“What do you mean?” I asked. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you. If this is about Rama again…” I trailed off as the blue rope flared into existence.
It was thin now, and I set my will to breaking it. This was a yoke, not a relationship. I examined it, readying myself to sever it once and for all, took a deep breath… and shouted in fright.
Our surroundings had disappeared.
Alarm coursed through me as I exited the Binding Plane. The thick forest blinked back into existence in such a way that I felt dizzy.
“Ma?” Lakshmana was beside me at once.
I held a hand to silence him. “One moment,” I said in a low voice, dismounting.
I pressed my hand to the nearest tree. It felt real enough. The bark was rough against my palm, and I could smell the faint scent of sap and damp earth. But when I reentered the Binding Plane, my hand was touching nothing.
At the farthest point visible on the road, I could see trees and birds and plants all cast in the gray mist that defined the Binding Plane. But here there was no veil. Only blinding white.
Magic was at work. And nothing good came of things I could not see in the Binding Plane.
“Lakshmana, what do you know about this area?” I asked quietly.
I heard him dismount behind me. “It is not particularly remarkable, if I recall the maps correctly.”
“Are there any holy sites or shrines nearby?” I asked, slipping back into the real world. The longer we stood, the more I noticed the air had a chill to it that felt out of place.
“Not here.” He stepped up next to me, squinting into the dense forest. “Why?”
I considered the odds that I would find an entire section of forest that seemed to be gods-made so close to Sripura—and to the border beyond which a great beast lay. It was nearly impossible.
“Stay here with the horses,” I ordered. “If I have not come back by the time the sun is at its peak, ride fast to Sripura and bring a search party. We are no more than a half day’s journey away, and you can make better time alone.”
“I do not wish to leave you, Ma,” he said at once. “What do you see in there?”
“Nothing,” I said, and it was the truth. “I simply have a hunch that something important lies within.”
“I’m coming with you. I know you are trying to protect me, but I am also here to protect you. If you leave me here, I will follow. So you might as well just bring me now.”
I considered him. He stood tall, chest thrown back, and I saw Dasharath within him. “All right, then. Be ready with your sword.”
He secured the horses while I examined the surroundings further, and then we pushed our way through a lighter area of the brush.
After about a hundred paces, we could no longer see the path. Next to me, Lakshmana shivered, and I realized gooseflesh was running up my arms. The forest was cold—unnaturally so—and far too quiet. There should have been small animals chattering, running up and down the trees, but they were nowhere to be found. There was no birdsong, no movement in the undergrowth. Without it, the forest seemed an eerie place.
I entered the Binding Plane, standing firm as the ground shifted slightly and cast Lakshmana in its colorless palette.
The forest was unmoving, and so the sudden crunch of Lakshmana’s boot against the ground reverberated, and we both startled before looking down. Brittle leaves of brilliant red and saffron had drifted over the path. I glanced up to see that the trees above had turned color, a blaze of flame. We rarely saw such things in Kosala, but the forests of Kekaya had been like this… in the late autumn. Not in the middle of summer.
“How is this happening?” Lakshmana asked, reaching down to pick up a leaf.
“I don’t know,” I said. And truly, I did not know what sort of magic this was. We pressed on more quickly, the movement keeping us warm as our breath came in clouds of white. Each step felt more and more wrong…
A low whine sounded from ahead of us.
“Do you hear that?” I asked Lakshmana.
We stopped, and the sound came again.
An icy crust coated the plants now, a field of deadly, glimmering frost under a canopy so dense we could hardly see five paces ahead. I knew we must be close to whatever lived in the heart of this strange place.
I reached out to grasp a fallen branch and fumbled in my pouch for a flint. It took a few tries, my fingers clumsy with cold, but finally the end of the branch flared up. I used it to light a second branch, which I passed on to Lakshmana. In the flicker of firelight, the woods were otherworldly. I took every step as carefully as possible, trying not to make any noise.