“Thank you!” he shouted back, and the wind instantly snatched away his words. “It is my life’s work!”
“We should have one of these, Ma,” Lakshmana whooped. “I can hardly believe this is real!”
“I do not know if anyone else is ready for this,” I laughed. I thought suddenly of the horses of Kekaya and their ancestors who had flown in the heavens. Is this how they had once lived?
“Rama would be so jealous,” Lakshmana said with a grin, and for a moment I saw a glimpse of the teasing relationship all brothers should have.
We did not speak much for the rest of the trip, so absorbed were we in the flight itself. I did not want to miss a single sensation. I barely blinked. Forests and rivers passed below us, as small as children’s toys. Up here, far above the rest of the world, mountains that had seemed so daunting to cross now looked like they would fit into the palm of my hand. The trees were fibers of a green rug, the rivers twisting hair ribbons.
All too soon, we were lowering down on the outskirts of Sripura. Lakshmana grabbed my hand as the earth hurtled toward us, but I trusted Ravana and his invention.
We landed with a bone-shuddering thump and a jolt, and the wheels rattled against the grassy plains. But we all remained inside the Pushpaka Vimana, in one piece.
“Apologies,” Ravana said, turning toward us. “There is no cleared strip for the Vimana out here.”
“That was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced in my life,” Lakshmana told him. His cheeks were flushed from the wind, and his hair in total disarray, but my son looked happier than I had ever seen him. “Thank you.”
“You do not need to thank me,” Ravana said. “It was a pleasure. I owe your mother more than I could possibly repay in a lifetime. But now I must go, before I attract any attention.”
“Goodbye,” I said, embracing him.
“Thank you,” he whispered, and climbed aboard his chariot. In a few seconds, he was only a spot in the distance.
Lakshmana and I turned toward Sripura. It was time to return home.
CHAPTER THIRTY
A LETTER FROM DASHARATH waited for me with the Chief of Sripura, reassuring me that I had made the right decision in going on to Janasthana and filled with platitudes about how much he had missed me and how eagerly he looked to my return. For the remainder of the journey, I tried and failed to put my finger on exactly what about the missive raised alarm, but I could not decipher it. Perhaps my fear at my mother’s revelation was clouding all else, for I should have been happy that Dasharath bore me no ill will for my flagrant disobedience of his orders, and that Bhandasura’s supposed master had failed to take Ayodhya in my absence. Instead, I pushed us ever harder through the Riksha Mountains and barely waited for the feast they threw us in Kasi to conclude before moving on once again.
“Why the great rush?” Lakshmana asked me near Kusavati, when we were almost through the plains. I did not answer, signaling to him that we would take the right fork to circumvent the city. I intended to reach Ayodhya by nightfall. In this we were successful, and riders were sent off at Ayodhya’s city gate to alert the palace to our arrival.
Dasharath met us at the stables looking as though he had aged in reverse by five or ten years. The persistent lines on his forehead had smoothed, and the invisible weight that pulled down his shoulders appeared to have eased. And still, dread sat heavy on my heart.
“You look well,” I said, allowing him to help me off my horse. He did not release me, and instead pulled me closer, embracing me tightly right in front of Lakshmana, who blushed slightly and turned away.
I slipped into the Binding Plane, and my stomach turned leaden. My bond with my husband, that vibrant golden cord, had decreased to half its former size. Foreboding, already itching under my skin, expanded until my limbs felt swollen with it. We had spun that thread over a throne room and a battlefield, over trust and years of friendship. Our connection had been the core of my life in Ayodhya for so long. It should not have melted so easily.
Something had happened, something I was not aware of yet. It was the only explanation. “Is everything all right?” I asked, pulling back from his embrace slightly so that I could look at him. I was afraid of what his answer would be.
“I have decided to abdicate,” he said. “I already informed Kaushalya and Sumitra, and the court.” Dasharath spoke a bit like a drunk man, his words almost slurred with happiness—or something else.
“Rama is to be king?” Lakshmana asked, and only then did the words sink in. There had been nothing of Dasharath’s jesting manner in his words, or I might have thought them a trick.