Kavithri

Book 0: Ghosts of Ethuran

by Aman J. Bedi

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Epic Fantasy

Synopsis

An action-packed and empowering South Asian fantasy epic. An underdog story like no other - Kavithri will remind you of fantasy heroes like Arya Stark, Fang Runin or Gideon the Ninth.

Meet Kavithri. Outcast. Underdog. Survivor.

Kavi is a Taemu. Her people, once feared berserkers and the spearhead of a continent-spanning invasion, are the dregs of Raayan society. Their spirits crushed. Their swords broken. Their history erased.

But Kavi has a dream and a plan. She will do whatever it takes to earn a place at the secretive mage academy, face the Jinn within its walls, and gain the power to rise above her station and drag her people out of the darkness.

Except power and knowledge come at a cost, and the world no longer needs a Taemu who can fight. So they will break her. Beat her down to her knees. And make her bleed.

But if blood is what they want, Kavi will give them blood. She will give them violence. She will show them a berserker's fury.

And she will make them remember her name.

Release date: May 16, 2024

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 416

Sample

The last train of the day was late.

Kavi’s railway porter uniform, a worn, red linen shirt, clung to her torso, and she popped the collar to blow air down her chest.

She sat huddled with the other porters in the shade among the hanging beards of an ancient banyan tree. The collective stench of the group – a lethal combination of sweat, tamakhu, unwashed hair, and rancid breath – ensured that everyone gave them a wide berth.

And a good thing, too. Kavi wrinkled her nose. The mood matched the stink. They were exhausted, short-tempered, and to make matters worse, Stationmaster Muthu had waddled up during the tea break, hand extended, and flicked his fingers. Hand it over.

She’d grumbled. She’d gnashed her teeth. And she’d paid him his monthly platform tax. All her earnings, every single rayal she’d made that day, were in that bulging shirt pocket of his.

She glared at the stationmaster, who now stood on a raised podium on the other side of the tracks. White lungi folded over his knees and tucked into his waistband, telescope jammed into one eye, thick line of ash smeared across his forehead to signify that he was in mourning – a speeding steam-rickshaw had run his cat over.

Off to the side, well clear of the porters, passengers waited, sweaty and impatient, under a corrugated iron awning. Hawkers and vendors chatted and laughed, impervious to the heat, as they counted the day’s profits. Beggars lay on their backs, one eye on Stationmaster Muthu, as they fanned themselves with torn newspamphlets.

The platform itself was the site of a massacre. Splattered and stained red with chewed up and spat out betel nut that had somehow missed all the strategically placed copper spittoons.

It was the same every year. Bochan was the only city with an administrative branch of the mage academy in the south, and on testing day, all the villagers and townspeople who’d either just turned sixteen, or had never taken the tests, came streaming into the city with dreams of a better life; to test if they could be a mage, to learn if they were that one in ten-thousand who had the favour of a Jinn. Every single train would be late. Every single compartment would be packed to overflowing. And every single year Kavi would limp home from the station with swollen limbs and torn muscles; wash, eat, and head back into the city to join the long, winding queue outside the administrative branch of the Vagola (that everyone in the city simply called the Branch) for her annual attempt at taking the tests.

She shuffled on her haunches and glanced at the Gashani tribesman squatting beside her. Fresh from the mountains with a single fang tattooed down the right side of his mouth. A sign that he’d failed his rites of passage. The tribespeople were only a rung above the Taemu, who were of course, rock-bottom, and she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. Stationmaster Muthu had rostered the poor man on cleaning duty.

The tribesman, sallow-cheeked and hollow-eyed, stared at Muthu in a daze.

Kavi nodded to herself. The man was clearly traumatised by the railway station toilets. Her first month had been much the same. Actually – she swatted a fly away from her face – it was worse. They’d barely acknowledged her. And when they had, they’d cursed her, shoved her around, and beaten her with a broom if she did something wrong. It’d been weeks before she could actually porter.

Stationmaster Muthu stiffened. Snapped the telescope shut. Tucked it under one arm, dipped his knees, adjusted his crotch, and in one smooth movement slapped the clapper of a bronze bell that hung over his head.

The ding! pealed through the station, and the platform exploded in a flurry of movement.

Kavi’s hands flew as she unwrapped the cloth around her waist and, like the other porters, tied it around her head into the shape of a turban. She tightened it. Slapped it to test the cushioning. But stayed on her haunches while the other porters stood. A condition for her continued employment at the station: the Taemu would always go last.

She smelled the train before she heard it.

Acrid smoke followed by syncopated chugging that crescendoed into a teeth-jarring rumble as the engine – a long cylinder that rotated and shimmered with orange maayin – burst past, followed by row after row of magenta compartments that stalked the shadows they left on the platform.

The locomotive had barely stopped, was still hissing, when its passengers came spilling out.

The porters surged ahead. The hawkers followed. The beggars staggered with skeletal arms extended, hands and fingers in eating-food and empty-stomach gestures.

The disembarking passengers ignored them. Their porters, weighed down with luggage, shooed them away and jostled defensively with pretend concern for their patrons.

Kavi waited. Fidgeted with her collar. It was almost her turn.

A woman in a bright-green sari hopped out of a first-class compartment and, with hands on her hips, searched the platform for a porter.

Kavi licked her lips. That there was the ideal customer. A lone, wealthy passenger who travelled light but was too spoiled to carry their own bags. The future flashed before her eyes: she’d drop the woman off at a rickshaw, pocket her hard-earned money, march back to the slums where her friend Haibo would be waiting to help with her disguise, then a brief but necessary stop at Murthy’s Super Special Dosas, and then on to the Branch.

Her heart fluttered with nervous energy.

Except …

Except …

She tsked and turned to the tribesman who was still squatting next to her. ‘Dai,’ she said, ‘why are you still waiting?’

He started. Glanced at her and quickly looked away. ‘They told me to go last.’

Kavi’s brows shot up. She’d risen in the railway station hierarchy.

‘Look.’ She tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the woman in the green sari, who was still searching the platform for a porter. ‘Go. Easy fare.’

He swallowed. Shuffled uncomfortably. ‘They said—’

‘It’s okay,’ Kavi said, and pushed him forward. ‘Go.’

The tribesman stood and wiped his hands on his trousers. He glanced at her again, paused, and bobbed his head in thanks.

Kavi nodded and returned to her inspection of the first-class compartments. A politico had disembarked and was being swarmed by his followers – they buried him up to his eyebrows in jasmine garlands, slapped him on the back, and ushered him through the throng. She frowned at his glistening, bald pate as it slithered out of the station.

She’d seen these chootia in the bazaars. Seen them talk at rallies before the elections. Raaya had gone from a collection of city states to kings and queens to being a colony of the Kraelish Empire for almost six centuries, and then a hundred and fifty years ago, independence, and now the country was in the hands of these crooked—

There.

Standing at the entrance of the same first-class compartment was a tall man with gold-rimmed spectacles. No doubt a sahib from his bearing and the way he dressed – exquisite shirt and tie in the Kraelish fashion, tight-fitting trousers, immaculately groomed and oiled hair.

Kavi checked to ensure none of the other porters were approaching him, and got to her feet. She threaded her way through the crowd, never taking her eyes off the man, until she stood in front of him.

‘Sahib! Porter?’ She slapped the back of her hand against her forehead in a salute.

The man stared at her. Searched the platform, presumably for another porter, then scrunched up his nose and lifted a handkerchief to his face.

She smothered a flinch. ‘Sahib?’

He sighed. ‘Cabin 12A.’

‘Thank you, sahib!’

Inside, waiting for her in 12A, were three large suitcases.

She groaned and nudged one of them with her foot. Just her fucking luck. What the Hel did he need three – three suitcases for? She scowled at the floor. At the suitcases. The seats. The table. The glass windows, outside of which families clustered together, chatted, yelled at their children to not wander off. Couples shared tired smiles, leaned over to whisper in each other’s ears; shoulders touched, hands brushed, fingers, ever so briefly, intertwined. Kavi’s gaze softened. Further down, a girl helped her grandmother navigate the platform. A man laughed at his irate wife. Friends joked and jostled for the idli vendor’s attention.

She pressed her lips together, lowered her eyes, and took a heavy, shuddering breath. It’s fine. I’m fine.

The noise dulled to a hum and the rustle of dry leaves drifted into her ears with the sound of her father’s warm chuckle, the sobs of her brother Khagan, wrapped up in a bedsheet and tied to her chest, and Kamith, barely five, skipping around her, Akka? Akka, are you listening?

Her hands trembled as she hefted each suitcase to check its weight.

Always, Kamith.

She would find them. They were still out there, somewhere, and she would find them. She would take the tests, and once she was a mage, she would use the Venator to find them.

Kavi puffed out her cheeks. Carried the suitcases out of the compartment, one at a time, while the sahib watched with his nose and mouth covered. Once they were all secure on the platform, she stretched her back till it cracked, then bent, balanced one on her head, lifted another in her left hand, and carried the lightest one in her right, which she used to support the suitcase on her head.

She gritted her teeth as her shoulders ached, as her legs burned, and her neck, stiff from the day’s work, turned raw and pinched. Behind her, the sahib walked, oblivious, ignoring the beggars, turning away the hawkers, though a particularly daring one came right up to his face screaming, ‘Taste it, sahib! Free sample, take it!’

You’ve never offered me a free sample, you bleddy bastard. Kavi grunted and adjusted the suitcase on her head as she glowered at the samosa hawker.

Step by excruciating step, she led the sahib across a platform buzzing with excitement and anticipation. All she could hear were tests this and tests that, the enormous stipend, the land rights, the power, the prestige, the doors it would open. If I could choose a mage class, I’d be a warlock, a rotund teen announced to his mother, who patted him on the head. If I get chosen by the Jinn, said another obnoxious-sounding girl with pigtails, after my training, I’ll teach at the Vagola.

Kavi had made five attempts since she’d turned sixteen.

The first time, they’d stopped her at the entrance and asked her what she was trying to do. Test, sir-ji, she’d said. The hawaldars had nodded, exchanged a glance, and beaten her black and blue.

The second time she’d waited till sundown and scaled the wall. Only to find that they’d covered the top with colourful shards of glass. She’d fallen with a loud and pathetic, Aiiyoooo!

The third time she’d run into hawaldar Bhagu, freshly transferred to Bochan from Azraaya, and things got exponentially worse after that.

There was no law that prevented her from taking the tests. Raaya called itself secular, a republic, all its citizens had rights. But some rules were so deeply ingrained, passed down from parent to child for generations, that they needn’t be written. Everyone knew them: the Taemu cannot be allowed the privilege of testing. Not after what they’ve cost us.

Kavi growled and nudged her way past a gaggle of schoolboys and under an arch with a large yellow sign that said:

Welcome to Bochan

Culture #1

Beaches #1

Dosas #1

And underneath, an enterprising vandal had recently painted, Your mother is also #1

Traffic outside the station was in full swing: steam-rickshaws, cycle-rickshaws, horse-drawn carriages, and bullock carts all jostled for space on a road where drivers honked like Raeth himself would drag them to Hel if they stopped.

Fumes from the steam-rickshaws mingled with the pungent scent of tar melting in the hot sun and the air stung Kavi’s throat as she opened her mouth to speak. ‘Sahib, rickshaw? Carriage?’

The sahib gestured to a steam-rickshaw.

The driver, who sat in the backseat of the hedgehog-shaped vehicle with a newspamphlet in his lap, spotted Kavi lumbering in his direction and grudgingly vacated the rickshaw.

Once the sahib’s luggage was stashed, she turned to him, and saluted again. ‘Sahib.’

He looked her over. Frowned.

‘Sahib.’ She held out her hand.

‘Ah,’ he said, and reaching into his pockets, dropped a single rayal into her waiting palm.

Kavi blinked at the coin. ‘Sahib? Only one rayal?’

He paused. ‘You want more?’

‘Sahib …’ The fare for the work she’d just done was at least six rayals. ‘Please.’

His face hardened. ‘It’s either this, or nothing,’ he said, and reached for the coin.

Kavi’s fingers snapped into a fist around the money. She stared at the man’s face, at his eyes. So cold. So flat. So … dead.

The pressure in her core, the fever that had lived there for as long as she could remember, built and built, travelled from her chest to her limbs, to her throat, her jaw, her temples, and into her ears where a voice whispered, It would be so easy. Reach out, grab his throat, and squeeze. Feel your fingers dig into his flesh. Feel his muscles contract. His bones crack. Hear his—

Kavi sucked in a breath. Averted her eyes and bowed to the sahib while she choked and drowned the voice of the berserker that lived inside her.

‘This – thank you, sahib,’ she said with a dry mouth, and slowly backed away. Her vision blurred, but she dabbed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand until it cleared again. Should she go back to the platform? Look for a straggler who still needed a porter?

She clenched her fist around the coin until it dug, painfully, into her palm.

No, there was no time. Haibo was waiting. And she needed to prepare.

‘Zofan-ji, have you seen Haibo?’

The old man, the unofficial mayor of the Bochan slums, sat on his porch with the mouthpiece of his hookah in his lap, watching the sun set over the sprawl of thatched huts and beige tents. He took a long drag and peered at Kavi’s face.

Men, women, and children trudged past Zofan’s hut – hungry, exhausted, but still they bobbed their heads and smiled at the old man, who acknowledged their greetings with a nod.

Kavi squeezed her eyes and scratched her head. Her recently donned wig was itchy and uncomfortable. Her eyes burned from the kohl she’d rubbed around them and the lashes she’d stuck to her eyelids. But Haibo said it would work, and she trusted him.

‘Kavithri? Is that you?’

Even Zofan couldn’t recognise her. It would work.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Have you seen Haibo?’ He was supposed to meet her at the hut, look her over and make sure her disguise was perfect.

Zofan sighed. ‘Sit down.’

She blinked. ‘Zofan-ji, I need to—’

‘You will want to sit,’ he said, voice strained.

Kavi obeyed. Carefully arranged her new salwar-kameez and sat cross-legged to face him. Zofan had lived in Bochan and the slums all his life. He mediated all disputes, allocated dwellings to new arrivals, helped people find work, and pretty much ran the place. Without him, she’d still be a cleaner at Aunty-ji’s seaside brothel and Haibo would be knee-deep in sewage. He was the only person in the slums who didn’t treat them like Taemu.

‘You know I’ve done the best I can for you both,’ Zofan said.

Kavi nodded, unease slowly winding its way into her gut.

‘Haibo,’ he said after a long pause, ‘is not coming back today.’

Kavi cocked her head. ‘What?’

Zofan ran thick, calloused fingers through his long, grey beard. ‘The Dolmondas.’

‘The gangsters?’

He nodded. ‘Haibo was on his way home, but he took the shortcut – he took the route back through the Niketan colony.’

Kavi’s blood went cold. That was Dolmonda turf. ‘He wouldn’t. He knows not to—’

‘I don’t know. Maybe he was in a hurry.’

‘But he wouldn’t—’ An ache in her throat cut her off. The Dolmondas had made it clear that Taemu were not allowed on their turf. She always avoided the area, even if it took her another hour to arrive back at the slums. Haibo knew that. He knew.

Zofan’s shoulders slumped. ‘The Municipal hospital. They’ve kept him there.’

Kavi swallowed. ‘How badly did they hurt him?’

The old man shook his head. ‘It’s not good.’

Her heart sank. ‘I’m going, Zofan-ji,’ she said, voice trembling, as she stood.

He nodded without meeting her eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’

She sprinted through the winding, weather-beaten streets of Bochan. And when she ran out of breath, she jogged. The hospital was in the eastern quadrant of the city, an area where the artificers set up shop. There were still customers lined up outside Theramalli and sons: musicians with sitars and tablas whose sound needed to be amplified, zobhanatyam dancers who wanted the weight of their anklets and bangles altered, priests carrying boxes filled with chimes and bells – Kavi bowled through, ignored their protests and curses, and bundled her way into the only hospital in the city that catered to people who couldn’t afford a healer.

‘Where is the Taemu?’ Kavi said to a woman in a blue sari who sat behind a desk.

The woman, without looking up from the paper she was scribbling on, said, ‘First floor. Surgery.’

She found his body in the corridor. Blood dripping down the sides of the gurney they’d strapped him to.

‘Haibo?’

Time seemed to slow. Her chest heaved with the force of the breaths she took. She leaned against the wall as her knees lost their strength and she crumpled.

‘Haibo?’

‘Ah, you know him?’ A man with a bloody apron emerged from a room. ‘Compound fractures.’ He pointed to Haibo’s legs, severed below the knee. ‘Infected with urine. We tried to amputate, but it was too late.’

You tried to? Kavi’s lips trembled as she stared at what was once her friend. His torso was covered with bruises and lacerations. His face was frozen in a rictus of horror. His eyes, the dull red irises that marked him as a Taemu, now empty and bloodshot, bulged out of their sockets. Did they even drug him before the amputation?

‘Why?’ she whispered.

‘Ah, you see, the infection—’

‘Why?’ she said, louder.

‘Miss?’

Haibo was the kindest person she knew. Always smiling. Always happy to help. They were the same age, but he’d looked up to her. Called her Akka, big sister. You promise you’ll come back for me, Akka? When you’re a mage? he’d said, eyes wide with sincerity, and when she chuckled and nodded, If you end up as a warlock – he waved around an imaginary sword – I could be your Blade. I’d protect you.

She reached out and pushed his eyelids shut.

‘Miss? Please do not touch the body.’

Why don’t you try taking the tests too? she’d ask, nudging him in the side.

He’d shake his head. I’ve seen what they do to you, Akka, /don’t want it. Then his eyes would glaze over, and a faraway look would drag his face down. But if I could choose a class, I would be an artificer. I don’t think I could cope with the healer’s countervail, and being a warlock just seems so …violent. An artificer would be perfect; the only price I’d pay would be my own memories. I have so many I’d gladly give up.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, sniffling and fighting to keep the tears at bay.

‘That’s fine,’ the surgeon said. ‘But you need to leave now. The body is scheduled for cremation.’

Kavi brushed her fingers against Haibo’s hair, stiff with dried blood. ‘Can I stay? Until then?’

The surgeon sighed and tsked. ‘Fine. Just – don’t touch the body.’

She nodded, waited till the man was out of sight, and intertwined her fingers with Haibo’s. ‘It must’ve really hurt, no? Haibo?’ she said. ‘You must’ve been so scared. So alone.’

She squeezed his swollen, stiff fingers. ‘Did you’ – her lips quivered – ‘take the shortcut because of me? Haibo? Why? I’m not—’ The tears came then and wouldn’t stop. Great coughing sobs shook her entire body as she clung to Haibo’s cold, lifeless hand.

And while she waited, while she watched them wheel his mutilated corpse away, and afterwards, while she stood with her eyes on her feet, breathing in the omnipresent smell of antiseptic, letting the moans and groans of the patients slither in and out of her ears, she found that her resolve, her determination to escape from this, had hardened.

It was dark by the time she arrived at the Branch. The line outside the building snaked around the corner and continued past the intersection. Gas lamps burned and lit the streets and footpath in corrupted yellow; shadows stretched and twisted, seeming to claw at the candidates waiting for their turn to take the tests.

Kavi joined the queue. Kept her eyes averted and avoided conversation. Seconds turned into minutes, the man in front of her stepped forward, she closed the gap. He moved again. She followed. Hawaldars walked down the line and eyed the candidates. Hawkers passed by, screamed at the candidates to try some jalebis and ladoos. Sugar-cane juice was offered at hiked-up prices. No one paid her any attention. She was just another candidate waiting for her turn. It was working.

Kavi’s pulse raced as she took another step.

It’s working, Haibo. All those midnight hours spent yanking-pulling-ripping the hair off the dead, trimming the scalp away, smuggling the hair to the wigmaker, cajoling the cantankerous wretch to make her a wig within her means, and then the Picchadi style back-and-forth haggling matches where they’d somehow squeezed out a third-hand salwar-kameez and a pair of rubber chappals…

She sniffed and blinked heavy eyelids. The hag had taken all her savings. But you were right, it was all worth it.

There was no guarantee that the Vagola flunkies inside the Branch wouldn’t turn her away, but she had to try, she had to know. Worry about that once you’re inside, Haibo had told her. She nodded, took another step. The large iron gate that marked the entrance to the Branch came into sight. She was almost there.

Once she was inside, she would only get one opportunity to pass the tests. A rejection by the Jinn was binding. There would be no second chances. Kavi dabbed at the sweat beading on her forehead as the line snaked closer to the gate.

She’d prepared for the tests. Knew exactly what each entailed. She would first be tested for endurance, to see if she could withstand the weight and power of a Jinn. If she passed, she would then be exposed to an artifice dating back to the era of the First Mages, which, in exchange for a selection of her memories, would somehow force her into the presence of the Jinn. If one of them liked what they saw, and chose, she would take the third and final test: she would demonstrate that a Jinn had gifted her with the ability to channel its maayin.

Spirit, Bridge, and Instrument, the three tests were called, and she was ready for them. Had been for the last five years. All she needed was a way into the Gods-damned building. And now she had it.

‘Bhai, no, please!’

Kavi craned her neck around the heads of the other candidates to look for the source of the cry.

Outside the gate, a group of teenagers were heckling a boy carrying a basket of coconuts. They’d snatched a coconut and were now tossing it between themselves while the boy chased them.

‘Please, bhai, I have to sell—’

One of the teens shoved the boy, and he fell flat on his face. His coconuts spilled out of the basket, bounced and rolled away down the street. He got to his feet with a strangled yelp and tried to chase after them.

They grabbed him by the arms. Mussed his hair and poked him in the ribs. Pinched his jaw until his mouth opened and shoved a fistful of mud into it.

Tears came streaming out of the boy’s eyes as he gagged and spat.

The teens laughed and called for more mud.

Kavi stared at the crying boy. At the dirt stuck in the groves between his teeth. At the apathy on the faces of the other candidates watching.

Why was no one doing anything?

Help him.

The boy wasn’t even a Taemu. He’s one of you. Help him.

No one moved. They just watched the humiliation continue.

Was this what it was like for Haibo? Did people just stand and watch the gangsters toy with him? Beat him? Break his legs? Urinate on him?

What if it was your brother this was being done to? Would you still stand and watch? What if it was one of her brothers? If it was Khagan or Kamith being bullied. Would she act?

Would she?

A weight lifted off her chest as she stepped out of the line. She flicked the braid of her wig behind her shoulder, walked up to the bully she decided was the boss-teenager, and cuffed him. Cuffed him hard enough to hear him squeal. His goons surrounded her. She slipped a rubber chappal off one foot and smacked the closest teen on the side of the face. They froze. Cursed. And scattered.

She turned to coconut-boy and extended a hand to help him up.

He took it. Stood, dusted himself off, and spat the mud out of his mouth. ‘Thank yo—’ His eyes went wide. He took a step closer. Peered into her eyes.

Kavi started. Took a step back. Ran a hand over her face. Her lashes, they’d come unstuck.

‘Taemu?’ the boy whispered. His face twisted, his lips pursed and the veins on his throat stood as he gathered up a mouthful of mud-laced saliva.

Ack-thoo!

The thick gob of spit hit Kavi square in the face with a wet splat.

‘Chootia Taemu!’ The boy yelled and hurried away to collect his coconuts.

A hand, heavy and powerful, clamped down on her shoulder.

Kavi winced, twisted and turned to gaze up into the eyes of the last person she wanted to see. Hawaldar Bhagu.

The constable’s waxed moustache twitched as he snatched the wig off her head, hair clips and all. ‘You,’ he snarled. ‘I warned you.’

‘Saab-ji—’

He grabbed her by the throat. Dragged her into the middle of the street. And flung her to the ground.

Steam-rickshaws honked and screeched to a halt. Drivers spat and yelled at her. But one look at the hawaldar and they lapsed into silence.

‘Stand,’ he said.

She obeyed. Did her best to ignore the eyes of the candidates watching her.

‘Put up your fists,’ Bhagu said.

‘Saab-ji?’ Kavi said, fumbling with her salwar while she searched for a way out.

Bhagu took a step closer. ‘The Taemu are supposed to be fighters, right? Come. Raise your fists.’

Kavi clenched her jaw. Shook her head.

‘Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,’ Bhagu said, and raised two enormous fists to hover under his eyes. ‘Like this. Come.’

Kavi hesitated, but with a tightness in her stomach, and a cold, nameless dread seeping into her skin, she raised two trembling fists.

‘Good,’ Bhagu nodded and lowered his hands. ‘Good, now say it.’

‘Saab-ji?’

‘Say the battle cry.’

Kavi’s eyes bulged. She licked her lips. Tasted the sweat on them. ‘I can’t, saab-ji.’ It was forbidden. If the Kraelish still ruled Raaya, she’d be stripped naked, strung up by her wrists in the bazaar, and whipped till she passed out. Now? There was no law against it, but she didn’t want to find out what would happen.

‘Say it,’ Bhagu said again and reached for his lathi, which hung in a holster on his hip.

‘Please, saab-ji, I—’

‘Say it,’ he growled.

Kavi squeezed her elbows into her sides. Took a sharp, shaky breath, and said, ‘Aadhier Taemu.’

‘Louder.’

There was a tremor in her voice, but again, she obeyed. ‘Aadhier Taemu!’

‘Yes!’ Bhagu said and turned to face the candidates. ‘Everyone heard, right? You heard right?’

There was a mumbled chorus of assent.

‘She’s left me with no choice,’ he said to no one in particular, and rolled his shoulders as he squared up to Kavi.

She still had her fists up when he threw the first punch. A wide hook that crashed into her forearms and sent her stumbling. She hissed. Found her footing.

He threw the same punch again.

Her body, as if reacting to the first blow, twisted to receive the hook on her biceps. Her teeth rattled from the impact and a deep keening spread through the bones in her left arm.

Again and again, Bhagu hit her in the arms until, numb and heavy, they fell, leaving her head exposed.

But like eyes grown accustomed to the dark, she found, as her heart thundered and her blood pounded in her ears, that she could see the next punch coming. Its trajectory, its painful descent and eventual destination. His movements, so sharp and oozing with violence a moment ago, had turned sluggish.

She could get out of the way. Dodge. It would be so easy.

Or, she could reach out and slap his fist aside. Throw him off balance. Leave him open for her to strike back.

Adrenaline coursed through her veins. The candidates disappeared and her vision tunnelled on Bhagu and the incoming fist. The rage in her core screamed and howled for blood. The berserker reached up, wrapped its fingers around her throat, and took contro—

No.

A hammer blow connected with her temple. Lights expanded and exploded. Her ears popped. Needles buried themselves in the right half of her skull, and the impact knocked her off her feet and into a pothole filled with stagnant rainwater.

Bhagu slipped his lathi out of its holster. Raised the heavy, iron-bound bamboo stick over his shoulder.

Kavi twisted. Wrapped her hands around the back of her head, clamped her jaw shut to protect her tongue, and dug her knees into her chest.

The blows arrived – bl