The afternoon before our going-away feast, Yudhajit and Bharata took one final ride together, returning after an hour with red eyes. I would not use the Plane on Bharata, but I did not need to—their love and affection were clear, and I knew our departure would be difficult for them both.
So it was that by the time we left, hearts and bellies full, I had almost forgotten what had happened on our journey here.
But as we approached the Sarasvati River, I could think of nothing else. It was evident by the murmurs around me that nobody else in our party could either.
I called for us to make camp early that evening, not wanting to cross the river in the dark, and lay down in my bedroll without eating. I stared up at the canvas of the tent, a single candle casting eerie shadows around me, and came to a conclusion. There was only one thing I could do to protect my son. And so, even though I was unaccustomed to it, I clasped my hands upon my chest and tried to pray to Sarasvati. I am sorry for my son. Please let us pass safely. I repeated it over and over again, my eyelids falling shut, and then—
I was standing on the banks of the river. Mist rose from the waters. How did I get here? I turned to look behind me, but there were no footprints in the damp earth. “What—” I began to ask, but a gust of wind whipped through the clearing, carrying the rest of my words away. The river surged up until it was almost to my knees. I tried to take a step backward, to flee to safer ground, but my feet had sunk into the earth. I was rooted fast.
“Sri Sarasvati,” I whispered. Ice ran through my veins. Was this real?
The water rippled, and I felt her presence all around me, my shoulders bowing with the weight.
“Please,” I called out. “Spare my son. I am begging you.”
He is in no danger. She spoke with a thousand voices, both in my head and from outside, as though I was pressed between two great forces. My teeth rung with the force of it. He needed to be reminded.
“Reminded of what?” I asked.
The mortal world corrupts, but he will be stronger than you. He was sent to this world for a reason.
As the echo of her words faded, I turned them over in my head. “He… he is a god?” There was only silence, as if to reproach my asking a question I already knew the answer to. “Why was Rama sent here?” I asked instead.
To cleanse your world of injustice.
A singularly unhelpful answer. I opened my mouth to ask another question, but the river before me was dissolving into shining blue wisps of mist. Cross without fear. The voice was still in my head and yet sounded distant, as if she was speaking from the heavens. The water receded and I felt myself falling back and back—
I startled awake in my bedroll, breathing hard in the darkness. The candle had been extinguished.
I blinked, heart pounding wildly. Had that truly been Sri Sarasvati, speaking to me in a dream? Or had I been so preoccupied with my fears about Rama and the river that I had imagined it?
No. Something about it had felt divine, her presence unknowable. I could not have invented that myself.
He will be stronger than you, she had said.
She likely had meant mortals generally. She probably meant to cast aspersions on human vice.
But… she was a goddess. And not just any goddess, but the goddess of scholars, of the wise, of intelligence and knowledge.
And she had chosen to say you.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“WHAT IS THIS I heard about Rama controlling a river?” Dasharath asked. I lay in his bed, studying the pattern of light on the ceiling. We had returned to Ayodhya a few days prior.
“He did not control a river. We were crossing the Sarasvati, and I stopped to pay my respects. Rama wanted to know why we were asking the river for its blessing.” A revised version of events, to be sure, but Sarasvati’s words were still fresh in my mind. “His question must have provoked the goddess, because the river became very angry and advanced toward where Rama and I stood.”
“Why did you not take Rama and flee?” Dasharath asked, turning onto his side to face me.
“I begged him to flee, but he insisted on standing his ground. I had no time to pull him away against his will, so I stood over him and tried to bear the brunt of it.”
Dasharath sat up, an expression of horror on his face. “You did what?”
“What would you have done?” I countered. “Would you rather I have run away and left Rama to face the wrath of a goddess?”
He huffed but did not respond to that.
“The waves beat against us, and then after some time they retreated. I was unharmed but completely drenched. Rama was dry. He seemed to shine with light—or perhaps that was just the sun. I do not know.”