Chasing the Sun

XXXIII

|| - Shifting Sands II- ||

Like the moon
She had a side of her
So dark, that even stars
couldn’t shine on it
- Abigail J.

The tale was barely beginning, Kashi could feel it in her bones. It was the end of one cycle. What had begin with betrayal was coming to an end in the same bitter way. Only, too many threads entangled and pulling in various directions - apart from that, they had come where they had set off. A full circle around and the tale was beginning again.

David and Kashi stood in the assassins’ underground prison. The darkness was tinted with browns of daylight, and the rotten walls smelled ages of mold and dust. It might have been a library or an archive back in the day. There were shelves dug into the cave walls and piles of discarded wood that had been ripped off the walls and thrown in the corners. Only their remains were left after being used as fire wood and Kashi had the distant impression that any books might have received a similar fate a long before.

They were facing each other but in the long pause that followed since they were shut  and bolted in the dungeons neither had spoken about the confrontation with Bhadra. Kashi exhaled loudly and turned around, examining the mouldy walls instead.
It was one thing her captivity had gifted her. Kashi had eyes trained for darkness. Although she had used to sneak around in the guise of Meghdyuth, there were times like these when her sharp sight picked up things from the surrounding.
It was a survival trait of sorts, David thought as he watched her pace around. Still unable to phrase a sentence, confession or otherwise. He was too addicted to the cool calm of the sense of control he had around him that everything about Kashi Bai made him restless.

She knows - the thought curled and settled in the pit of his mind. She knew that giving her name to Bhadra was no slip of tongue. And she was making it obvious. He could see it in her shifting gaze, the straight line of her back, and her curled fists. She was neither fazed nor heartbroken over the revelation. Instead Kashi Bai took betrayal in the wild way that she was - like a tigress, ready to  spring.

They should not be wasting time on a truth they were both aware of. Time for explanations will come later. He had opened his mouth to say something - a thought he had already lost a moment later as Kashi pulled out her carved dagger.
Their eyes met for a fleeting moment and he felt the undiluted flames of her gaze brush against him. He might have prepared to battle it out when instead she turned towards the wall and started to peel of the moss clinging to the stone.

The moldy mess cleared in the scratching sound that followed as David stepped closer to scrutinize what had intrigued her. There were figures drawn on the wall. Faded lines of charcoal that had a crooked and uneven look about them. As if the hand that put them up was not trained in any form of calligraphy at all and lacked any general drawing skills. It was a desperate try to reproduce complex shapes by an amateur.

Kashi’s small hand traced the lines as her forehead creased in a frown. The sprase amount of daylight that thinned the darkness around them shone in pale patches along  the walls. Every surface was covered with more horrendous attempts at line diagrams. Only with time it seemed the creator had improved significantly. On the wall opposite to them, right next to the bolted door a pattern that resembled a lotus ( if one was to disregard all the unnecessary lines) covered most of stone.

“They did it.” Kashi muttered to herself, as her arm fell down at her side. “They blinded her.”

David said nothing, as he waited for her to compose herself and elaborate.