Chapter 1: Pariyon Ka Sapna (The Fairy's Dream)

She flew in the valley, stretching her wings at full span, pushing against the breeze that carried the scent of champa and raat ki rani — the night-blooming jasmine that only grew in the Valley of the Pari. Every dawn in the Valley was beautiful. Every dawn was paradise. The magic of her ancestors kept her home warm and safe, the way a grandmother's shawl kept a child warm — not through thickness but through love woven into every thread.

Her friends had gathered near the lotus pond, their wings catching the morning light in colours that no human painter could mix — the particular iridescence that Pari wings produced, each wing unique as a thumbprint, each catching light at angles that made the catching a kind of music visible. Her sister, Bijli, hovered among them, laughing at something Vikrant had said, her laugh carrying across the valley floor the way temple bells carried — not through volume but through resonance.

Vinaya basked in the gentle sunshine. The air was thick with fragrance — a hundred flowering species releasing their offerings simultaneously, the simultaneously-releasing being the Valley's daily rhythm, the rhythm that no clock governed because clocks were human inventions and the Valley predated human invention by millennia.

The wind touched her face with invisible fingers — the particular touch that Valley wind provided, different from the wind outside (which pushed, shoved, demanded) because Valley wind caressed (the caressing being the wind's acknowledgment that it was welcome here, that nothing in the Valley was hostile, that even air was gentle).

This was anand. Joy. Joy to be home. It was more than she could bear.

It didn't last.

The Valley darkened. The darkening being: instant, the instant-darkening that was not eclipse (eclipses were gradual, predictable, astronomical) but attack. Something terrible was happening — the something that the Pari had feared for three thousand years and that the fearing had not prepared them for because fearing and preparing were different things and the Pari had been so busy fearing that they had forgotten to prepare.

She heard screams and thunder. She could not see. She only felt.

Fear, rising steadily. The rising being: tidal — not a wave but a tide, the tide that came from beneath rather than from before, the beneath-rising that meant the fear was inside her, not outside. Threatening to overwhelm her. It took all her effort not to flee.

She yelled for Bijli, who was nowhere to be found. Everyone had vanished. The vanishing being: the dream's cruelty — show you paradise, then empty it, then make you scream in the emptiness.

Vinaya screamed as she awoke.

She was in the all-too-familiar dreadful place. A cottage — poorly kept, the poor-keeping being the particular neglect that humans practiced when humans did not care about a space. Cottages in her village were maintained by magic — every surface clean, every corner bright, every fireplace blazing with the cheerful fire that Pari magic produced (the fire that burned without smoke, without ash, without the dying that human fires practiced). This cottage had dying embers. Didn't the occupant like fire? Why couldn't he add more wood?

The Pari gave a resigned sigh and rose from her makeshift bed. The bed being: a hollowed-out piece of wood laid over with a scrap of fabric — the fabric being rough cotton, the rough-cotton that was luxury for a six-inch creature sleeping on a human's kitchen table. Vinaya was small — Pari-sized, which was to say: six inches tall, wings folded, the folded-wings being the sleeping posture that all Pari adopted because sleeping with wings open was like sleeping with arms spread — possible but uncomfortable.

Her magic would not work here to fashion the comfortable bed she yearned for. She missed the soft velvety rose petals that used to cushion and keep her warm every night in the Valley — the petals that were not decoration but bedding, the bedding that Pari had used since the beginning because petals were: soft, fragrant, and grown with love.

She stared resentfully at the blue crystal propped on the mantelpiece. The crystal being: a Unicorn's horn — the horn that the Dev had somehow obtained (how? Unicorns were sacred, their horns given only in death, and Unicorn deaths were: rare, mourned, cosmic) — the horn that cast an invisible net that kept her confined to this table. This table, in this cottage, in this forest, in this world that was not hers.

As she stepped out of her little bed, the whole table rattled. The rattling being: her wings catching the edge of a clay pot — the pot containing dried herbs that the Dev used for his cooking (the cooking being terrible, the terrible-cooking that Devs practiced because Devs did not eat for pleasure — Devs ate for function, and functional eating was: joyless).

"Tum jaag gayi!"

You're awake!

"AAH!" Vinaya jumped back in shock. Giant watery grey eyes and hands appeared at the edge of the table — the edges where a human child's face would be if a human child were peering over a table at a six-inch prisoner.

But this was not a human child. This was Chiku — the Dev's son. Eight years old. Grey-eyed (all Devs had grey eyes — the grey being their racial marker, the way wings were Pari's marker and pointed ears were Dev's). Chiku's grey eyes were: enormous from Vinaya's perspective, each eye the size of her torso, the enormity being the scale-difference that made every interaction between Pari and Devs an exercise in perspective management.

"Chiku, tum har roz aise darate ho. Band karo." You scare me every day. Stop it.

"Sorry! Main bas check kar raha tha ki tum theek ho. Pitaji bole the ki tumhe nashta dena hai." The child's voice — enthusiastic, guileless, the guileless-enthusiasm that children produced regardless of species.

I was just checking if you're okay. Father said to give you breakfast.

"Tumhare pitaji ke nashte mein kya hai? Phir se sukhha roti aur paani?" What's your father's breakfast? Dry bread and water again?

"Nahi! Aaj shahad hai!" Chiku's face brightening — the brightening of a child who had produced: a surprise, and the surprise being: honey.

No! Today there's honey!

Shahad. Honey. The honey being: the one thing in the Dev's cottage that tasted like the Valley — the one sweet thing, the sweet-thing that reminded Vinaya of home because honey was: universal. Human honey, Dev honey, Pari honey — all honey tasted of flowers, and flowers were: the Valley's language.

She ate. The eating being: careful (a Pari eating honey was like a human eating from a swimming pool — proportionally overwhelming), the careful-eating that produced: a moment of pleasure in the imprisonment.

The Dev entered. Tharun — Chiku's father. Tall (all Devs were tall — the tall being their racial inheritance from the ancient Naag bloodlines), grey-eyed, pointed-eared, with the particular expression that Tharun wore permanently: guilt. The guilt being: the guilt of a Dev who had imprisoned a Pari and who the imprisoning was: not his choice. Tharun had been ordered — ordered by Rakshas, the Usurper, the creature who had once been human and who the human-to-creature transformation had produced: a being of unlimited ambition and limited mercy.

"Vinaya. Khaana kha liya?" The question asked with the particular politeness of a jailer who knew he was: wrong.

Have you eaten?

"Haan. Ab mujhe chhodh do." Yes. Now let me go.

"Tum jaanti ho ki main nahi chhodh sakta. Rakshas ka hukm hai." You know I can't. Rakshas's orders.

"Rakshas ka hukm. Hamesha Rakshas ka hukm. Tumhare paas apni marzi nahi hai?" Always Rakshas's orders. Don't you have your own will?

Tharun flinched. The flinching being: the physical response that truth produced when truth was: aimed at a wound. The wound being: Tharun's complicity — the complicity of a Dev who served the Usurper because the serving kept his son alive and the son-keeping-alive was: the justification that every parent used when the parenting required: moral compromise.

"Meri marzi se — main tumhe abhi chhodh deta. But meri marzi se Chiku bhi mar jayega. Rakshas ne bola hai — agar Pari bhaagi toh Dev ka bachcha marta hai." If I had my way — I'd free you now. But then Chiku dies. Rakshas said — if the Pari escapes, the Dev's child dies.

The bind. The particular cruelty that Rakshas practiced — not the cruelty of violence but the cruelty of impossible choices. Free the prisoner, kill the child. Keep the prisoner, keep the child. The binary that made freedom: murder, and imprisonment: mercy.

Vinaya looked at Chiku. The child who brought her honey. The child whose grey eyes contained: innocence that Rakshas used as leverage. The child who was: eight, and eight was: too young to be a hostage.

"Theek hai," she said. The acceptance that was: daily, the daily-acceptance that imprisonment demanded when imprisonment was: the cost of a child's life.

Fine.

She sat on the table. In the cottage. In the forest. In the world that was not hers. And she thought about the Valley — the Valley that her dream had shown her and that the showing was: the particular cruelty of memory, the memory that said: this is what you had, this is what you lost, this is what you want.

The Valley. Where the wind was gentle. Where the fire never died. Where the flowers were beds and beds were flowers and everything was: home.

She wanted to go home.

But home was: three thousand years away, across a war, across a curse, across the particular distance that exile created when exile was: enforced by a creature who wanted all magic destroyed and who the destroying required: capturing every Pari, every Dev, every magical being and either enslaving them or killing them.

Vinaya was: enslaved. But alive. And alive meant: there was still a chance.

She ate more honey. The honey being: sweet, and sweet was: hope in edible form.