Page 11 of The Divine Lies We Weave

To kiss Rajesh and hear his heartbeat.

She snapped her eyes open at the image of him. She had pushed every thought of Rajesh from her mind. What was the point when he’d broken her heart the night the lustisha attacked? A part of her wished he were still alive. Another part, the part still mending her heart, wished he weren’t.

“No,” she said.

Ishaan sighed. “Pity. I thought we could have done this without force, but your pretty friend led you to me, and I don’t see another choice. The Flame in my head has a very good feeling about you.”

Blood drained from Leela’s face. Every vertebra in her back froze. “A—Aarna? What’s she got to do⁠—”

Ishaan held up his hand. “When someone comes looking for a favor, you give them what they need. Especially now when the Raven has looked into your soul and knows what sort of person you are.”

Ishaan waved his hand at the guards and nodded.

Before she had the chance to speak, the guards pulled her into the middle of the room and held her down. Leela tried to shake them off, but they pushed her further into the stone platform. Her heart thundered louder than the storm snaking across the sky. Their hands were too strong, and Leela wasn’t much of a fighter. Not against these rebels, anyway.

Her thoughts raced. Too busy to focus on any. The fear of the unknown consumed her.

No…

No!

“Let me go!” she screamed.

She shoved and pulled. Bucked. Kicked. She even tried to bite. She knew how to run and lie through her teeth, but when those things were taken from her, she was nothing.

A shadow encased her moments later, and someone held her head down.

A haunting chant from the cloaked people around her rose with each of Leela’s hairs along her arms. Leela swore she saw more hooded figures approach, now standing closer to the middle, hands rising to the sky.

“Let us pray, on the night the moons are the most exposed, that this works. For both our sakes, Leela,” Ishaan whispered in her ear.

The chants continued to rise. Louder. Higher. Smoke choked her lungs, and through her panic, Leela watched as the flames twisted and thrived in a nearby drum, almost as if they were alive.

Ishaan turned to the flames and muttered something. With each word, the smoke twisted into the silhouette of a woman, the edges wavering, the flames melting to form two golden eyes.

Shit.

The smoke slithered over the floor toward Leela like a black pool of scales.

Leela thrashed one more time, but before she could do anything, a hot, searing pain gripped the base of her neck. It spread through her body, heating every bone and muscle, and tore through her organs in a fiery trail.

She barely registered the guards letting go as she screamed, lips wrenching wide and head pounding. She dug her fingernails into her skull. Whatever was trying to take over was rooting into every part of her, causing her mind to splinter into a thousand different directions, and Leela wasn’t sure if she was sitting or standing, or even alive anymore.

Pain filled every vein and blood vessel, like they encased each one in a hot pool of lava.

Her skull rattled.

Blood stung her tongue.

Her body quaked and ached.

Hisssssss. There you are.

Then darkness cradled her into its warm embrace.

4

LEELA