“No, they said it was one of the elephants of the gods.” His voice grew more excited as he spoke. “A white elephant.”
My eyes widened. White elephants were incredibly rare, and even seeing one at a distance was considered a great blessing. The stories said that the first white elephant had risen out of the churning of the ocean.
But it was the middle of the night, and we were in unfamiliar forests.
“Come on, Kaikeyi,” he cajoled. “Nobody will know.”
I could never resist Yudhajit for long. I shooed him out and quietly pulled on a dark kurta before joining him outside. It was a few days before the full moon, so there was ample light to navigate by, but the cold silver glow gave the forest an eerie cast. I suppressed a shiver and followed Yudhajit as he confidently plunged into the woods.
“How do you know where to go?”
“Elephants need water, right? We have to find a pool.”
As far as I knew, Yudhajit had no interest in geography. “This is a huge forest. We’re searching for one animal within it.” I turned and looked back toward the camp, which was nearly obscured by the tall trees, their branches swaying slightly in the wind. “Are you certain about this?”
“I’m praying to find it,” Yudhajit said. “You should be praying to Lord Ganesha too. With his guidance, I am sure we will be blessed to see it.”
I stared at Yudhajit’s back for a moment, envious of his easy confidence. Then I followed him once more.
We remained silent as we marched, wary of garnering the attention of any passing predators. At some point, we twined our fingers together, not wanting to get lost in the darkness caused by the thick canopy. Just when my feet were beginning to tire, and I was going to suggest we turn back, Yudhajit gave a soft gasp. “Do you hear that?”
I strained my ears and, after a moment, heard the soft murmur of water. “A stream!” We rushed forward with new energy.
Soon we could see light glinting off running water. “Slow down,” he whispered. “If it’s there, we don’t want to scare it.”
But as we stepped cautiously toward the tree line, my spine tingled and a chill ran through me. Something was very wrong. I moved in front of Yudhajit, trying to tell myself I was being irrational, and peered between two thick trunks.
I stuffed my thumb in my mouth and bit down on it to keep myself from shouting, flinging out my other hand to hold Yudhajit back. “We have to go,” I whispered.
“What is it?” he asked, jostling me slightly to see. I clapped a hand over his mouth so he wouldn’t make any noise and felt his body stiffen against me.
On the other side of the stream stood a rakshasa.
It could not have been anything else. It was tall, taller even than some of the young trees that lined the water, with orange-red skin that gleamed, unnaturally slick in the moonlight. Its skin matched its eyes, orange pupils and yellow where there should have been white. It had horns breaking through its skull, like some fiendish ram, and from here I could see the sharp curve of two wicked white fangs protruding from its lips. It had four arms, each hand gripping a different weapon, casting twisted reflections in the water. And where it should have had feet, it instead had clawed paws, hairy and grotesque with sharp talons.
Even many years later, it would have been impossible for me to describe the naked fear that filled me at the sight. This monster could rip me limb from limb and drink my blood without a second thought. The frightening stories had not been frightening enough.
But just as suddenly as the fear came, it was replaced by clear thought. We needed to get away. I took a careful step backward, then another. Yudhajit remained standing, paralyzed. I tugged at his hand.
“It’s crossing the stream,” he whispered.
There was no time to spare on words. I pulled him this time, hard enough that he fell into me, though I maintained both our balances. This seemed to be enough to wake him from his trance, for his hand clasped mine more tightly as we backed away, one step after another.
Behind us came a mighty roar, and we broke into a run. I imagined the earth itself was shaking. I did not know if it heard us running, but we did not dare turn around for anything. My chest ached and my lungs screamed for air. When I felt as though I would falter, Yudhajit pulled me on. At last, at long last, we burst into the clearing where we had made camp, behind my tent once more. We stood there panting for several seconds, gulping in the air, before I could gasp out, “We must tell our father. If it comes to the camp—” I could not finish the sentence.
“We have plenty of soldiers,” Yudhajit said. “If they are prepared, they could slay it.”
“But they are not prepared.”
Yudhajit’s mouth twisted into a grim expression, and then he set off without a word toward the center of camp. “We must see the raja immediately,” Yudhajit said, drawing himself up as tall as he could get outside of our father’s tent.
The soldier guarding his tent seemed unimpressed. “It is the middle of the night, Yuvraja. You can speak with him in the morning.”
“We must speak to him now,” Yudhajit said. Before, I would have ordered the soldier to do so in the Binding Plane. But now I simply waited with Yudhajit, afraid of using the Plane after what I had done to my bond with Neeti.
The soldier held Yudhajit’s gaze for another moment, then nodded sharply and entered the tent. Yudhajit turned to me, reaching for my hair and pulling a leaf from it. I gave him a small smile, just as the soldier returned to beckon us in.
Our father was standing, still in his sleeping clothes, looking quite annoyed. “What is it, at this hour?”
“There is a rakshasa coming toward the camp,” Yudhajit said confidently.
My father raised his eyebrows. “And how would you know this?” To my ears, his tone sounded slightly mocking.
Yudhajit turned toward me, the panic evident. We could not admit to sneaking out of camp, but we had to give our father proof. “I had a dream about it,” I blurted out.
“You woke me about a bad dream?” Anger was seeping into my father’s tone.
“I had it too,” Yudhajit said quickly. “We both had the exact same dream about a rakshasa with orange-red skin and four arms. Headed toward us. That could only be a message from the gods.”
My father rubbed his chin, thoughtful. I clenched my hands at my sides. Of course my father believed Yudhajit’s identical story, without so much as considering what I had to say. “There have been reports of some horrible monster terrorizing nearby villages. I thought it a wild animal, but—” He broke off and strode toward the front of the tent to have a hushed conversation with the soldier there. Then he came and clapped Yudhajit on the shoulder. “You have done well to come to me about this. Did the gods see fit to show you where it was?”
“There’s a stream in the forest,” Yudhajit said. “To the south. It comes from there.”
“Good boy,” my father said. “Stay here. I will lead a party to put an end to this monster.”
At that moment, a servant came in and wordlessly began helping my father into his armor. Outside, we could hear the sounds of others conversing despite the dark hour. The whispers were growing, and I imagined the news spreading like wildfire from tent to tent, the camp rousing to the sound of weapons being prepared.
Once our father had departed, I sank to the earth floor of the tent, suddenly exhausted. Even the anger at my father was gone, for now he was marching to fight a rakshasa. My eyes pricked, thinking of the danger we had been in and the danger our father would soon be in. Yudhajit sat next to me, looking equally afraid. We sat for what seemed like an eternity and must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew a clamor was echoing all through the camp. Yudhajit sprang to his feet, racing for the tent entrance. He ran straight into our father.
“You were right, Yudhajit,” he said. His face was frightening in his grimness. “There was a rakshasa in that forest, and he looked to be coming for our camp. We were able to slay him, but not without a cost.”