(Book 5) Hayden Mackay and The Pride of Haima-Endira

9.1 Frenemy

Ashwant Veer had lately been displaying impressive progress in terms of using the Diamond. Mastering one formation had taken me several months and a couple of jobs. But to master five of them all at a time, Ashwant had to work harder day and night, travel throughout the country and thereby getting overtired by the end of the day. He wasn't a Samagraha. He was aware of the degree of peril his life was in. Even a wound shall take a longer time than expected to heal. Being normal has started to seem a bit weird these days.

His duties at the Panchayat were getting stressful as well. Expectations were lofty and for it, he was given double the amount of duties. Besides fighting the beasts alongside the three of us and practicing with Naag during the leisure time, he was also assigned the task to search for the Breaking Samagraha. High King took the responsibility to give all the resources required for this job to be done. Naag had ordered the rest of the Constellia to persuade their masters to accept the facts and migrate to the country they actually belonged.

Once in a while, he had been fetching me the news from the Panchayat. He was still our friend and he did share a few things that he wasn't supposed to, keeping King Agasthya in the dark about this misconduct.

"Bhupathi Garg filed an appeal in the Panchayat," he said while patrolling with me one fine afternoon. "It has been a while and since you haven't given a formal nod yet, he is requesting High King to cancel the Codicil and put forward with the original Will. If High King accepts, half of the Rawat shall be transferred to Madhyakshetra. Hayden, do you not realize how serious this is?"

"I'm working on it," I replied, trying to maintain my composure. "There are other things that need clarification first. That's why I've decided to open up to you. Ashwant, I need a favor."

Law stated that a Samagraha shall hold any legal conversations only with the King of the Dynasty, which in my case I knew the result would be as useless as a Samagraha without a stone. Ashwant went insane when I revealed what I had done and what I was about to do without the King's permission. But eventually, on further explanation, he finally accepted on the basis of our friendship and mutual understanding of goodwill.

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Physically and mentally exhausted, I sat in the chair for tonight's dinner. A deep wound sliced in the flesh of my right shoulder made it difficult to eat. I was desperate for the night to be over already, and jump-start a fresh healthy morning.

Several thoughts were flooding in my head with the horrendous 'what-ifs' intruding the optimism. There was yet no reply to the letter I'd posted a week ago. The tension was heightened when Ashwant had given me inside news that High King did go through the letter but was somehow indecisive about it.

Besides this restlessness in my heart, my friends came up with a problem each. All the talk was accompanied by a real effort to find a quick solution where actually there was none. Leena, the only one to join me at the dinner, was worried sick about her sister.

Lithika suddenly wanted to move back to her palace in Madhyakshetra, to live with her husband Archit Garg. She had been lately giving away an impression of being one of those members of Clan of Rajya. Too proud of status and prestige. Sometimes rude and abrasive when she actually had to be polite with other clans. She had been adamantly demanding to give proof that would state the crimes of Bhupathi Garg. It seemed as if Leena was almost giving up when she pleaded me to let her talk to Nazira.

"No!" I said at once, "We talked about this. We decided to keep Nazira out of it until King Aghasthya gathers stronger evidence to bust Bhupathi in Panchayat. It's better to stick to the plan and not involve her in this."

"Nazira is my last hope, Hayden. Only she can convince Lithika that Bhupathi is such a despicable person and her living with him means..."

"And you think Lithika will believe her? She doesn't even believe King Aghasthya."

"But..."

"It would give rise to another problem which we cannot afford anymore, Leena, " I said, "Nazira will have to face threats from Bhupathi, she will be in danger more than ever. Would you want that? Let's just leave it to King Aghasthya. It's better for a member of a High Clan to deal with another. Besides, Nazira's words aren't sufficient to convict Bhupathi of the crime."

"How can a word of an eyewitness not suffice?"

"It does, only if the accused is not a member of the Clan of Rajya."

Amidst the heated discussion, Leena then revealed about Nazira's deteriorating health conditions. Nazira had started to suffer from occasional migraines with fever and also sleeplessness for the past few days. When I went to check on her, she was indeed burning with fever, her pinkish skin glowing in a bad way. But surprisingly, she seemed strong and active. Happily chatted with a sense of playfulness as she had with me in Parallel universe. Her movements told nothing of a sick person.

"I'm fine, really. It's just the dreams," she assured when I repeatedly asked her. "Did you hear anything from Celina?"

I suspected if she was pretending to be tough just for the sake of me. Leena, surely, must be giving her up to date information about our growing burdens. She didn't really have to be humble to not to amplify the stress when in reality she was my stressbuster.

Pruthvi returned late that night, all bruised and bandaged, which wasn't a shocker. He was unusually calm and collected when Leena was around, who wasn't in a mood to talk about anything else but Likitha. He remained unflustered knowing about his sister being sick. And when none of the girls were around, he finally started to talk to give a slight update on the progress to figure out the person behind all the murders. He narrated in detail about how close he had been to uncover the information from the men spying on him. With a remarkable sense of mind, he had tracked them down and caged them in his Formation. But to his horror, his shrewdness was all wasted. Even before he could begin demanding answers, those men had dropped down dead in front of his eyes. Everything had happened within seconds.

"Their heads simply detached off their necks. There was no weapon. No sound at all. No hint of the attack. Geez, it was horrible!" He hissed, scratching his head. "This person wouldn't let me do my thing. Hayden, I'm over the edge."

"No weapon?" I asked, aghast. "How in the world did they die then?"

"There could be only one possibility of course. This person is using magic."

"Magic? Or Formation?"

The windows rattled with the strong winds and sparkled with the sudden lightning. We were sitting on the floor of the living room, receiving warmth from the fireplace, and drinking soda that temporarily replaced Uilani de Blanc. It was late and sleep was far away from our minds.

Maybe I shouldn't have said that. It was just an assumption that had come out more or less on a whim but it began a terrible dread in my heart. If there were any truth, then it meant that another hassle was around the corner ready to knock on our door. But little did I know that my simple slip up would change Pruthvi's perception and strategies to track this person out who was making him spend many sleepless nights.