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.

The shadows across the ground were longer, indicating the sunset was nearer. A fluttering thought of Suvanna and her candles occurred to her as she crossed the gravel path leading towards the princess's wing. The lotus garden was as deserted as she guessed it would be and they stopped halfway across the bridge. It would be a miracle if anyone from either side of the lake managed to relay their conversation to an interested party.

"He wouldn't be in pain," she offered cautiously. "But you owed him a farewell..." He did not reply, gazing away aimlessly. She waited another moment for a response, before reaching out a hand to cover his on the ornate railing. "Sanskar? Sanskar!"

He looked at her as if waking up from a deep sleep, his eyes a hue of mossy green that reminded her of the shady depths of Indra back at Kaldwaara.

"I'm not supposed to be there," he said absentmindedly, "she asked me to leave." His voice cracked before he swallowed his grip on the railing so tight that his knuckles turned white. Once he had started to speak, although he made no sense to her, it seemed he knew not how to stop. It unsettled her further. The Sanskar she knew had never been so vulnerable. "I shouldn't be there. I shouldn't stay... She won't let me. She won't like it."

"Sanskar!" She spoke loud enough to breakthrough his trance, hands cupping his face, bringing his eyes down in level with hers. "Breathe... just breathe."

He exhaled almost immediately and leant over pressing his forehead against her shoulder, breathing deeply just as she had instructed. Swara staggered a step backwards, before she had manage to balance the weight that had collapsed on her.

"I've got you," she muttered and leaned against the railing, holding his shoulders as his frame relaxed and pattered him on the back. "Just let it go... Let it go."

Images sank into her mind of memories that were never hers. She did not recent him for letting go of the restraint he had on his mind against her, as at the same time she had forgotten all about the power she kept locked inside her. She watched as an indigo twilight bleed into the barren lands of Asanikshestra, where the Vajra was dying, Aithne buried deep inside his body. Sanskars last exchange with his father was still heavy on her conscious when the scene was replaced by Arunas farewell. She was the one who had asked him to go. The mother who did not want to leave him with a memory that would scar him forever. There were glimpses of others as well, too little fragments of memories that she did not recognize who they were. But each pang of guilt as bitter as the one before.

"It's snowing," said a girl, her eyes bright with wonder as the memories finally faded away.

Swara found her own eyes tear drenched as she opened them. She blinked away the tears, swallowing the bitter after taste those memories had left on her mouth and found him looking at her, his eyes still haunted and distant. She raised a hand automatically, resting it against his cheek, her thoughts still on those bittersweet memories of his first love.

"And still you won't hate me?" He asked her darkly, pulling away from her. She looked down, at his fists curled into balls not giving in to the temptation of embracing her again.

"I'm sure they didn't hate you either, no one asks for such big sacrifices from those they hate." Her fingers waved into his hair as she ignored his attempt to push her away and stroked gently. "They were too busy in fighting their battles that they forgot to mention how much they love you." His eyes closed for a brief moment and he sighed.

"You love too easily," he muttered half in wonder and half in reproach.

"And you're too easy to love," she turned the words on him before courage had failed her. Setting aside her intentioned to be sorted out late, she reached and brushed her lips against his, tasting his surprise with a smile of her own.

He was frozen for a moment, watching her hoping that she would drop her gaze or walk away, one of his hands holding the crook of her elbow unconsciously. She did neither, her warm golden eyes holding his green ones, something tender stirring in their depths Reminding him again how little she was like any other girl he had encountered. It was neither the sympathy, which he dared, nor some spell that he despised. Sanskar was running out of excuses to resist the pull that he felt towards her and oddly enough, he felt himself caring less as each wall between them collapsed.

"What is it that you want me to do?" He asked her in the end, mesmerized by the way her golden orbs glittered in the weak sunlight.

"Be selfish a little," she replied almost at once. "Not all memories hurt, not everyone leave." He shook his head, almost turning away from her. The potential of the image her words painted was too much, too tempting and too frightening at the same time. He knew that he could not, should not feel all that she was making him feel. Her hold on his arm was unrelenting as she spoke the last few words. "I'm not one for making big promises. But I will not be the first to leave, if you care enough to turn around and look, I'd still be there. I will always be there, unless you throw me away yourself."

He had not realized he had been craving it until an anchor was offered to him. The feeling that soared inside him frightened him by its energy. He knew it almost instantly that there would be no other for him but her, no matter what the fate dictated.

The sun sank lower into the edge of their horizon, leaving a trail of faint stars and wispy clouds behind. Her embrace was sweet, she smelled like home, he dipped his head and took her lips into a kiss that sealed whatever words she had uttered before.

**