Asha felt her skin burning, her heart pounding, and her brains searing as the tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. She curled her hands into fists and clenched her teeth as her lips rippled in a silent snarl.
The dragon awoke.
The soul of the great golden dragon, which slept deep down within her own fragile spirit and flesh, opened its ruby eyes and opened its golden maw, and from within her own heart, the beast roared.
Asha opened her eyes and saw the change begin. Her smooth brown skin rippled with golden scales that shone in the late day sun. Her fingertips grew longer and thinner, becoming deadly scarlet claws. She felt the warm pulses running down her skin as she traded her human flesh for dragon armor. Her spine throbbed as her slender whip of a tail erupted from her back and began to coil and lash the dusty ground behind her, tossing her pale yellow sari left and right.
All around her, men and women cried out in fear and surprise and she could sense them running away. Horses and zebras whickered and screamed before racing down the road. A nearby sivathera drawing a stately little coach reared up on its hind legs, bellowing and snorting, and it too thundered off down the street.
Yes, run away. Run away, all of you. And keep running.
A terrible heat rose in her chest, scorching her throat as she exhaled, and she saw the air around her nostrils shimmering like a watery mirage on the horizon. Asha pressed her hands to her forehead, knowing what would come next, but still afraid. She’d never let it go this far before.
From her temples where the golden scales met her thick black hair, two small mounds rose, and rose, and went on rising. The dragon’s horns were angular and ridged, and they curved gently back and forth through the air before finally tightening into ruby-tipped points.
Asha straightened up and stretched her back and arms, feeling the mass of her golden armor and the power in her legs. Her horned skull weighed heavily on her neck, and her lashing tail tugged her hips left and right. It was all awkward and new, all so much stranger than just the scales and claws that she usually released, but now with the dragon awake and raging within her breast, the strangeness felt natural and right.
This is what is needed. This will consume the evil.
I will consume the evil.
I will… devour… everything…
She looked up at the temple again as a crimson veil passed over her eyes. The world became a flat landscape of dark reds and light reds, punctuated by the sharp white figures of people and animals.
But through it all, she held on to the image of the youth on the table, and the doctors who had laughed as they walked away from his dead body, and hadn’t cared whether their patient had lived or died.
He was mine. My first.
They killed him.
I stood by. I watched them do it. And I did nothing.
Never again.
Asha dashed forward, ignoring the cries of the fleeing people and beasts all around her, and she sank her claws into the stone wall of the temple. The ancient blocks cracked apart and when she yanked her claws out the entire corner of the temple crashed down into the road, hurling up a massive cloud of dust that swallowed the street and everyone still in it.
She surged forward again and leapt high onto the side of the temple, and then leapt again all the way up to the top of the stone fortress where the grand wooden pagoda began. She had seen such buildings before in Ming, and while it did strike her as wholly out of place in this western city, it held no other fascination for her. She smashed the wooden columns, the panels, and the planks, driving her armored fists through beams as thick as ancient trees.
Asha ran back and forth, and climbed higher and higher, tearing, breaking, and rending everything in reach. She burst through walls and leapt straight up, exploding through ceilings and floors. From time to time she saw the flash of a frightened face or the bright light of a drawn seireiken, but they were all as slow as insects trapped in amber. She raced by them all, her mind bent only on the next thing she could drive her ruby claws into and tear to pieces.
Somewhere deep inside the temple, surrounded by splintered beams and collapsing walls, Asha stopped. The entire building was keening and moaning.
It’s dying. This place is dying. Soon it will fall and take all of its vermin with it. All of the killers and slave drivers. They’ll all be dead soon.
Asha ran back toward the outer wall, her tail lashing at the remains of the pillars, her claws shredding everything within reach. She burst through the last wall and leapt out into the cool evening air high above the city street, and fell. She crashed down onto the stone lip at the top of the lower fortress, and then slid down the sloping wall, smashing out the ancient blocks as she descended toward the street.
By the time her feet touched the ground, Asha was exhausted. Her arms and legs were aching, and her back was throbbing from the constant writhing of her tail. As she straightened up, she saw through the swirling clouds of dust to the slender white outline of a woman with the smaller white shape of a mongoose on her shoulder in the alley across the street.
Priya.
The memory of the young man on the table faded away, and Asha lost her grip on the anger and the hate. She was tired, and suddenly she realized that she didn’t want to be there anymore, not in that city, not even in that part of world. Destroying the temple seemed petty and pointless now.
It’s just a building. They can always build another.
But the dragon’s soul within her raged on, and she could feel it wanting to destroy and devour, to lash out at the world and indulge in every tiny whim of her flesh. Asha exhaled slowly.
I take refuge in life.
I take refuge in the forests and the rivers, the mountains and the seas, and the deserts.
I take refuge in the trees and deer, and the tigers and the eagles.
I am not a dragon.
I am Asha.
She blinked and the reds and whites were gone, and her skin was her own again. The world was brown and gray and blue, and everything was moving so fast. People were running and animals were bolting, wagons and carts were overturning, and chunks of wood and stone were falling from the sky.
“Asha!”
She blinked again. Priya was yelling at her.
“Asha!”
She looked up at the temple and her heart nearly stopped. The entire wooden pagoda, all five stories of it, was toppling forward in her direction, its walls and roofs cracking apart as the entire structure collapsed. Asha ran.
She crossed the road in a flash of yellow and black, wrapped her arms around Priya, and carried the blind nun down the alley away from the collapsing temple. When the dust cloud caught up to them, Asha knelt down, wrapping her arms around Priya’s head.
I’m so stupid. What was I thinking? She shouldn’t have been here. She could have died. And then what would I…
The dust blew past them and Asha felt a few small splinters patter on her back and a few small pebbles rolled past her feet. When the noise died down, Asha looked up. As the dust cloud thinned away, she saw a ragged shape emerge into the last red rays of the setting sun. The pagoda was gone. Bits and pieces of it lay atop the rubble, but nothing larger than a man’s leg. The fortress had collapsed on two sides, falling in upon itself and then spilling out into the road.
I did that?
She looked down at Priya. “It’s over. Are you all right?”
“I think so,” the nun said. She opened her arms and revealed the huddled furry ball of Jagdish. “I think we’re both just fine. Was anyone else hurt?”
Asha looked back at the devastation of the street.
My gods. Why didn’t I wait? Just an hour or two. Just until sunset, when everyone would be home, out of the road, out of danger. It was that girl in the black dress. I was so afraid of standing by and letting her walk into danger, I didn’t even think…