Page 56 of The Divine Lies We Weave

“I wish I could explain,” Rajesh whispered. “I wish I could tell you. All of it.”

She frowned and snapped her gaze to his. “What does that mean?”

“I… I can’t love you.”

“Can’t, or don’t? They have a similar meaning.”

“They don’t.” His tone was almost as if he were begging for her to understand.

But what and how could she understand this? He didn’t love her. Why couldn’t he just tell her that?

“Please…” Rajesh started, reaching for her.

But Leela had had enough. She stormed out of the hut and marched off to the river. She suddenly felt dirty, like everything she had done with Rajesh stunk, and she couldn’t get it off.

She loved him.

Loved him with all her heart and now…

Now he didn’t…

Just like that.

Done.

Nothing.

Leela burst into tears and landed on the outskirts of the village near the tree line. She had no idea if anyone was around her, not that she cared. All she could feel was the excruciating hollowness ripping her from the inside out. Tears streamed down her face, forming a puddle between her quivering fingers.

So many tears.

So much heartache.

Leela had no idea how long she was curled up under the trees until a loud crack splintered the skies.

She sat up and stumbled to her feet as the wall around their village shattered in the distance. A gasp clogged in her throat as she stared at a pair of red eyes peering over the wall. Thick fingers grasped the wall and crumbled it to pieces like it was bread.

Leela knew it wasn’t a furybeast, or a drakion, or even a gullomer.

It was a lustisha. A thing of myth.

But it wasn’t.

Clay hit the earth.

People scrambled and screamed.

Candle lights flickered on, and weapons blazed in the skies.

Then the drakion attacked, climbing over the wreckage and sinking their teeth into flesh.

Leela’s heart pounded in her ears like thrashing waves. She gathered her skirts and ran. Ran despite her heartbreak. Ran despite it all. She needed to get to her family before the drakion killed them.

People took to the streets with weapons, trying to cut the drakion down. Leela ran by a hut where a man attacked a drakion, cleaving it in two. But it wasn’t enough. Her village weren’t fighters. They were farmers. His sword was useless against the drakion, and soon another one cut him down, two more jumped on him and tore into his flesh.

Leela refused to vomit. She ran harder toward her family’s hut on the other side of the village. Smoke choked the air. Flames lit brighter and brighter.

The lustisha bellowed through the village, feet smashing against roofs, and it continued to look as if searching for something.