Aman fainted before she could finish and fell from the stone slab. His lip bled uncontrollably.

‘Eleven!’ Fayza screamed. She dabbed Aman’s lip with the hem of her garment, trying to stop the blood. Idhika splashed water on his face. He opened his eyes in seconds, looking dazed. Idhika and Ujal insisted on escorting him to Chitra’s cottage, and they asked Fayza to go to Gurukul and inform the acharya of their delay. Prithvi headed back to her hut to get some rest.

With arms around his friends’ shoulders, Aman was steered left and right to avoid the muddy puddles on the way to the vaidya’s hut, through a path lined with rows of the most uniquely shaped red flowers and eucalyptus trees.

The vaidya’s hut was a large circular cottage that housed clay pots and stacks of roots on its shelves. The containers were labelled in Sanskrit. Differently sized mortars and pestles sat beside them. Aman was most intrigued by the tree trunk that ran up the middle of the cottage, through the roof and spread out with leaves shadowing the hut. Inside the hut, around the bark of the same tree, was a circular working station for the vaidya.

‘Namahkrita, Souls!’ Chitra said, watching the Child of the Valley and Ujal help Aman on to the charpai. ‘Before you leave, a word, Idhika? There’s a boy among the recruits. Yuvan. Doesn’t he know the laws of the valley? He needs to be disciplined. Flirts with me every other day.’

Idhika whispered something in her ear and left with Ujal.

After they had gone, Chitra offered Aman a measured smile. ‘There are whispers that the Child of the Valley is the Eka. Now that we have a leader, I hope the villagers are no longer blaming you.’ She took notice of the cut on his lower lip and her eyebrows rose. ‘What happened? Got into a fight?’

‘Yup,’ Aman said with his chin raised, ‘with a kirtimukha. I’ve been nauseous ever since.’ Touching the wound, which hurt upon contact, he recounted the events east of the Varunasmati.

She looked impressed and examined the gash. ‘Unusual. The wound isn’t scabbing. You’re continuously bleeding. I’ve only seen this before with . . .’ Chitra stopped, stifling her words.

‘With?’ Aman asked.

‘Yes . . . that’s what it is! An infection!’ The vaidya raved enthusiastically. ‘The nail of that occult being has destabilized you, for his touch lies above our mortal realm. It will continue to volatilize you and render you off-colour.’

‘You are not making sense,’ Aman said.

‘Okay. Little fragments of the divine kirtimukha now run in your veins. And until they are washed out by the churna I’ll give you, these fragments will give you a slight edge over others. A sharpness, or an advantage.’

‘That’s good?!’ Aman was confused.

‘It is!’ she said. ‘All I can say is trust your gut for the next few days. That is if you manage to see beyond the nausea. Let your instincts take charge. Be intuitive. But I take no responsibility after that. This will’—Chitra extended her palm, in the middle of which was a brown palm-leaf packet—‘heal you within two nights of sleep.’