With an effort of will, Parvati slowly raises her eyes and meets that burning, questing gaze. She looks into his eyes and sees her image reflected in his eyeballs. She feels the swirl, the power of those eyes and gazes back, thirsting to drown in them. Slowly, those eyes bloom and, as she watches, the lips stretch into the sweetest of gestures. Siva smiles.

Kamadeva feels that slight smile pouring through his veins. He heaves a huge sigh of relief. They have worked. His flower arrows have worked even on Siva, the Destroyer. He permits himself a smile as small as Siva’s but not as sweet. Kamadeva is feeling triumphant.

Parvati feels the change in Siva’s gaze. The enfolding warmth of the previous moment is gone. She sees the beginnings of the fury. Slowly, very slowly, Siva closes his eyes again. Parvati’s heart ceases to beat. Fear-struck, her fingers still clutching the withered garland, she waits, unmoving, certain that her end is near and all the world will go with it.

A burning red blaze opens out on Siva’s forehead, so bright that she cannot see. Parvati closes her eyes and surrenders into the being of this man before her. She hears a cry, a wild wrenching sound. Is it coming from her? No. It is someone else. She quickly opens her eyes. The blaze is gone. Siva’s eyes are open and calm, and he is looking at something. Parvati turns to see. At a distance, with some flames still flickering, there is a pile of ashes. Something has been burnt by Siva’s Third Eye.

All around, the trees are on fire. There is a red fog in the air, overwhelming and all-enveloping. Everything smells pungent, ruined and burnt. She can hear cries of fear, pain and death in the blazing forest, as animals, birds, bees, insects, snakes and even leeches get caught in the all-consuming fire. The wind has turned red, the earth is red, the sky is red and the water of the lake is burning red.

Parvati trembles with fear. As she looks on, the form of a woman seems to come out of the blazing trees. She is wearing a white seere, her hair is swinging loose, and she wears jangling anklets on her inward-turned feet. She goes down on her knees next to the flickering ashes on the ground, tears streaming down her cheeks as she wails with a pain that wrenches out of her body with no beginning and no end.