Chitragupta released Ezra’s hand before turning and scrutinizing the accessories. He gravitated toward the bangles before spending a copious amount of time with the earrings, unknowingly incurring Ezra’s narrow-eyed stare.
“We can pierce your—”
“There will be no pierced ears,” Ezra hastily refuted, jumping on the change of subject before promptly abolishing it.
Unfortunately, Chitragupta was not cowed. “Svarga is all about the jewelry,” he reprimanded. “I’ve told you this.”
“Agni doesn’t wear much jewelry, if at all,” Ezra countered smugly.
Something amused Chit, for the atrin snickered to himself in the corner of the dressing room. “Don’t let him fool you. Before you came into the picture, he was as brazen as Indra.”
Ezra balked at the image of a decked-out Agni before collapsing back on the stool. He refused to believe it. “You lie.”
“Ask yourself why there is so much jewelry in here…”
He sat uneasily with the possibility before curiosity settled. There was so little he knew about Agni, especially his time in Svarga before Skanda’s death. He refocused on Chit with deliberation, realizing he had a relatively unbiased source at his disposal. “What was he like?” he asked quietly. “Agni?”
Chit appeared to have expected the question, for he turned back around with a knowing grin. “When I was younger, I was just as enamored with his past victories as any young deity who had a taste for reading and reenacting adventures. He was aloof, unapproachable, and he gave off airs of being someone you didn’t want to inconvenience by breathing the same air. But knowing what I know now, and having gone through what I’ve gone through, I realized I had him entirely wrong.”
Ezra scoffed as his chin was taken captive. As his face was lifted, he was forced to remain docile as a black liner was applied around his eyes. “What do you mean? You summed him up pretty well: aloof, unapproachable, and excessively proud.”
Chit returned Ezra’s scoff with his own noise of amusement. It fell flat. It wasn’t so much humorous as it was cynical. “Agni is a legend. A god among gods, if you will.” He finished Ezra’s left eye with meticulous care before moving to the other. “Like most legends, they reside on pedestals that elevate them above all others. As you can imagine, it gets lonely up there. Most of his fellow legends had died in the Last War, chosen to sleep away their existence, or assumed mundane roles in the new era of peace. He struggled to connect with the new Svarga.”
Ezra’s humor promptly fled.
“Looking back now, what I remember seeing is a lonely, detached god who could not find his place. He went through the motions as if he were on the verge of fading.” Chit’s pause was heavy with careful deliberation. His thick brows drew together, and his eyes appeared to be lost in a distant, unclear memory. “He looked defeated but still hopeful. As if he’d been stood up by someone he’d been expecting, but instead of abandoning hope, he chose to wait for their belated arrival.”
Avery Hendrex 