her body down across his knee, smashing her spine across his leg.
Asha crashed to the ground, breathless. She blinked, and then felt her arms and legs moving.
I’m alive. And I’m not hurt. But this has to end, now.
But still she lay on the ground, her chest heaving as her lungs struggled to recover the wind that had been forced out of them as she struck the man’s bent leg.
“No! Asha!”
Priya?
Asha rolled over and looked up to see the blind nun running out into the street, her long black hair full of white lotus blossoms flying out behind her. From her shoulder, the mongoose Jagdish leapt to the ground in a bolt of light brown fur. She was running across the road, running out toward Asha, running straight toward the robed man with the beastly head.
“Priya, no!”
The nun tried to stop, but she only stumbled into the robed man’s hand as it reach out to grab her by the throat, lift her off the ground, and hurl her back down into the dirt. Her head bounced sharply on the corner of a stone, and her arms splayed out to her sides.
“Priya!” Asha sat up and the world spun drunkenly to the side as she gasped for breath.
The nun did not move. Jagdish darted away. A light breeze lifted some of the dust and cast it over the still body.
“PRIYA!” Asha began to crawl toward her.
The nun lay still and silent.
“PRIYA!” Asha stopped and stared. Priya’s blindfold her torn free and now her beautiful face lay bare and as still as stone.
No, no, no, please get up, please, please, please get up, Priya…
Asha ceased to exist. The last thing she saw was Priya lying on the ground, her red robes wrinkled and dirty, her hair strewn out beside her, and the dark shadow standing over her. The next thing that Asha saw was a world painted red and scarlet and crimson. A white figure lay on the ground, and another white figure stood beside it.
As she got to her feet, Asha felt her tail lashing the earth behind her, and she felt her tall horns weighing heavily on her skull. The soldier’s strange weapons were firing but the sounds were only muted crackles in the distance and the metal pellets that struck her body felt as soft as snowflakes. She exploded into motion, dashing across the short span of empty road. She grabbed the beast-man by the throat and leg and lifted him up over her head. He flailed about, beating on her arms and skull, but she could barely feel it.
She couldn’t feel anything except the rage and the unquenchable thirst of the golden dragon for blood, the desire to take the entire world by the throat and crush the life out of it, and the yearning to plunge her talons into the very heart of the world, to feel its hot blood pouring over her claws, to tear the entire universe to pieces, and to see the very stars themselves trampled into dust beneath her feet.
Asha hurled the robed man down across her own knee and felt his spine cracking and grinding across her scaled leg. She lifted him again, and broke his body across her leg again. And then she lifted him up a third time, tilted him head-down, and smashed his head into the road, and dropped him.
Asha raised her fists over her head, fell to her knees, and smashed her curled claws down on the ground, punching two small craters in the earth and blasting dust up into the air. She punched the ground again, and again, and then leapt up, grabbed a huge section of the broken temple wall, and hurled the massive block of stone high over the wreckage, where it fell with a thunderous boom and started a small landslide of debris. She saw the white figures of the soldiers running like rabbits, vanishing down the side lanes one by one with their strange weapons. Some of them were screaming.
“Asha!”
Asha spun around and saw the one white figure lying where she had thrown it, and the second white figure where it had fallen, but now there was a third white figure crouched by the second, and it was talking and it was touching HER.
Asha roared and ran at the crouching figure.
NO ONE TOUCHES HER.
She jumped high into the air, her tail writhing and whipping behind her, her blood-red claws raised to rend the intruder to bloody shreds, her jaw stretched wide to tear her prey open with her fangs.
DIE! EVERYTHING DIES! NOW!
As she fell upon the crouching figure, a blast of freezing mist struck her in the chest and threw her back against the pile of rubble. Her vision wavered, the red world blurring into a red mist, but she shook her head and rose to her feet with bits of stone and wood spilling off her shoulders and back.
NO ONE HURTS ME! I AM THE DESTROYER!
She ran at the crouching figure again, and the figure rose to its feet, and again a blast of cold white mist threw her back, sending her tumbling through the darkness into the ruins of the temple.
MUST… DESTROY… DEVOUR…
Asha struggled up, shoving a piece of a wall off of her, and took several loping, limping steps toward the white figure. This time, the white mist shoved her down to the ground and held her there. The white figure walked over to her, and knelt beside where she lay.
“Asha? Can you hear me? Asha?”
PRIYA!
Priya…
…oh gods, Priya…
Asha blinked, and blinked, and the world grew darker and dimmer as the reds faded to browns and grays. Wren knelt beside her, her small hands gently petting Asha’s hair as she whispered, “It’s going to be all right now. You’re all right now, it’s over. You’re back, and everything’s going to be all right.”
The strange girl in the black dress with the fox ears went on petting her hair and talking softly, and Asha lay face down in the dust, and wept. She cried and gasped and wailed, clutching at her own face and hair, clinging to Wren’s hands. Her body grieved, pouring out more pain and sorrow than Asha had ever known before.
Slowly, the tears ran thin and the gasps faded to sighs. Asha’s throat and chest ached, and she felt cold and hollow. After a moment, Wren helped her to sit up, and they sat together, their arms wrapped around each other, staring at the body of the nun. Asha shook and exhaled, and sagged against the girl.
“It’s my fault…”
“No, no, no,” Wren said. “You didn’t hurt her. You didn’t do anything wrong. That monster over there did it. It was him, and only him, not you. And you…”
The robed man with the hideous head moved. His arm jerked, and his fingers pawed at the dirt, and then he rolled his head up out of the hole in the ground that Asha had made with it. He pushed himself up to his hands and knees, shook the dust from his deformed snout and ears, and then stood up. He turned and stared intently at the two women huddled on the ground.
Wren lifted one arm, pointing her hand at the creature and making her bracelets clatter. The robed man snarled, turned, and ran off into the shadows and out of sight. Wren let her arm fall back into her lap and Asha rested her head on the girl’s shoulder, feeling fresh tears tumbling down her face sideways and pattering on the girl’s lap. Slowly, she sat up straight and sighed, and stood up. Asha walked over to the body, gently lifted the nun’s head, and let it rest in her own lap so she could brush Priya’s hair back from her face, and wipe the dust from her eyelashes and lips. Jagdish scampered over, sniffed at Priya’s foot, and then scurried up the red robes to the nun’s shoulder, where he curled up and whined.
“I know, Jagdish,” Asha whispered.
She heard dry footsteps scraping along beside her, and she wiped her eyes again before looking up at Wren. “Thank you.”
Wren nodded, but she didn’t look down. She was looking out across the street and up at the tumbled walls of the Temple of Osiris. After a moment of silence, she asked. “Where is Omar?”
