Two men fight under the sweltering afternoon sun, their bronzed backs lathered in sweat and oil as they leap, pirouette, dance with one another. The blows of sword on shield are as drumbeats, setting the tempo for their performance.
I am transfixed. There is nothing so beautiful in the world as this.
I watch as their performance intensifies, feel a thrum of energy rise from the arena. Flames burst from the back of one of the men, fanning out across his back in tight-knit ropes that run over his skin and down his arms, reinforcing them. He discards his shortsword for another weapon, a sword with a paper-thin blade, that has curled into a spiral. A whip-blade.
The blade unfurls as he lashes out, trying to catch his opponent off-guard, only for the sand of the pit itself to rise up and divert the sword.
My heart beats in my throat, and I must resist the urge to rise from my seat in anxious excitement.
The blade lashes out again, a tongue of flame uncoiling and spitting at the other fighter. This time, the man rolls out of the way, coming up in a crouch with his shield pressed into the dirt. When he raises it next, the sand of the arena has crusted into spikes all along its face, making it more of a weapon than a defense.
The fighters circle warily now, testing each other with their powers, and I am growing more enraptured with this contest with each passing moment. There is nothing I want more than to join them, to learn from them.
But then Appa behind me claps, and the duel is brought to a close — the dance unfinished, its tension left to hang heavy in the air of the kalari, thick enough to taste.
Tantalizing.
Mesmerizing.
Just out of reach.
The fighters release their powers and bow in the direction of our pavilion before clasping each other by the forearm. They then return to their gurus for advice or admonishment. I watch the entire process, rapt, eager to learn as much from this brief getaway as I can.
As soon as the palanquins let us down inside the palace courtyard, my legs itch to beg Appa to find me a guru to teach me this artform. There are few things I ask of him, but this is worthy, I feel.
But I can almost hear Appa’s voice in my mind, curbing my enthusiasm. Reminding me of my station, and the restrictions that come with it.
“Kalaripayattu is beneath those of our stature, Madhava — it is meant to entertain us, and is not for us to partake in.”
That night I am summoned to attend him before he sleeps. I kneel before him, my eyes pressed to his platformed slippers, focusing on the gold adorning his toes.
“Madhava, my son — look at me.” His voice is soft, but tempered with the iron-brand authority of royalty. It is a voice that commands with the expectation of obeisance, there will be no cause for it to be raised.
I raise my head, but keep my gaze level with his lips — full, and carrying the remnants of the red dye that is applied to them every morning. A king cannot appear less than perfect, can show no blemishes. A king must be beautiful in every way.
“What did you think of the games today, my son?” He asks.
“They were entertaining, father. I was particularly fond of —” my voice catches, but I cover it with a cough, “— the Jallikattu, though I was sad to see them slaughter the bull.” I say. I cannot tell him of the fight, cannot fan that hope.
He taps a long, ring-covered finger against his chin.
“Do not make that claim outside these doors, or you will learn well before your time just how fickle humans are,” he says. “The people are their traditions, and those traditions are timeless — forever. We, on the other hand, are custodians. We guide only as long as the people allow it. And to take aim at their rituals, at the culture that lies at the heart of their being, will see us torn from these halls.”
“Are we slaves to tradition, then?” I ask, a sudden hopelessness tearing at my chest. Are our stations pre-ordained, are we yoked to these chains for life — to be pulled along, and to never yearn for more?
“Not entirely.” Appa replies, and a seedling of hope takes root in my heart, “But it takes years, and considerable subtlety. To mold an empire, we must not act with the arrogance of kings, but with the cunning of thieves. Whispers, Madhava, carry far further than commandments.”
There’s something questioning in his tone, probing. A parent’s instinct, perhaps.
I look him in the eyes for the first time tonight, and find them warm — warmer perhaps than they have ever been before.
“Appa, I want to fight in the kalari.”
His smile now is genuine.
“We will have to be quiet. No-one outside these walls can know, not until it is time. Go now, and sleep. I will find you a guru tomorrow.”
• • •
At first, I am no more than a fledgling bird, floundering in my first attempts at flight. I am nothing like those graceful warriors I saw in the pit; I am a mess of gangly limbs and uncooperative muscles.
There are forms, intricate movements and deliberate breaths; puzzle pieces jumbled around me, begging to be put together, to form a whole. But try as I might, I cannot see the picture they form. I have one ingrained in my mind, and I cannot reconcile that image with the repetitive dross I have to do.
At the end of my first day of training Appa comes to check on my progress. I try to hide myself, and the dirt, sweat, and bruises that have accumulated over my clothing and skin. Varadha Guru pulls me forward, holds me out like an offering to his king.
Appa does not say anything to me, but simply raises one perfect eyebrow at my bedraggled appearance, and I shrink into myself.
“How is he?” Appa asks.
“He has no talent.” Varadha guru replies. My head drops, ready for the axefall that is surely coming.
“But?”
“But no-one has talent on their first day. He has lasted today, and if he comes back tomorrow, and the day after, then we shall see if he has a future.”
The next morning I awaken to excruciating pain. It radiates from my neck down through every fiber of my being. But I return to the training ground. I wait there, sweat dripping from my eyelashes and nose, shivering from the cold.
When Varadha Guru arrives, I see the briefest hint of a smile on his face, hidden deep within his beard. And then we begin again.
• • •
The air is thick in the kalari, filled with dust thrown up as we shuffle around one another. As we wait for the other to make a mistake. I can feel the eyes of my imagined spectators boring into my back, stripping flesh from bone, paring me down to muscle and sinew — judging every involuntary twitch that runs through me.
And then I see it, the opening I need. A slight extension of foot, the barest bunching at the thigh. And so when my opponent leaps, raising his sword high above his head, I am prepared. I step inside the leap and ram my shield into his legs, throw him off balance. When he falls in a heap, I am above him, my own sword pointed down at his throat.
A sharp clap signals my victory and I pull the sword away so I can reach down and offer my hand to Viswa. He clasps my wrist and drags me forward, tries to pull me to the ground, but I am ready for it. We hold firm for a moment, struggle with one another, until at last we cannot contain our grins. His strength slackens, and he allows me to pull him to his feet.
“What does that make it, prince?”
“Twelve to nothing, I think. But you’re getting closer.” I say.
“If the elements were allowed to us, I would have taken your blade from you — and then I would have knocked you on your ass.” Viswa smiles back, wide and without guile. It is what I love about him.
“Keep your fantasies to yourself, Viswa.” I say, laughing.
“Oh, you’ll regret that when we fight for real.” He replies, though there’s no hurt in his voice.
Each day brings progress, and for him, that is enough. Jealousy has never been Viswa’s way.
He took up the art three years after I did, though we are the same age. His father is one of Appa’s generals, who had the misfortune of touring the palace gardens with his son while I was in training. They saw Guru show me, for the first time, how to call fire from the Earth and draw it within myself, reshape it for my needs. I remember turning to look for Appa, to show him what I could do — as orange fire licked at my arm — and instead seeing Viswa, his mouth open in an expression of utter awe.
From that day, for an entire year, Viswa pleaded with his father to be sent as a vassal to Appa’s court. To learn the same art.
At first, I was annoyed. I enjoyed the secrecy, the idea that this study belonged to me and me alone. I did not appreciate having a tagalong. But that petulance was quickly overtaken by the joyful realization that I now had someone my age to train with. Someone whose passion matched my own. A confidant.
And there is nothing more intimate than a shared secret.
The elements formed the final part of our training. We chose that which we had an affinity for, that befitted our temperament, and we learned to harness it and turn it to ourselves. For me, fire had always drawn me, like a moth — I was a furnace held in check, fed just enough to keep it aflame. Eager and impatient, quick to action. For Viswa, it had been the waves of a tranquil ocean lapping at the shores. Measured and calm.
“Madhava, Viswa — take your places.” Guru says. We face one another and bow low. Then we rise as one and turn to our teacher.
“You have progressed far, my pupils. If we were anywhere but here, I would have found bouts for you long ago.”
A familiar resentment bubbles in my gut.
“But we are restricted to this courtyard, and can never truly test ourselves — is that right?” Viswa speaks the words that burn on my tongue.
Normally, Guru would have hit him with a switch for speaking out of turn — and worse for interrupting his teacher — but today, the old man sits quiet and simply pulls wistfully at his beard.
“That is about to change.”
We listen, rapt.
Could he have?
“Viswa, your father has allowed me to enter you in a tournament three months from today.”
My heart shatters, its pieces falling to be hidden somewhere deep within the sand of this pit. The fire in my stomach flares, and I almost cannot hold it in check.
Viswa, to his credit, did not look at me. Did not turn pitying eyes to me. He straightens, and bows to Guru.
“I am ready, guruji.”
I bow low, and wish for the ground to swallow me.
Varadha Gurukkal does not offer me any words of consolation — why should he? We both knew that this was my future when we began this. We always knew that there was nothing in this for me but pain.
I curb the instinct to go to Appa and beg. Swallow my anger and disappointment, let it fester within my stomach so that it may kill me.
• • •
“Are you going to mope much longer?” Viswa asks.
We are sitting in guru’s spot, under the banyan, some time after training finished for the day. Guru had wanted us to practice with the elements, but I couldn’t draw them forth, wrapped up in my misery as I was.
“Listen, you’re better than me — of course you are. But I’m lowborn, my identity isn’t as important as yours. That’s all it is.”
I know that, but it still rankles. And jealousy does not become a king. So I hold it in check, force a practiced smile to my face. Hide everything behind the mask.
“I’m fine, Viswa. This is your chance. Mine will come soon. Just make sure that you’re already at the top by then.”
“So you can take it from me? Not a chance. You can come find me, but you won’t steal my crown away from me!” he says, leaping to his feet in mock outrage.
I rise too, grabbing a branch from the ground to raise as a weapon. Viswa does the same, lining up opposite me and settling into the Form of the Shark.
“I will free the people from this tyrant’s hand, and they will rejoice at my advent!”
Exhaustion and sadness are forgotten now, and all I have eyes for is the smile that spreads across his face, that pierces my heart.
“Come find me, soon. It’ll be boring by myself.” Viswa says later, when we’re lying on our backs in the center of the kalari, staring up at a blanket of stars.
“I will.”
• • •
One month from the tournament — another held in my father’s honor — Appa calls me to his chambers.
“Madhava, you will be at my side during the parade.” He announces.
The parade takes place at the same time as Viswa’s fight. I will not even be allowed to watch my friend fight. I feel the flame rise within me, stung by this injustice — but there is no spite in my father’s face. He means this as a mercy, to lessen the blow, but it is the greatest cruelty I have suffered.
“Appa, I would like to witness the fights — be your representative at that activity to bless their venture.” I say, but Appa’s mouth is set. There is no fighting this.
I try to lose myself in my training — and ignore the small voice in my mind that screams of the futility of it all. What point is there to this training, it asks, when there will never be a real chance to test myself? I feel my ambition begin to wane, my tether to the flame wearing thin, and that terrifies me.
Without the fire of my kalari, I am nothing but a shell.
As the tournament nears, Viswa spends less and less time with me, his training extending beyond the pit and deep into the nights. I spend that time losing myself in my training, trying desperately to keep hold of the flame. I practice alone in the courtyard, summoning fire to ring my arms and blade, watching it sputter and fade quicker with each passing day.
And so it goes, until a week before the fight.
“Madhava, join us.” Guru commands.
I rush over from the corner of the training ground I have marked as my own, ashamed of the desperation in my steps. Varadha is in his regular spot under the tree, with Viswa already kneeling before him.
I bow and take my place next to my rival.
“Madhava, you will fight Viswa in two days — his final practice. There are few out there who are better than you, and so there is no better test for him than to face you now.”
Solitude has made a monster of me, and I have to bite back the words that burn in my throat, hold down the venom that threatens to spew. If there’s few better than me, then why should I not fight? Why should it be him?
I nod curtly and say, “As you wish, guruji. It is my honor.”
I back away, intending to return to my solitude, when guruji raises a hand to stop me.
“This fight will be different, Madhava. You will both be fighting with no holds barred. Make use of all your talents.”
“But what if I hurt him?” I ask, only realizing the insult once the question has left my lips.
I feel Viswa bristle before I look at him and see the anger that clouds his amber eyes. And behind that anger is genuine hurt. A part of me is glad to see it now. This way, we both suffer. This way, he can share some of the pain I am feeling.
“Perhaps, Sire, you will find things a little different this time.” He says, fury whistling through his teeth, “Perhaps it is you who should worry about injury now. After all, I am the one who was chosen to take part in this tournament — not you.”
There is something hidden in his words, a challenge beneath the obvious, but I am now too enraged to parse it. I breathe deep, try to still the hammering rage of my heart, and try as ever to drown the bitterness that crowds my mind.
A king must not be envious, must not covet that which is not his.
But I am not king yet.
“You know fully well why it is you and not me who is going out there. But no matter, because after I beat you in two days, every victory you luck into outside these walls will feel hollow. Your life will be a lie.”
I leave him and guruji there and return to my practice, my forms now dictated by condensed anger.
Viswa will kneel before me, and that is all that will matter to us both.
I will not be forced into this un-life alone.
• • •
We meet at dawn on the kalari, silent as we take our positions opposite one another. We raise our blades up to the sky and then settle into our forms — low to the ground; tigers readying to pounce. Water pools around him, droplets suspended in the air forming his own personal raincloud. I have never seen this from him before.
He has changed. Grown in my absence.
I growl and roll my shoulders, feeling my fire fan into wings around me.
A delicate dance begins, the two of us moving slowly in a circle, the distance between constant and just beyond reach of our blades. Our eyes meet, and for a moment again I see something beyond a wounded pride in Viswa’s eyes. But whatever he sees in mine prompts him to break our deadlock, the droplets shoot out with blinding speed, forcing me to cover myself with the wings to keep them from cutting me. And when I retract my wings, I see Viswa leaping forward at me, his sword sweeping in a low arc for my knees.
I leap over his blade and in a roll, coming up swinging in response, only for my blade to clatter off his studded shield, jarring my arm in its socket. Before I can react, a jet of water hits me in the chest, knocking the wind from my lungs and pushing me back to the edge of the pit.
We circle cautiously, taking each other’s measure now that the opening exchange has passed. And as much as I hate it, Viswa has improved in these past weeks. His footing is more sure now, his patience improved, his strike more convincing.
I cannot say the same for myself. Where his attacks carry the steady pulse of the perennial river, mine are faltering spurts of a sun-beaten stream. He says nothing to me, but there is a disappointment in his eyes that fills me with shame — and then with anger.
He pities me.
Control is key to mastering fire. Control over one’s own emotions, the ability to hold their passions in check. It was a skill I had learned from birth, that I put into practice every day in my father’s court. But now the mask cracked. Rage fueled my power now, creating a surge that catches us both unprepared, that throws me frothing at him.
I hit him shield first, knocking him off balance, and then follow it with a burst of fire from my blade that he barely manages to roll away from, rising on one knee and dousing a stray fire on his pants. I don’t let him catch his breath, charging him, and slamming my sword into his shield again, forcing him further into the ground, but after the third blow cracks the wood he discards it and rolls to safety, coming up in a crouch, sword held out across his body. His left arm he cradles against his chest, and I hope, darkly, that I have broken it.
A protective stance.
A coward’s stance.
I run three steps and then leap into the air, casting my shield aside and bringing my blade down towards him with both hands. He parries desperately with his good arm, but only manages to deflect the blow slightly. My sword scrapes down the length of his face and cuts into his cheek before burying its point in the dirt, and I hear his flesh sizzle against metal.
It isn’t until the dust settles around us that the blood mist lifts from my eyes and I can see the fear in Viswa’s eyes. It isn’t until now that I realize how close I have come to killing my only friend in this world.
I let go of the sword and stagger back from Viswa’s prone form, my breath ragged and harsh. And before Varadha Guru can reach us I am fleeing back into the welcome prison of my chambers.
• • •
The festival is a garish affair, full of brightly colored tents hosting anything from food to art to mobile temples to brothels. Anything anyone wanted, they would find.
As long as they are not my father or me.
We sit separate from the crowd, inside one of the towering daises built to hold us above them — just another spectacle for them to gawk at on this day of splendor. This one overlooks an age-worn temple, the reliefs of gods and demons on its gopuram beaten into shapelessness by the winds of time.
A rain-soaked field surrounds it, and upon that field presently marches a contingent of Appa’s army. Spearmen in heraldic, opulent armor march dressed in the colors of my house, their trunks and foreheads painted with chandanam and kungumam.
I am bored beyond belief. Bored and miserable. All I can see is my blade as it cuts into Viswa’s cheek, the red blood that wells around it to run from his face like tears. I can smell his flesh burn against the blade, and it makes me want to vomit.
The first time we fought in earnest, and I tried to murder him. Guru was right not to let me fight outside the palace walls. Our dance was one of control, one where our emotions are channeled, not allowed to run wild like a startled herd. Ours is not an art that tolerates — or forgives — jealousy.
And yet there is still a damnable part of me that wishes I had done more to him, that wishes I had hurt him worse — proven my worth there so I might have taken what he had stolen from me.
I do not want to be at this festival. I want to curl up and die.
I am now glad not to be watching the kalaripayattu. I do not want to see Viswa’s bouts — do not want to give him the dishonor of bowing to me when he wins.
I hear the cheers that rise from the stands around the kalari. My ears perk at the sound, my hands turn clammy against my lap, and my tongue twitches for the taste of dust and sweat. If Appa notices my pain, he does not mention it.
Not until I turn briefly at one particularly immense roar.
The tournament is over. A winner has been found.
I turn back to the parade immediately, but that lapse is enough.
“Do you have regrets, Madhava?” Appa asks, his eyes never leaving the field before us.
I keep composure, my emotions hidden beneath the paint masking my face.
“No, Appa. I was simply distracted by the sound for a moment. It won’t happen again.”
“All will come in due time, Madhava,” he says.
But when?
• • •
Viswa no longer trains with me, no longer speaks with me. His name is renowned now, and his time is now too valuable to be wasted sparring with one who has no future.
Guru splits his time between us, though more and more of that is devoted to the burgeoning talent that is Viswa — his protege. I am a lost cause — my fire wanes, leaves behind an empty vessel.
My training grows lax, my will crumbles. If there is no chance I can test my skills outside these walls — if I am so delicate as to require a cage — then there is no purpose in me. There is no purpose in the beauty of my art.
“Your victory will be hollow,” I had told Viswa before our last fight, but those words themselves now ring hollow in my mind. He had found glory and pain outside this palace, had begun to carve his path. He had found life.
While I remain a burned-out husk.
When I finish my half-hearted practice, Viswa is still training. And despite my anger and my jealousy, I cannot help but marvel at his improvement. In but a year he has bridged the gap between us. Has surpassed me.
If we were to fight now, a small voice whispers in my mind, I would be beaten with ease.
He seems different now, older somehow. New scars stretch across taut skin where he has taken blows in real combat. I have not seen his fights, but I know he has lost as much as he has won, though with each fight the crowds grow more fond of him.
His scars serve as motivation, I presume — though I cannot see if the cut I left on him still persists.
He sees me watching, and his form wavers. He staggers to a stop, and winces as Guru slaps him over the back with a switch. His eyes meet mine for a moment, a breath that stretches an age. There is anger in them still, but there is also guilt — a mirror of my own face. And if there is turmoil in him, I do not want to see it. I turn away, break contact with him, and let my blade fall to the floor.
My tether to the fire withers to an ember and then dies out.
It is a concession, a signal.
Now we are severed, our paths diverged.
I wish him well.
Mine is a different destiny.
• • •
“The paint suits you, My Lord.” Appa’s attendant says.
He watches me from behind eyes lidded by smoke, studying, judging. Today I am wearing the mask of the king for the first time. The first step towards my fate being sealed. I check the mirror for cracks in my face, but there are none.
My dreams are those of the state. My wishes are those of my people. I have no face, no purpose. I am a conduit for the will of the masses.
I am become the perfect king.
• • •
A festival is held in my honor after I am named Crown Prince. A celebration so they might see the mask that will represent them for years to come. I am taken in a palanquin to the center of the city and raised to sit on a dais.
Sweat beads on my forehead, but still my makeup does not run. My heart hammers in my chest, but still my red lips smile. The mask is, and always must remain, perfect.
I listen, numb, to the crier reading out my name, and then inviting the public to come up to me. There are no guards flanking me, no protection in the event that someone bears me ill will.
A king must be defenseless in front of his people. Must trust them implicitly.
If they did choose to kill me, then it is my failing, not theirs.
My hands yearn for my sword and shield.
The faces melt into a mass of brown flesh, black holes cut through its bulk that open and shut in constant admonishment of me. My inadequacy.
The people give strength to those they love, but all they offer me is the abyss.
I am not fit to sit here.
I rise, half out of the chair, as the first person falls to the floor before me.
The assembled crowd falls to a pregnant silence, their energy thrumming in the air around me.
And then my vision focuses, and I see him.
Viswa lies prostrate before me, his scarred back glistening under the sun, his forehead pressed firmly to the floor. My eyes dart from him to Appa, who sits on a smaller throne to the side of the dais. His mask is perfect, unchanged even as mine threatens to fall from my face and break entirely.
“Viswa, get up.” I hiss, moving to grab him under the shoulders. Appa coughs, and I realize what I have almost done. I pull away, sit back down on my throne. And there, I wait.
It is not my place to lift one of my subjects — not my place to stop them. When Viswa chooses to rise, he will. I cannot touch him, cannot do anything to stem the wave of guilt that courses through me, that sets my skin ablaze under my mask.
When he rises, what will his eyes say? Will they gloat? Will they pity? Will he still bear the mark I gave him so many lifetimes ago?
I do not want to know the answers to these, but I am transfixed.
He stands up, head bowed low still.
“Your Grace, please allow me to seek your blessing on this most auspicious of days.” He begins, formal, wooden. Not a hint of familiarity in his voice.
My mouth opens and closes without sound, my tongue is sand rubbing against its roof.
He glances up when there is no response, his eyes meeting mine for the most fleeting of instants. And my questions are answered. Even as he turns his scarred face back down, I cannot mistake the expression he casts at me for anything but disappointment.
He sees me through mask and finery, and he finds me wanting.
My hands tremble, so I press them tight together and compose myself.
“What do you desire, my son?” I ask, my voice clear and loud, audible to the listening crowd. Practiced.
“I seek challenge, my lord.” His response draws a gasp from the crowd.
“Challenge?” The word is whispered, involuntary. I feel Appa’s gaze on me, equal measures stern and concerned. Viswa too looks up now, and I see something like hope flickering in his eyes.
Or is that simply a reflection of my own eyes?
“I have fought every kalari expert in the nation. I have honed my abilities beyond any others in this land. My blade and my mind are growing dull. I want to venture into the wider world and learn the arts they have to teach me.
“I want to find myself a purpose once more, and if I can have your blessing, I can begin this journey today.”
It is as if I have been speared in the stomach, a hole torn through me and left jagged and raw to the wind. I want to curl into myself, hide from these faces, these expectations. But Viswa’s returning gaze holds me in place. He is not yet finished, and I cannot escape him.
“I wish for a rival once more.” The sadness in his voice breaks me.
I do not remember the blessing I give unto him, do not remember the hundreds of others who touch my feet, who press chandanam onto my cheeks and forehead. Everything after Viswa is a blur, a spinning mess of color and flesh that makes me dizzy.
The procession is cut short eventually by rain, a cloudburst that takes us by surprise and sends all scattering for cover, drenched though we all are.
We hurry back to the palace, Appa and I, to preserve our painted dignity as far as we can. But once there, I leave him, wander to the kalari grounds. My old haunt, now quickly filling with monsoon water. There will be no using it for two months.
“Do you have regrets, Madhava?”
Appa has followed me back into the rain. The paint has run from his face, leaving it a patchwork of brown and white and red. But he is still regal, still perfect. Even the blemishes under his mask carry the weight of authority. Even now, he is a king.
Me? My mask was cracking even before the rain broke it. I stood in front of my people, and I was terrified of them. I looked into my only friend’s eyes, and I saw his disgust for what I had become, saw him mourn the loss of what I had been.
I am no king.
I can never be one.
“Yes.” I answer.
Relief seizes me, a rush so heady I worry I am drunk.
“This is not what I want.” I say, before the feeling passes. Now, I can speak my thoughts without worry.
“Then what do you want, Madhava?” Appa asks.
I meet his eyes, hold there. There is no backing away now, no averting my gaze.
“There is only one thing I have ever wanted, Appa.”
His lips purse, and he crosses his arms. Waiting. Inviting.
“I want to fight in the kalari.” I say.
But the words come out hollow. I sag, my pomp deflated. Is this not what I want?
Appa, of course, knows this.
“That isn’t entirely true, now, is it?” There is a smile in his tone, teasing. A secret he knows but won’t share. “Think deeper, my son. Tell me what you find in the depths of your soul.”
Kalari has been everything I have thought of, everything I have lived for these past years. What else could there be?
I wish for a rival.
I see.
“I want to catch Viswa.”
A spark lights in my chest, spreading warmth through me, beating back the rain-chill. A fire is reborn in my heart, fanned by a renewed ambition.
I have found purpose once more.
The mask is off, and it will never be worn again. But this is an abdication, a request to leave my duty behind. There is no way Appa will countenance it.
And that is why, when Appa hugs me, I feel as if the air has been punched from my lungs. It is an act so sudden, so imperfect, that it cannot belong to a king.
But it can belong to a father.
He pulls back, cups my face in his hands.
“Find him. And prove your worth, Madhava. This mask will be here for you when you are ready.”
I lean into his shoulder and begin to cry.
There is no king here, between us.
In this hallowed ground, under the cover of rain, we can finally be rid of that facade.
And come the morning, I will be nothing and no-one.