Netra’s PoV
The truth about my grandma and her greediness shook my insides. When a significant number of scientists on earth are trying to find a way to defeat death and attain immortality, there is a race of people who feels it as a curse. People never get content with what they have. The fascination for the unknown always has resulted in catastrophe and no one is willing to learn from history.
To be honest, the little selfishness in my grandma was magnified by Amirtham and to top it, she fell into the trap of Theeya. So I cannot place everything that had happened only on my grandma. But I cannot absolve her from her sins also. She is evil and I had no doubt about it. My grandma’s prisoners continued the story of my grandma’s deceit.
“It was time we were gaining more knowledge through astral projection. Physical travel was made only by Isfe using the vessel made by Pingalan and we were trying to study the wormholes but none of us had ever traveled through the wormholes until then because all we saw were volatile wormholes that opened here and there because of Maya’s unstable emotional stage. Karmegan helped our people to locate Isfe and when he tried to kill her, she escaped through a wormhole but not before killing him. Theeya took care of the people as she was left behind. She didn't look for Isfe then. She made everyone believe that Karmegan killed Isfe and he was killed in the fight. Karmegan’s loss was the first thing that hit us hard. We took a step back. We understood that somehow Karmegan and his son Aadhan didn't have Amirtham. We gave him a proper burial,” said Asuran.
“The very night, Maya broke the hell loose on the planet thinking that the people took her parents away from her. It was then we understood her true powers. Her mood swings brought catastrophe. We needed to keep her happy all the time. Our elders tried to kill her with the soul-snatcher but she was too powerful to even be near her. But we couldn't take it anymore when she let her emotions destroy us for the second time.”
“What happened to her that she lost her control for the second time?”
“Theeya lived with them in the palace. Maya was in love with Karmegan’s son Aadhan. But somehow, Theeya manipulated Aadhan to fall in love with her. Maya could not take it that her love was snatched away from her. She tried to reason with Aadhan but Theeya killed him. Losing Aadhan broke Maya for the second time. Her outburst almost wiped our people. That was when Kaalan came to us with ‘The Chalice’.”
“What is it?”
“It was a decorated cup made of a special metal that our ancestors unearthed and was used to bind their blood when they practiced blood magic. When blood magic was considered dark and too powerful, our people decided to stop using it. Then it was used by our ancestors to bind herbs and chemicals to make potions for our spells. Our ancestors’ blood was in the chalice in a blue crystal form studded like jewels on the chalice. We exhumed Karmegan’s body and took his blood. We shed our blood along with Karmegan’s in the chalice and watched it get suckered in the blue crystals. Our broken souls along with the souls that were lost by Maya’s outburst gave us immense power that we used along with our collective spell to cast Maya out and banish her from our planet to spare the remaining lives left by creating a protective barrier around our planet with our blood. Our loved ones' deaths killed our souls. We cursed her to never have her love ever and if she ever came close to her love, that would be her death.”
“Where was my dad in all this?” I asked them.
“Maayon is a very good kid. In the absence of his father and mother, he grew up on his own and took care of Maya. Kaalan spent his quality time with Maayon to make him feel that he had a family. Maayon was already in his adolescent age when Maya was born and hence he had to share his time between Maya and his personal life. Maayon fell in love with Dhira. He married her but she became unhappy soon because she was infertile. She felt like she had been spoiling Maayon’s life and she went in search of elders to get a cure. She came back with the soul snatcher and killed herself with it. Maayon was distracted at the moment with the loss of Dhira when we banished Maya. But as soon as he learnt about it, he came to us with utmost anger. He was ready to kill us all for everything he thought we had done to his family. He failed to listen to us when we tried to tell him that it was all his mother. We had no other choice than to banish them all from our planet.” Gandharvan finished.
