My hands grasped at the air like a blind person, trying to get hold of something. There were voices all around me. But they made no sense in my mind. I must have been crying or screaming for I felt hands holding me down.

"Where are the twins!?" someone cried. "Bring them here now!"

"Oh, Meru gods have mercy! What in the Seventh Hell did you all think, going into a trap like that?"

"Out of the way! Out of the way! The boys are here!"

But the last thing I heard was my own voice calling out to Amarisa.

Then a long stretching nothingness prevailed. No measures of time and space existed after that. Everything was silent and dark. But the calmness didn't last long. My body felt like it was plunged into the fire then frozen into ice. The colors and sounds returned, but they were of horrible shapes and ranges inside my head.

In the midst of it all, the vision came to me again. It was the scene of the war, which was still raging on the battlefield. Though I was not there physically, I saw everything as if I were everywhere in spirit.

A mighty uproar rose high into the dawning. The war began with both sides armed and ready.

Tepi blew her conch. The sound never failed to shake the whole earth. A thousand faces lifted and screamed in unison. The demons began to break apart, scrambling backward with terror. Issarak bared his teeth as he charged ahead on his chariot. He raised his gleaming celestial spear, the Val, firing energy blasts at the wave of demons.

Samudra was holding off a new force of Asuras crossing into our world through the surging river. They sailed on a hundred boats. But they got capsized. Some drowned along the way, but not those who could turn to fish or expand in size, and they kept coming still.

Not all demons were cowards and not all of them feared the children of the gods.

Soon both armies clasped against each other, hacking and stabbing. Our human warriors battled against the ones on Ravana's side. The avatars charged at the massive giants and the horrid herds of ancient monsters.

Tepi and Raksa fought their foot soldiers on the ground while Tusita and Vorac took the sky battle. Atith rode his chariots through the wave of grey bodies. His sun horses blazed streams of fire over them.

Ravi, Issarak, and the avatar of Marutas fought against a horde of giants and monstrous beasts.

But it seemed as though the demons would never stop coming. When one fell, the other took his or her place.

The next day, the fight was the same. Our army was weakened slowly. Tusita's mighty Gandiva did severe destruction on the enemy, but she was now starting to get weary. Her poisoned hand, though had been tended by the twins, began to throb after summoning too many powerful arrows. Morokot set fire on the feet of a colossal giant. The giant fell upon the others, causing a minor earthquake.

Then a horrible thing happened.

Unseen by Atith, a demon climbed onto his chariot and got beside him, spear in hand, and wounded him in the middle of his arm below the elbow, the point of the spear going right through his flesh. Atith was convulsed with pain, but not even for this did he leave off fighting.

He grasped his spear that flew as fleet as the wind and pierced the demon in the eye. The demon instantly burst into a plume of black dust. But another one struck the avatar with a bronze-shod spear from behind. His golden armor deflected the blade, but the force shoved him forward. He collapsed over the back of his sprinting fire-breathing horses. Two Rakshasas seized him by the legs and dragged him off the chariot. Vorac tried to save him by shooting the demons from above, but they took under cover of their shields.

"Atith!"

I felt as if I was inside his mind as Atith laid on the ground. Many pairs of black and blue hands clawed and choked him. Then he screamed as they tried the suit of golden armor which he was born with. The avatar of the sun god cried and burst into piercing light.

Then the vision was gone.

~*~

I opened my eyes again and found that I was lying on soft bedding and not out in the field of madness anymore. Above me was the canvas ceiling of a tent. I was in pain. A lot of pain.

I moved my head and realized I was not alone. Besides me were the twin sons of the gods of medicine.

"Good," Romany said with a sigh of relief, "you are awake. I thought we had shamed our fathers for failing to save your life."

"We were not sure if you could make it," Romanir added.

"What happened...?" I croaked. My voice sounded so weak. It was strange even for my own ears. My throat was burning with thirst. Romany brought a cup of bitter drink to my lips and let me drink it slowly.

"Rest, Nikita," he said afterward. "Only heavens knows you had the hardest day. If you want to see tomorrow, you must stay here. No more fighting." His voice was warm but also stern. Romanir nodded in agreement. They probably knew better than me how bad I was.

"No fighting? What about the war? What about Amarisa?" I asked. The pain shot through me as I made effort to speak, and I flinched.

All I could think of was my princess. I wanted to kill Ravana. I wanted to kill the witch who dared to take her form and confused my mind.

"The war gets uglier since you were unconscious, but the avatars will find her," Romanir tried to calm me down. Both brothers tried their best to keep their composure. They told me about the wave of black demons, of strange monstrous beasts of another world, and of the greedy humans manipulated by the evil force. But I knew there was something else they tried not to talk about.

"Then I must go and fight alongside them!" I said.

"No, Nikita, you can't fight anymore. Ravana had inflicted you a permanent damage and one that would kill you slowly if you do wield the sword."

"But I could not lie here and let my friends die!"

I was the one prophesied to lead this war. How could I spend even one more moment here and talking while they fought for our future and my beloved wife?

"You must not go no matter what," the twins insisted. "You do not have the strength to survive the battle let alone to win it. If you go now, you will never come back."

I could hear their words and their tone. They were sincere. They believed in what they had witnessed in my condition. If I went into the battle, I would die, but if I didn't, who would find Amarisa and rescue her from the evil king? But if I lied here, how could my friends win the war? If they lost, Amarisa would be gone forever. All these dilemmas felt like another stab in my gut.

"Please, you are the sons of gods. If I stay, we might lose the battle. I need to save Amarisa. You must know a way to help me, please, do something. Help me!"

Both twins shook their heads.

"Even the powers of the gods have their limits."

"I beg you!" I tried to sit up, but the wound sent me fresh pain. I gasped. Tears sprang from my eyes. The twins stopped me but I grabbed their hands and pleaded with hot tears running down my cheeks. "Everything will perish if I cannot do what I was destined to do. Do you understand me?"

At that moment, the tent's flap opened. I couldn't see the silhouette of a woman, but her voice made me freeze.

"Nikita," Queen Indradevi spoke as she entered. I had hardly seen her ever since Amarisa was abducted. Seeing her again made the guilt grow stronger in my chest.

The twins moved away to give the Queen room. She sat down beside my bed and placed a hand on my forehead.

"Your courage has moved me. I thank you for your sacrifice. My daughter is precious to us as she is to you, but I can't let you risk your life, too."

"If I can't see her again, I will die nevertheless," I told her. "You know I will die here, don't you? Everyone does. But I don't want to die of a broken heart like this."

Tears welled up in the Queen's eyes. She did not wipe it away to hide her vulnerability. Her husband along with other kings and princes hadn't returned from the fight either, and her face was full of distress.

"Your mother, my sister, she is suffering," she told me. "She knows what shall befall you."

"Is she ill?" I breathed. "Is she alright?"

For a long moment, the younger Queen did not answer me.

"The Guru and the Hora have gone back to the city to attend to her. Only the Great Lord knows how long her time shall be in this world, Nikita," she said in a saddened voice. Grief struck me again harder. I found myself sobbing. Kesar, Amarisa, now my mother. Everyone I ever loved. I could not fathom the pain that awaited me. Perhaps it was my cue to undertake my unforgiving fate.

Then I turned to the Queen again.

"But as long as Amarisa and my friends are spare, I will do anything the gods planned for me," I said.

She nodded with a look of respect in her eyes. Then she turned to the twins.

"I trust that you will give her what she wishes."

With that said, Queen Indradevi wiped her eyes and left the tent. Romany looked at his brother. They took a deep breath and looked at me again.

"We know you, and we believe in you," Romany said. "We understand the importance of your role."

"But this is wrong," his brother said to him. "You know it as much as I do."

"Brother, we must respect her last wish," Romany said with a sigh.

Romanir looked at me. For the first time, I saw tears in their eyes. I had never seen the twins like this before.

"Are you sure about it, Nikita?" he asked.

My answer was simple and short. "Yes."

"Very well then, there is one medicine the gods taught us," Romany said with a solemn look. "It will banish your pain and give you enough strength to fight, but nobody can say what happens after this."

"Some who took it became sick afterward. Some even died, it's not for mortals," the voice of Romanir grew worried with every word. "Are you willing to take this risk?"

There was no reason to hesitate. I nodded again.

"Then so be it," Romanir sighed. His eyes were dark and heavy with sadness. He and his brother then hurried outside and came back at the nightfall.

They offered me a cup of bitter-smelling brews.

"Drink all of it."

I did as I was told.

I felt my heart falter. Blood rushed through my body with a deep shiver of healing power. The pain left me. Without seeing it with my own eyes, I could feel the edges of my wound closing where the medicine touched them, inside and out. Within moments, I no longer felt it there.

This was indeed a miraculous medicine.

At dawn, they helped me into my armor in silence, but I could see the twins wipe their eyes from tears. Then they and the Queen saw me off to battle.

My knees were shaking at first, but my steps grew firmer as I stepped into the sun.

Every minute, every second, the strength grew back in my body. I walked to my trusted mount, Gajasimha. He shook his scaly body and lowered himself to the ground. His white mane and the spiral-stripped coat was smeared and matted with dirt from the last battle.

Romanir lent me a hand, and I swung myself into the saddle.

"May the gods be with you," my mother-in-law said.

I bowed my head and took the reins then steered the king of beasts towards the battlefield. Gajasimha let out a mighty roar as he began to sprint.

At last, with the speed of an arrow, I rode back into the war.