrent of words.
“Please spare Ekta, she had nothing to do with this it was my fault, please take me instead don’t let her be eaten, please, I beg you!”
Tears flowed from her eyes in rivers, puddling on the ground. She had been the one to plant the idea in Bolin’s mind. It was only because of her insistence that any of this had happened.
Vaguely, she registered Ekta crying beside her, but it was hard to tell through her watery eyes.
Janani knelt and regarded Hiya with a sweet, motherly expression—but her hard eyes remained the same.
“Nobody is feeding you to the beast, dear. However, do you understand what you have done?”
Hiya sniffled. “Yes. Bolin is… Because of me. It’s all my fault.”
Had Hiya been looking at Janani, and not down at her slippers, she might’ve noticed the stern expression on Janani’s face crack, held together only with sheer force.
Yet as Hiya continued to sob her heart out, Janani’s mask finally crumbled, and she swept both girls up in a deep hug. She, too, was shedding tears.
“Never do this to me again.”
“I won’t, Janani. I won’t, I swear.”
And she never would. Hiya made an oath to herself, right then and there. That everything she did from now on would help people. Not for her own selfish pleasure. But because it was good.
Svar looked at the three with disgust, his eyes alternating between the sobbing children and the black beast that bared its saliva-dripping fangs at him.
“So, what? You want me to get on my knees and beg for my life? W-well, you’ll get no such pleasure from me.”
“Oh, no,” Greesha said, a sinister smile spreading across her already daunting face. “For you, we have something extra special planned. Shan?”
The Ash Beast loped toward Svar, growling and seething.
Svar backpedaled. He spun. And he ran. He ran for his life.
33
KARTARA NIGHTS (PART ONE) (MAIYA)
Maiya bid her attendants goodnight, locking the door to her bedchambers behind her. She lost no time, stripping off her unholy garb, and dumping it unceremoniously in a pile on the floor. Rushing to her mirror, she began the arduous task of applying her makeup, starting with a moisturizer, before moving through primers, foundations, bronzers, and blush, finishing with her highlighters and eyeliner.