Nala looked down sheepishly as Upavi suppressed his giggles. He could have tried a comeback but Vyas was said to be related to Hastina Royalty, and it was an unwritten rule that you didn’t mess with teachers who were members of the Assignment Committee of Meru.

‘Varcin?’ Vyas commanded, brows raised.

‘Their blood, Acharya. Not visible to the untrained Mortal eye, for the Nardevaks bled a shade of green that cannot be commonly seen in our spectrum, except with special optics. The colour is instantly recognizable to another Nardevak or Daeva.’

‘Perhaps not all of you are lost.’

Nala scowled at Varcin. ‘What? Should I have answered incorrectly?’ Varcin hissed in self-defence.

‘No, but you didn’t have to answer this correctly.’

IV

The Library of Meru was the greatest assortment of texts anywhere in the realm, on every subject imaginable. Thousands of scrolls, parchments, books, diary entries and occult lore weighted its mighty shelves. There were rare books like Saptarishis: The Age of Surveillance Naminism, Why Slavery is Important: A Kalingan Pirate’s Perspective, and even a signed copy of Nagas: Wounded Spirits in the Promised Land. As with any other place of learning, the Library was eerily empty. The only light in the great arched chamber was from an alchemical lantern. It swayed above the heads of two keen-edged minds engaged in some light night reading.

One was flipping over the pages of Kings and Queens I Wanted to Punch in the Throat by famous traveller, Nar Ad Muni, which despite its sour touch was a good reference book on the lineage of the Kings of the Union. The other was probing the private secrets of the world in The Story of Mandalas in Twenty-Five Discoveries, regardless of whether the world gave its consent or not. The glyphs here were complicated, the language a draconus version of Sanskrit, hard to understand. But it was fascinating, even though the dust from the never-turned-before pages made his eyes itch and water.

‘No one has heard of a Mandalyen, I mean a Mandala conjurer, since the Siege of Tyrants. Why do you keep trying?’ Varcin asked.

‘It is so fascinating,’ Nala replied, rubbing his eyes vigorously and pushing back the lock of dark hair that fell over his forehead. ‘It is the only thing I like about history. Think about it. Creating magical signs out of thin air by using the Elementals. Such power! The Mandalyens must have been Gods.’

‘Hardly,’ Varcin said. ‘There were thousands of Mandalyens before the Siege of Tyrants, who were able to use one Elemental or the other: Earth, Fire, Water, Wind, Life, Light and Darkness. But a Mandalyen who could combine two or more Elementals, now that would have been special.’

‘You could also use an Astra for the same effect, no?’