Vajra An Elven Tale

Chapter 24 B

Old wounds that bleed

She needed no foresight to smell the death that lingered in the air. The older man was laying on one of the makeshift beds in the dingy room, his wounds tended to, but in vain. He was not sleeping, although he had his eyes closed. The steady rhythm of his breathing a mere illusion of the practice of years he had in the arena. These men, who had survived so many emulations no longer, feared death. In a sense, it was the only way to freedom that they knew of.

The other warriors huddled up in the room, some out of respect for their dying senior and some tending to wounds of their own, parted as she entered. Most of them filled out, leaving the healer to do her job. Some still lingered in the shadowy corners, taking the scene with troubled eyes, talking in low voices or simply re applying a paste into their own cuts and bruises.

When she had packed Mohan's healing stones, Swara had faintly wished never to use them. There were seven in total, pearl white and round, those stones were used to num the pain where it cannot be healed. As Sanskar had requested before, to ease someone's passing. She placed one of those on his forehead, another on the base of his throat when the man's eyes blinked open. He watched her wordlessly for a moment as if trying to comprehend her actions and at the same time rein in his labored breathing. She felt a flicker of pity for the warrior finally defeated, by power rather than strength if it had been Lakshya by means that had never been just.

"It doesn't bother me, you don't have to do this..." His voice was a rough wheezing, words hardly distinct. She stopped the weak arm he raised to remove the stone resting at his throat, by holding his wrist.

"Consider it my gratitude for your sacrifice," she said cautious not to hurt his pride. "You saved a life that is precious to me."

The man coughed, but made no further attempt to protest with what she was doing.

"Wasn't doing it for you," he muttered, his eyes fluttering shut. "Was making amends for myself. For my failures," his words became a distant mummer, before he opened his eyes again and looked at her.

"Do you know who he is?" He asked rather sharply, "Why he is hunted?"

She did not reply, not sure if the man knew what she did or he merely assumed things himself. However, his last question caught her by surprise.

"Hunted?" She repeated rather puzzled. It had been Lakshya under the trance of Aithne. It could not be an assassination plot in the middle of an already deadly game could it? By the time she looked back at him, collecting her thoughts Keshav had his eyes closed, his lips twisted into a painful smile.

"You remind me of her, confident but ignorant ...Too innocent to survive the vilest of all elves... Akashanagara is no place for you."

"Who are you talking about?" Her own voice had dropped into a whisper at this point. Her eyes noticed the shadows that still lingered around them.

"Parjanya..."

**

Sometimes, the knowledge she had of him scared her. Swara knew Sanskar would not come to see Keshav as she tendered him. But she also knew that he wouldn't leave. It had taken a while, but she was beginning to understand the loathing that came with having to stand aside and let others die for you. It was an essential burden of the crown he was born to bear, a burden he had been brought up to put up with, however, it was a burden that still haunted him from time to time.

When she met him again, just outside the chamber, those shadows brewing in his eyes were prominent. This time it was she who took his hand, led him away from those reminders of old wounds. He had not protested, although she suspected whether he was consciously making that decision. Something had cracked inside him, no doubt by the incidents that had led to Keshav's condition. It had snapped the thread that kept the rational and calculative, political animal called Yuvraj Sanskar grounded. He looked lost, unsure and unsettled. She did not like that haunted look in his eyes.