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1)
She should never have let it near Mingzha.
2)
The thing that had been Nezha had crawled back to their home when Saikhara was six months pregnant.
Coated in mud and lotus stems, Saikhara’s first instinct had been to wipe his cheeks clean and scold him. Nezha had always been more trouble than he’d been worth like that. Of all the horrors which the demon from the grotto had brought, that had been the first, and the one Saikhara could never forgive herself for.
Her beautiful twins. The lights of her life. All of Muzha’s grace and demureness, all of Jinzha’s will and strength, all of Saikhara’s sacrifice, all of it gone. And she hadn’t even understood it until she'd seen the flash of blue in its eyes.
Two months later and near death, Saikhara promised herself she’d never make the same mistake.
3)
The demon didn’t care for belongings. She had found it peculiar.
In every tale of old that Saikhara had once sought comfort in as a child, the Azure Dragon was a greedy creature, hungry for jewels and brides. Every tale of the true faith she had learned afterwards as she'd grown, of foul beings killed by the Maker’s servant, had spoken of the same.
But whatever had replaced Nezha had no such regard. Clothes were torn without care as it cavorted with Minister Chen’s son and Minister Sring’s daughter. Whatever toys they left him were idly broken. It faked crying whenever Vaisra or her had beaten it for that, but never once did it change.
She should have remembered how it'd left behind the shreds of her children’s clothes after taking them.
4)
She hadn’t let it near Mingzha. She hadn’t. She’d never considered that Mingzha, always so curious, would go near it.
5)
“What did you do?” she demanded.
There was no blood. That was the worst thing, as strange as it was to think it. For all the nightmares she’d had since of the demon and its hands coated in the blood of her children, Saikhara had never once thought to be grateful for it. But looking at its clean ones, she realised she should have; it had let her know who had killed them.
There was no blood on its hands now.
The demon smiled as she sank to the floor.
6)
In retrospect, maybe it was slapping her that proved the demon had won more than the murder.
Eight years in Nezha’s flesh and it had robbed three lives already, but turning his hand on her after she caught him was a greater blow than finding them wet from drowning the third in a basin.
7)
“He was smiling when he talked about it,” the Chen boy recounted hollowly to her.
“He was smiling at the funeral too,” she replied.
“Venka doesn’t care.”
No one does. Saikhara thought bitterly. No one but me ever has.
8)
“You can’t let it become heir!” she screamed at Vaisra.
Saikhara’s husband sighed.
“What would you have me do?” he demanded wearily, as if the answer wasn’t obvious. “He’s done nothing to merit being left out of succession.”
“It’s a monster."
The look she received, cold and bemused, fit far too well on a human for one that looked so close to one of the demon’s.
“Open your eyes, wife. Monsters are everywhere in this land. They always have been.”
But, she wanted to scream, they'd stayed away from me until now.
9)
“I’d told you,” it reminded Saikhara, gazing in cold disgust as her face swelled with a bruise and and a sob, “to stop letting that dog of yours bite me.”
10)
“Why can’t I see brother?” Mingzha demanded.
Saikhara could never deny her youngest anything. Anything but this.
A thousand answers came to mind.
That’s not your brother. Nezha is gone and broken and won’t be fixed for years, even if my prayers reach the Maker. It’s unholy and wicked and has nothing good inside.
But what would a child know of evil?
“It’s dangerous,” she told him, missing the way his eyebrows furrowed in dissatisfaction at her answer.
11)
“All I did was tell him to stay away from the grotto.”
It had never looked more monstrous than it did now, so much like Vaisra.
“It didn’t seem right of Father to not warn him.”
12)
“Why did you let them take me, Mother?”
They were on the carriage ride to Sinegard. Scarcely an hour away from it being out of Saikhara’s hair and free to spread Chaos’ taint to the rest of the student body. Another reason to be gladdened that Vaisra’s war would kill them off, she reasoned.
“The Chen boy won’t trust you again,” she answered instead.
If Nezha had snorted as he did now, Saikhara would have beaten him then and there. She sat there, waiting for him to finish.
“Kitay,” it mused, far too fondly for her liking, “is more willing to let things go than he likes to admit. He doesn’t need to forgive me. All he needs to do is love me again.”
“And do you truly think that he can ever do that again after knowing what you are?”
“You can love people whom you hate,” Nezha’s voice replied.
“Maybe,” Saikhara allowed, “but you aren’t one of those people. No one could ever love you.”
He was so beautiful. It wasn’t fair, she thought, that it could use her son’s face, perfect and bright even now, to twist into an expression that she could almost mistake for sadness.
“Why did you let them take me, mother?”
It didn’t need to elaborate its question.
She didn’t need to, either. She didn’t. She knew that.
“I didn’t let them do anything,” Saikhara whispered.
She looked away. She wouldn’t cry before it again. Not now. Not ever.
“Vaisra told them to stay away from the grotto, but they just didn’t listen. If I weren’t stuck in my bed, I would have stopped them from-”
“I wasn’t talking about the grotto, Mother,” it interrupted. “I asked why you let them take me.”
What?
Such a beautiful face.
Turning to face those misty eyes, Saikhara wondered how lovely it looked when it had killed everything she had ever loved.
“You must have known what they were doing to me, even if I tried to keep quiet. You paid attention to Muzha and Jinzha, even if you didn’t to me.”
Nezha had always cried as a child. Saikhara remembered.
He’d clung to her even as she’d pushed him to his siblings, had tried to waddle away when they had dragged him off to play.
But that didn’t mean- they couldn't have-
“Not that it matters,” the demon chirped, dragging her out of her spiral as he wiped the tears from Nezha’s eyes with a quick stroke of its sleeve, “I don’t think you care now any more than you did back then.”
“I don’t think,” Saikhara told him quietly, not bothering to wipe her own, “that I can feel much of anything now.”
It stood there for a moment, strangely awkward, before reaching out to dry her face itself.
Saikhara didn’t stop it.
“Well, I'd better be off,” it said, patting damp hands on what had been pristine robes without care even now. “I don’t want to miss the guide, and Venka is waiting for me. I’ll see you later. Goodbye, Mother.”
“Goodbye, Nezha.”
It smiled and waved, then left.
It had taken everything she had once loved from her. Whether the Maker granted Nezha salvation through His servants or not, Saikhara knew that it didn’t truly matter for herself.
Sooner or later, whatever came, she and her husband would die too at its hands.
She turned and left.
She hoped that day would come soon.