Echo

1. NOOR RAI

"He likes you!" Noor poked her friend, Tara, while walking backwards with a wide grin on her face and a hop in her steps, her voice more nasal as she said it.

"He does not."

"He totally likes you!"

"No."

"Are you dumb? Suraj just asked you out, and he's the shyest guy we've ever met. He doesn't even talk to people much, and there he was, asking you out."

"Well, I'm not going."

"Why?" Noor exclaimed. "As far as i remember, you've both liked each other since you were thirtee-"

She turned around to see who she had bumped into and regretted her existence immediately. All her thoughts went silent, all the words she wanted to say had died at the tip of her tongue, and her body was as still as a statue, with the exception of the movements of her chest as she breathed.

The man she had bumped into pretty much stared at her just as she was at him, but unlike her stare, his was more irate. More thirsty for death.

His eyes studied her clothes, her posture ... Her. And he realised what she had become. An assassin for the Anahi.

It was clear to those who were well-knowledged about it; the assassins in the Baagi had a small dagger tattooed on the right side of their neck. It hadn't been time to cover her neck yet, which was why it was visible.

She was happy as a part of the Anahi. Free. Yet somehow she felt like the traitor she had felt like deep inside when realisation of who she was now struck him.

His gaze now dropped to her hands that were covered with gloves and the anger in his eyes faded as confusion set in.

Anahi didn't wear gloves, yet Vinah wore them along with white bandages to cover her forearms.

"Listen," Tara started. "If you're just going to stand here and stare at each other, please do tell, because this is getting weird."

Her words were ignored by him as he kept looking at her, glaring now. He looked away then, and walked around her.

"Oh holy flames, was that him?" Tara put her hand on her mouth in shock as she realised. Noor had told her about him, about her past. She was the only one who knew about it all. No one else knew, except for the rest that were connected to her past of course.

"Yes, Tara. He was."

"Him him?"

"Yes, now stop making a big deal out of it."

"How can I not? He's your first love," Tara grinned at Noor.

"I did not love him," Noor scoffed a lie. She had. Once.

She had loved him like the moon and the sun love each other, so much so that they still spend years and years waiting, waiting, for that one day they would get to meet for a little while, before they have to say their goodbyes again.

She had loved him with all she was, and all she could be. With all she had and didn't. She had loved him in ways she never knew she was capable of. And with every spec of matter that formed her, she would protect him. She would never let him come in harm's way.

Once.

Once, she'd loved him. Now, she only protected him to keep the promise she made to herself three years ago.

"How're your hands?" Tara asked, after a while of comfortable silence, as they reached the local tea vendor. He made the best masala chai she'd ever tasted, and the weather was just perfect for hot tea—real tea with water and tea leaves and milk, sugar, cardamom, black pepper and ginger ... not whatever those fair folk drank with just putting a tea packet in a cup of water and then drank with their little finger perked up as if it made them look sophisticated. All it made them look like was fools.

"How do you think?" Noor gave a dry laugh.

"Is the medicine not helping?"

No, Noor had thought of saying. It is not. It is only holding it back. Slowing it down. Once it gets too powerful, no medicine, gifted or ordinary, will be enough to make it stop or slow down. Once it gets too powerful—

"It is, a bit," Noor replied. "But it has gotten a little worse."

"At least it's slower," Tara's eyes brightened. Hope had struck her. "That means there's still a chance."

Hope that would hurt her when Noor's fate comes to visit.

But, oh, she could not tell her—her, with such a pure smile, as warm as the sun—the truth that would only make her lose all that made her.

"At least," Noor smiled back at her friend. She took another sip of the hot chai, both her hands cupped around the glass.

It was sweeter this time.

Unusual.

* * *

Noor and Tara were walking back to the Anahi base. The night air was fresh and the silence peaceful as they walked on the quiet streets of Gurupur. The city was asleep, the moon was full and beautiful among the stars. It was all ethereal.

I wish I could have told you why I left, she closed her eyes as she exhaled. But you couldn't know. You cannot know.

She opened her eyes again, desperate for a distraction from her thoughts of him, and gazed at the night sky again.

It was as if their country, Raijatya, had never been conquered. It was as if the farmers weren't working for the Brinne, their payment only that they would not be beaten up and humiliated in front of everyone. It was as if there would be no schools burning tomorrow, the only reason being that the children were not being taught the ways of the Brinne. As if no Rai woman would be assaulted tomorrow just because she was a woman, and Rai. As if no Rai in the country would be treated like a barbarian, like they could not be civil.

It was like a painting, one drawn by an artist who dreams of their country being free just as much as all those who have lost their lives trying, fighting, to see it free.

It was short-lasting.

She should have known. She should have known that it was too peaceful. Too good to to not have enemies lurking behind it.

Beside her, Tara had let out a grunt which was cut off quick.  Her shouts and screams were all muffled, and Noor stood there. She stood there as everything in her vision doubled and then blurred.

A hand grabbed her as well. Noor's body took control now, her mind fazed. She did not know what she was doing. Her mind, her heart, her soul, were all distraught at the knowledge that her and Tara had been fools to believe the goodness of the night.

Nights were never good for women.

And then Tara was taken.

The sweet taste still stayed on her tongue from the chai. In the near distance, she saw him. He walked towards her, rage like an avalanche in his warm, brown eyes.

He shouldn't be here. It's not possible. His patrol for tonight was stationed in Uttarpaar.

Horror consumed her mind, her muscles, her body as realisation hit her like a strong wave of the ocean trying to capture a victim.

That fucking chai vendor poisoned me.