Chapter 16 - Mortal's fall.
FLASHBACK CONTINUES -
Time passed and Dhira forgot the conversation with his brother entirely. He had reached the peak of his life and saw no reason to look back at it.
He walked out of the red district in the early evening, the mace resting on his shoulder, the twin queens of that street having done something for him they had never done for anyone before. He counted it among his finer achievements. The road was busy and people moved around him the way they always did, reaching, greeting, staring. He waved most of them off. Tired, he said. He wasn't, but he wasn't in the mood and maybe the drinks had become a little too much.
A man reached anyway, fingers almost closing around his arm. "Just one blessing-" Dhira shifted slightly and the hand missed by inches.
"Later," he said without looking. Kids trailed him for a stretch, one jumping for the mace. He tilted it out of reach without turning his head. "Train first." The kid grinned like he'd been given something.
Dhira didn't return it.
Dhira felt his stomach making some upset noises. Maybe the vine had become a little too much.
He turned into an empty alley and vomited against the wall. The wine came up hard. When it was done he leaned there longer than he should have, breathing through his mouth, his face ragged, nothing like the figure the streets expected him to be. .
Another wave hit. He clenched through it, waited, then straightened and wiped his mouth. He looked at his hand with mild irritation and flicked it clean against the stone. "Just the wine," he said to himself. Like that settled it.
He had been about to move when he noticed a hunched figure on the ground nearby. He saw her for a moment, registered nothing of importance, and started walking the other way. Then the figure looked up.
Outside a storm was brewing in the sky .
The streets had thinned. Shops closing, curtains drawn, lamps dimming. Wind moved through the gaps lifting dust off the ground.
"Dhira." The bunched figure said .
The voice barely carried. He didn't stop. He adjusted the mace and kept moving into the wider road toward the older part of the city. "Dhira." A little louder. He exhaled through his nose.
"Not now."
She was in ragged clothes, someone he might have walked past a hundred times without seeing. But she had recognized him and now she was standing, which clearly cost her something. Her legs shook with every step. She almost fell twice before she reached the middle of the road.
She kept going anyway. "Dhira, wait." "Not now," he said again without slowing.
The weather had shifted. Dark clouds had rolled in above Daansara, thunder moving through them, wind picking up speed. Dust rose and blurred the road. Dhira didn't look up. The sky could fall, he'd walk the same.
She followed him calling his name with every breath, her voice breaking more each time. Then her foot slipped on loose dust and she hit the ground hard. The sound was small and got lost in the wind. Dhira's step paused for just a fraction.
Then continued.
She pushed herself up with shaking arms, failed, and stayed down, fingers pressed into the dirt.
"My husband is dead." The words came out low and dry, the way words sound when they've been said too many times.
Dhira stopped. Not because of what she said. Another wave from the wine hit him and he bent forward, one hand on his knee, the other pressed to his mouth. He breathed through it, straightened, wiped his face. His irritation had nowhere in particular to go.
He turned slowly and looked at her properly. Dust covered her face, illness in every line of it, but something beneath it that had once been different. He scanned her face and found nothing familiar. His expression shifted without meaning to. He didn't say it aloud but it showed. Who?
She dragged herself forward slightly, fingers scraping the ground.
"He died outside. Writhing in pain. Alone. No one helped him." Her shoulders began to shake. "I loved him so much." She wept, not loudly, just broken and steady. "You promised."
Dhira's eyes narrowed. Something surfaced. A gate. A crying beautiful woman. Guards standing back. Vijay beside him. The memory came up faint and incomplete.
"Oh." The word came out flat. He scratched his cheek.
"I don't remember," he said simply, like it was a minor administrative error. And he turned and started walking again.
The wind had become something with force behind it. Clothes above snapped and cracked. A wooden board somewhere slammed against a wall. Dust stung the eyes. The sky darkened further, clouds pressing lower, thunder shaking through them.
She watched his back. Her eyes followed him and what started as emptiness became something else climbing steadily upward.
"He used to admire you," she said. Her voice was quieter but it carried through the storm.
"He wanted to be like you. And when he needed help no one came." The wind roared between them.
"He fought for this kingdom. He was a strong warrior."
Dhira let out a short breath through his nose. Annoyed. Tired. Still drunk.
"Guess he wasn't strong enough to survive a mild cold." He didn't turn when he said it.
The silence that followed was not the kind that comes on its own. It landed. Her breath stopped. Her hands went still.
Something inside her shifted past grief entirely and became something sharper, something that had been compressed into too small a space for too long. Her eyes fixed on his back.
"DHIRA."
The scream tore out of her and through the storm. Anger, real and uncontrolled, louder than the wind, louder than the thunder building in the clouds. She picked up a sharp rock from the ground. Dust rose around them and began to obscure everything. "DHIRA." Her voice shook but not with weakness. "I, wife of Saveen, curse you." The sky trembled at the word and Dhira who had been walking was forced to stop, the wind and dust cutting his sight to nothing.
"DHIRA." Her voice was swallowed by the storm but it still reached him. All of it reached him.
Next day.
Dhira woke with sweat on his forehead.
His chest was moving fast. He stared at the ceiling for a moment with unfocused eyes before sitting up and pressing his palm against his head. The ache behind his eyes was heavy.
"That damn wine," he muttered. He stood and told himself it had ruined his day. Said it like a fact. Like that would make it one.
He walked toward the bathing area rolling his neck. The itch was there again. Faint and under the skin. He ignored it and reached for the water pot. Empty. He shook it. Nothing. He stepped out.
"You!" The nearby worker flinched immediately. "Where's the water?" The man lowered his head. "A shortage, my Lord. The wells- " Dhira didn't let him finish. His voice rose.
"I want water. Now." The man stepped back stammering. Another servant spoke, hands folded. "It will be arranged soon, please-" A clay pot hit the wall and shattered.
Dhira stood breathing harder, the itch spreading to his back and neck. He scratched his arm once, hard, looked at the mark it left and ignored it.
"I want a bath." "My Lord, it's not possible right now-" He stepped forward.
"Then make it possible." Nobody moved. The wind outside had picked up faintly. He turned and knocked over another vessel on his way out without looking back.
Minutes later he was at the edge of the kingdom. The mace on his shoulder, his steps fast and irritated. Each jump covering more ground than it needed to.
The sea appeared wide and flat and he dropped straight into it without slowing. The water came up around him and he stayed under for a moment then surfaced and dragged his hand through his hair. Better. He moved deeper and scrubbed his arms and chest hard, trying to reach whatever the itch was. It didn't go. He scrubbed harder. His skin reddened. The itch stayed. Not on the surface. Something deeper. He stopped and floated there, breathing slower. "Just tired," he said. Same tone as before. Same lie.
He stepped out eventually, the sun having moved further than he'd tracked. He dressed and walked back with the same calm face and steady steps. Inside the kingdom people watched him this time without greeting him. No smiles. Just look. He noticed and kept moving.
Vijay was already walking toward him, concern clear. "Dhira, what happened earlier, you- " Dhira opened his mouth to answer and stopped. His hand went to his head. Something sharp hit behind his eyes, harder than before. His vision blurred. The ground shifted slightly beneath him.
"Dhira?" Vijay moved forward fast. Dhira tried to hold himself upright. "Nothing," he started. His knees gave. Vijay caught him before he reached the ground. "DHIRA." No response. His weight was wrong, too heavy, too still. Vijay's grip tightened around him and he looked up sharply. "Get a medic. Now."
.