Happy Christmas! I hope you are all cosy and warm and with your families this holiday. Here goes a little present to light up the cherry atmosphere. With this we officially begin the tale of Arya; Agni - An elven tale.
Please do vote and let your thoughts be known in the comments. I'd be thrilled to hear from you!
Cheers!
||Started on 25th of December 2017||

GREED OF LIFE

“There was no fire like passion,

No shark like hatred,

No snare like folly,

There was no torrent like greed…”

- Buddha

“Prince” it was a title with no meaning. He had never felt the opulence or the safety the word promised. It was always associated with loss, anticipation and peril from the time he could remember. A prince he was, yet a prince he could never be. He was always too busy looking over his shoulder, running away from a blade thirsty for his blood. A prince he would no longer be…

Nitya paused outside the high double doors that lead to the queen’s study and his senses reeled. Noticing the blood dripping along the edge of his blade to the mirror – like marble below, the guardsmen slipped away – probably to alert more men. He could not care less, as he pushed open the door, knowing his stepmother would be inside unaware of what he had done a moment before. He had never been one of Devi Nanda’s favorites. There was distaste in the woman’s eyes whenever she looked at him. He was not sure if it was because of the predictions associated with his name or it had always been like that, even before that incident. Another thing, he could care less. For Nitya, he had always been a marked man; ever since that assassin from Akshasena pressed a blade to his throat.  

Unconsciously, his hand went to his throat, where a jagged scar remained. It was the only souvenir of that attack, so long ago. He still remembered that man sent to kill him, Nitya had often pictured death with a semblance of likeness to that man. He was clothed in black, a hood pulled over his head, black ink running in lines twisted like serpents down his forearms and the back of his palm. His eyes were strangely black, or a dark purple that was almost black and they were distant. They were not cold, like he would have expected from a murderer, they were sharp and closed off, he met Nitya’s gaze with no guilt, his gaze unflinching. And a strange calmness fell over him, like a trance or oddly enough like the man had usurped his ability to feel fear. Still, he could think, and he could not help but ask.

“Why must you kill me?”

He knew exactly how small his voice sounded. However, he was not afraid, he was simply curious for he could see that man was no murderer. He was far too honorable and skilled for that. Even at a tender age, Nitya was no fool. He was equipped to hold the responsibilities that came with being the eldest born of the king of Vajras. He could read a man when they stood in front of him, even if it was the first time they were meeting him. The man’s hand shook a tad bit, but Nitya’s gaze did not waver and the man sighed.

“Or your father will die,” he responded then, surprising both of them with his answer.

“I am the prince of Vajras,” Nitya spoke again, although slowly. All he wanted was to bid sometime, until a guard walked over, until someone decided to check on him, or simply until he could find the right moment to scream for help. “Do you know the cost of laying your hands on me?”

The man shook his head not because he did not know but to gather his thoughts.

“I wish it had been different too,” he said in the end. “But you must die, or many others will.”

The words and the haunting tone in which he had spoken them hung over him as he stepped across the threshold into the thickly carpeted study of Devi Nanda. Blood dripped on the expensive carpet from the blade loosely held on his injured arm. He had spent a decade hating that assassin, telling himself that the man did not know what he talked about. He had spent the next decade fighting off the shadows of death that crept too close to him. Now, he just knew, the man had spoken the truth.

In that last moment before the queen raised her elegant head to look at him from the scrolls she had been studying, Nitya mused if he had come to the right place. Should he have visited his assassin first? He knew that man was still there in the prison of Vajras, Agnimandal. Perhaps nobody would have understood him better than his killer.

“Prince?” the older woman sucked in a loud breath, taking in the profile of the blood drenched young man in front of her. Her ice blue eyes went, wide before she stood up, her arms shaking. For a moment, Nitya felt lightheaded and he thought Nanda would call out for guards. Before a second thought could hold him back he collapsed on his knees, sword digging into the plush carpet and head bowed. A drop of blood tickled from the cut on his brow down his nose and fell on the cream color pattern.  

“Punish me, My lady – I am your culprit.”

“Nitya!” Nanda approached him, her hands still shaking, her eyes still wide. If possible, her pale skin looked even paler and her lips trembled as she reached out and laid a hand on the prince’s shoulder. “What have you done? Tell me, were you attacked again?”

The laughter that bubbled out of his mouth, at that reminder of the last conversation he had with her was bitter. It had been at the winter festival the queen had organized. The only time someone had attempted to kill him inside the capital of Vajras, in the very citadel of the king, Agnidyut. He recalled only Nanda had seemingly cared about the whole affair, since it had been she who organized the entire event and invited him, in spite of them living in different parts of the kingdom. His stepmother was no evil woman contrary to the popular belief. It was just that, she was wary of him; and she had been rightly so. He laughed bitterly at the irony of the situation. Only, he did not care anymore. He would have simply laid down his weapons had it not been his mother’s last wish. She had wanted to see him alive, to know that he would live long after she is gone and had made him vow the same. Nitya could no longer let his father kill him in front of her eyes.

“You’d ask me what his fault was,” He said cynically. “I’d say it was his greed to live. But then, my lady, the same is my reason for killing him and my shortcoming too. You see, I am too greedy to live, just like my father. Perhaps, the two of us were too alike than either of us would have cared to accept.”

If Nanda understood something, she fought well to keep her face blank. Instead she stepped closer and directly in front of the kneeling prince and grabbed his shoulders, her grip vice like and unrelenting. Nitya looked up, his silvery gaze blood – shot and teary.

“Do you know who had been trying to kill me all these years?”

“Wasn’t it the rebels?”Nanda offered.

“It was him. Your husband, my father, our king,” Nanda clasped a hand to her mouth and stumbled backwards, tripping over her own skirts until she grabbed the edge of the table to maintain her balance. Nitya answered her question before she had formed the words. “Ever since he had known mother was dying, he had been trying to get rid of me.” Now that he had uttered those words, somehow it felt more real to him. But the bitterness was all the same, the words still acidic. “Can you imagine why?”

“You’re the first born. The bond, if she dies – that would mean – that he – that the king – Goodness – Did he?”

Nitya hung his head.

“Forgive me!” He said again, not bothering to affirm her doubts.

The next time she spoke, Nanda’s tone was strident.

“Tell me Prince, what have you done?”

“Mother made me promise. The last batch of assassins sent to Agnibhavan. She saw me fighting them, she saw me injured. In the condition that she was, it was not something she could take.”

Nanda paced impatiently. As if this was not what she wanted to hear. Still she did not say that to the prince, for she dared what came next and to some extent she already knew.

“What did you promise her?”

“That I will live, no matter what, at whatever cost…”

Nanda covered her face with her shaking hands and wept silently.

“No! NO! No!”

“Even if it meant I must take another’s life.”

A pause followed his words in which their gazes met once more. The bitterness in Nitya’s silver eyes made Nanda flinch as she looked into them. She knew his confession before the actual words came.

“And I killed him. I killed the man who would have otherwise killed me.” With a shrill cry that shook the silence around them Nanda collapsed to her feet. “The prophecy was right wasn’t it? I truly was to be his doom. I don’t know why the eye thought he was the better man from the both of us that should be saved, but either way, there’s a man who was imprisoned for acting upon those words. I think he deserves his freedom, now that all of it had been true…the ministers would agree wouldn’t they? Perhaps they would suggest that I should take his place in Agnimandal? Tell me what it will be my lady, how would you punish the man who killed your king?”

“He was your king too Nitya.”

“No. No he wasn’t. He ceased to be my king the moment he decided he could kill his child to continue living, the moment he forgot his mortality.”
“Are you sure you’re not doing the same thing? Did you not kill your father so that you could continue living?”

When he looked at her, there was a bitter smile twisting Nitya’s lips.

“No. I did it because I made a promise,” his reply was cynical. “You may kill me if you so decide. But, I’d like to see that man once before I die.”

“Why must you?”

“He should know how it happened in the end. He should know I was no monster who committed patricide.”

“And what does that change?”

“I don’t know, it’ll made me sleep easier.”

Nanda scrambled back to her feet unsteadily just as the guards broke into the study. The man had their arms at ready, some of them already pointing at the kneeling prince, while the others eyed the queen keenly awaiting further instructions. Nitya kept his eyes on Nanda’s face, waiting for her to pronounce his punishment.

“Prince Nitya,” Nanda started and paused, looking at the guards with a steely gaze. “Comes baring the most unfortunate news. The king has been murdered, by the rebels.” The guards and the prince sucked in a breath of disbelief for two completely different reasons. “Sound the bells, gather the ministers, protect your capital.”

The men bowed, their faces still painted in various degrees of shock and made haste to leave. Nanda approached her stepson and offered her hand for him to get up which he did, still staring at her bewildered.

“Mustn’t you hate me?”

“My dear prince, perhaps once you’ve lived in this castle for as long as I have, you will understand, life as a royal is not that simple. There are thousands of shades between black and white.”

“I’d have thought you’d kill me.”

“Oh, someone will die tonight. But it will not be you. Please be rest assured. Your secret is safe with me and I shall protect you in the future. In fact, it will start tonight. Tonight the two people who know of this…” she waved a small hand dismissively. “Prophecy, other than us, will die.”

“And in return what must I do?”

An icy smile twisted the corners of Nanda’s lips as she turned to Nitya.

“Good. You’re a fast learner. For now remember this, it was me who washed the blood in your hands. I will collect my price when the time comes. In the meantime, keep the promise you made to your mother. Live and live well. I will take care of the rest.”

Nitya bit back the questions heavy on his tongue and bowed as he went out, leaving a little more than his loyalty at the mercy of the new queen regent of Vajras.

**

The sound of rough sea was no lullaby; like shrieks of drowning souls it haunted the isle of Agnimandal. Waves splattered against the stone walls constructed in a time lost to living memory and thunder roared in the sky above, splitting the navy sky into two with heather strokes of lightening. Clouds of mauve hurried away from the cracking heavens, drenching the dark stone fortress below with an untimely downpour. One such blinding flash lit the eastern side of the fortress, for a split second casting an electric blue light on the dark stones of one intimidating giant watchtowers of the structure and a peculiar shaped shadow flatted itself against the wall it had been scraping.

The weary guard inside the watchtower crouched closer to the feeble fire burning inside a metal burner did not notice it. Instead, the man tried in vain to absorb some warmth to his shivering fingers, muttering curses at the storm, the superiors, knights, ministers and least of all the prisoners he was doomed to watch over. Even in sunny days, Agnimandal was no cheerful place. A perpetual fog hung over the fortress and a chill that you feel in your bones lingered. According to the folklore the walls were made of cursed stones that sucked the magic of the inhabitants. It was no wonder no one had ever breached its walls. Agnimandal was a cursed prison, that its inhabitants needed no further punishments.

The guard was not enthusiastic to be there either. Most of the soldiers of Vajrateerta aspired to be a part of the king’s guard, or at the very least to join the border watch. It was the worst post to be part of the prison guard, and the worst of all to be sent to the isle of Agnimandal. This man had once served under the king’s guard a few years before as a guard to the young prince Nitya. The prince no longer lived with the king. Not since the Akshasena attacked him. And the queen mother had replaced all the men who were inside the Agnidyut fortress at the time of the attack; sent them to the furthest corner of the kingdom she could manage.

The man cursed his own fate that had him at the wrong place that night. It was the first and last time he had done duty in the prince’s chambers. He wondered whether it was part of the curse of the prison; that in nights like these when the sky burned with lightening he recalled the stormy night in which he faced the Assassin. He had been ordered to forget that face, the deadly calmness dawned over those features and the cold fire with which his purple gaze burned. All these years he had been trying to, unsuccessfully.

Only four people from the entire population of Vajrateerta knew the cause of the murderer, the prophecy made by the eye.

This guard was one. The queen was another. The prince himself was the third.  

The man muttered something else about storm-eyed people and stretched out his wrinkled hands once more towards the fire, before freezing in mid movement. The next flash of lightening caught the silver blade held against his throat by a cloaked figure.

Before the pain and the darkness of death welcomed him, the guard thought of the last man who knew of the prophecy and knew the identity of the man who would someday commit regicide; the anonymous prisoner of Agnimandal.

*

The rain hit him like an ice-cold whip. Each drop heavy on his shoulders where the drenched layers of clothing weighed him down and stinging on his eyes as Agni fought to keep them opened. All of it was for the sake of a man who had not forgiven him yet. Not that he wanted it. Agni knew that Mohan was many things, yet forgiving he was not especially when the matter in question was a betrayal of their fundamental values; the code of Akshasena. In the decades gone by, he had tried to tell himself that it matter no more. Agni was no longer a member of that group of assassins; instead, he was an honored member of the Vajra spies, known as the Skia. He was no longer bound by the oath to the eye, or led by the whims of fate instead he answered to the call of Vajra throne now.

It was a sweet illusion to live by for some time, not forever. It offered him no comfort when he was sent to deliver death to a man who had once been a comrade, a brother although not by blood by many other things that a man like Agni valued more than blood. It was then Agni knew he would be becoming a traitor again.

With the short dagger that he carried always in spite of the numerous other weapons that he had concealed on his person, he cut loose the bindings at the other man’s wrist trying not to meet his burning violet eyes. It was a hard thing to do, not the cutting, avoiding Mohan’s gaze. The moment their eyes collided Agni flinched at the unremorseful hatred Mohan flashed at him.

“Traitor!” He muttered under his breath.

“As much as I’d appreciate the fact that you are very much in your senses,” said Agni curtly. “I’d rather you keep your mouth shut, until we make it out of these cursed walls.”

“Whatever made you think I’d be doing your bidding?” Mohan snapped at him, standing up as soon as his bounds were cut.

“Nothing much; just the tiny fact that I am saving your life...”

“Not something I begged you to do huh?”

For a moment, Agni stopped checking the strength of the knot he used to secure the rope and turned to his ex – best friend. He had grown up hearing tales of tougher people who went mad inside the cursed walls of Agnimandal. In fact, he could already feel the essence of its charm weakening his aura. Nevertheless, the man in front of him, who had already spent two decades inside the Vajra prison, seemed hardly touched by the dark magic of those walls. Though he was thinner, his already high cheekbones apparent more than ever and his complexion a grayish white, his resolve was rigid as it ever was and his hatred bitterer.

An incident flickered in his memory, pulling him back to the last time he had ever seen the eye and his two best friends. The three of them were supposed to go on their separate ways for different missions that night and the eye was supposed to bless them for the future journey. Agni remembered her words as the eye watched over them, she had already made a prediction for each and they were only her parting words.

“The three of you will never fight for the same side again. Strange it is, how one beginning can lead to so many different destinations, how similar losses end in different gains, how one of my own will end up causing my death.”

“It wasn’t me,” he said in the end waking up from his brief trip down the memory lane. “I was not the traitor.”

Mohan snorted.

“Says the man who sold his loyalty to a king who killed the woman he swore his allegiance to.”

“Soldiers who live must do that.” There were footsteps thundering up the stairs and Agni bit his lip, an unconscious hand reaching for the quiver of arrows on his back. “We must leave now!” He added hastily. “I’m sure the queen has sent more people for the job.”

“Tell me old friend, where exactly does your loyalty lie?”

“You’d know that soon.” Agni replied, offering the rope to Mohan with a meaningful look. It took the man only a few moments to secure it around his waist and reach for the ledge of the tower they were standing on. At the same time Agni readied his bow and pointed it at the mouth of the staircase. He turned to Mohan with an irritated expression as the latter fiddled with the rope in his hands. “The show is over,” he said curtly. “Jump, will you?”

“Why do I feel like I’m going to regret this?”

“Oh you fool!” Agni cursed as an arrow flew past them and hit the ledge. Without replying Mohan reached out for the dagger, Agni had used earlier to cut his binds and threw it, towards the man who had his crossbow pointed at Agni, catching him between the eyes. The man fell over, sending the two that came after him tumbling down the stairs.

“I’d rather not owe my life to you,” he said then, stepping on to the ledge and turning around to look at Agni. “You saved me, I saved you. Fair and square…!”

Before Agni could even think of a reply to his last sarcastic remark Mohan jumped off, just as he had been instructed before and Agni watched him vanishing in to the dark abyss of night and storm below with the grace of a bird cutting through the torrents of rain.

**