(Book 6) Hayden Mackay and The Third-Eye of the Pancharatna

6. The Right Thing

Nazira

A lion roared.

Poor villagers huddled together, were on the floor and crushed in fear of the gigantic fire-breathing lion. A threatening and dangerous situation was doomed upon them, with no way out. The muscles of the lion bulged with every careful step it took toward the scared human. The murderous frown demonstrated its anger. It pounced, and the villagers screamed. The lion lunged at one of the men and the screams escalated as quickly as the lion bored its paws down, tearing off a man's guts from the rest of the body.

Haimavati cried out loud unable to watch the lion hurting her people, ripping them apart one after the other. The agonizing pain of those people was hers as well. She felt strangely dislocated from reality. It was insane. The lion's teeth dug down the man's skin, it was as though digging into hers. It chewed on the back of the man's head, and she heard others screaming watching the poor man's terrible fate, and fearing that they were next. This was it, she thought. The villagers were goners, and being a queen, she was unable to help. The situation made certain of it...

Nazira squashed a grunt waking up, her body achy and stiff from lying down on the floor for a deeply affecting couple of hours. The chains, gripping tight around her wrists, scraped against her skin, her energy dissipating away. The smell surprisingly was musty and earthy, indicating Shashi's absence. Taking deep breaths. she opened her eyes and contemptuously stared into the fire in the lantern, flickering on and off as if nodding a greeting.

She smirked to herself at all the intriguing elements of her dreams and stories and recalled what a lumberingly absurd dreadful fantasy all her lives had been.

She remembered the horrors of her past lives and the past of her present. The horrors grew tenfold with every life and led her to fear even the faintest whiff of air. It was all gone now, vaporized instantly with the explosive force of the magic running deep down in her veins.

The reality of her existence defined her as something Paramarashtrians loathed and feared. She was a stray witch, an abomination, a disgrace for not being born in the Clan of Maya. Moreover- she was Zarina Khan's great-granddaughter. But at this point in life, she could do nothing but embrace her magic back. Embrace it a little too vengefully and accept the challenges of not being the Haimavati she had been. Her friends may have given her smiles and laughter, and a purpose to live but how could she deny that it was the magic that boosted an extra sense of consciousness and sentience in her?

She was locked in at some solitary corner of the vast basement, invariably being Shashi's home. Somewhere beneath the wilderness of Sherwood Forest. She had come down here before, searching for Tyrell, and only then she had come to know that this place was highly protected with the use of supplements. Without Shourya and Tyrell losing his magic, nobody could ever find her. None of her friends could find her. Good.

Everything more or less had gone as per the plan so far. Shourya had escorted her to this isolated lair on time as she had meant him to. The magic laid upon him was broken. He was free now. The direct verbal face-off with Shashi seemingly ensured the desired result. The only concern was about keeping the Pride safe and hidden, until its next proper use. The dagger should have been delivered safely back to where it rightfully belonged. In the gathering first flush of the morning, despite being alone, she felt heavily crammed with her accumulating tensions.

There was a sharp lingering pain in the left-hand side of her face and her shoulder. The blow Shashi had struck was giving her extensive pain in the arm, jaw, and slight earache. She took a long breath and frowned to herself, trying to keep her mind off the pain. Her magic could help fix her up, but the more magic she used the more she found herself sloping down with exhaustion. The chains were sturdy and robust and fully functioning. She assumed that these restraints had to be dealt with for a little more while. The wait, however important, seemed interminable.