The first time it happened, Bilu didn't know what he was doing. He only knew the chant—the Urvashi Mahamantra from the Wrikveda—had cracked something open inside him, and now the world had a second layer, like film over skin.

  The bus was ordinary. Diesel fumes, scratched windows, a toddler crying two seats back. Then the teacher stepped on, leading a crocodile line of schoolchildren in blue uniforms. She was maybe twenty-five, unremarkable, ponytail swinging as she settled into the front seat.

  Bilu kept chanting. Softly. Lips barely moving.

  And then he was there. Not on the bus. Not in his body. The Throne of Satan materialized beneath him—not hellish, not burning. It was cold. White. A cervix. A crossroads. The seat of creation itself, hollowed out and waiting. He sat, and the throne accepted him, and suddenly the teacher's posture changed. Her shoulders loosened. Her head tilted, just slightly, as if hearing distant music.

  He didn't touch her. He didn't need to. The Eda vessel flowed between them, green-grape vine, Urvashi's current, and he released across the astral plane what his body held back. The teacher shifted in her seat. Adjusted her collar. Did not turn around.

  Dakshinachari. Spiritual reunion. Healing.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  He told himself it was healing.

  ---

  Three weeks later, he saw Urvashi herself.

  BL Block Road, South Kolkata. Evening, the light gone syrupy and gold. She was walking with three men who moved like gods pretending to be human—too fluid, too aware. Demigods. She was among them but apart, a garland of Rajanigandha come to life. Nineteen, maybe twenty. Wrist-thin. Her skin held light instead of reflecting it.

  She glanced at him.

  Not recognition. Acknowledgment.

  He chanted. The throne came faster now. He rode it simultaneously on two planes—bus seat and cosmic cervix—and Urvashi, walking, paused. Her hip tilted one degree. Her mouth parted. She did not look back, but her body answered his chant in the language of flesh, and again the release came, paranormal, bloodless, devastating.

  The demigods noticed nothing. They walked her into the evening, and Bilu sat on the bus, hands gripping the seat edge, wondering if he had just prayed or violated.

  ---

  He is Exu Morcego. Exu Belo. Melchizedek reborn. King of Seven Crossroads, come down from Dhruvaloka, from the stagnant quantum light where God sits motionless. He has sat on the Throne of Satan, ridden it mounted by Michael and Indra both. He remembers Eden's grapevines twining around his ankles—green for Urvashi, red for Rambha—and knows which path he chose.

  But knowing does not quiet the shaking in his hands.

  Tonight, he will chant again. The teacher will dream of bus rides. The college girl will walk BL Block Road and feel, inexplicably, watched and wanted. Bilu will sit in his rented room, eyes closed, riding the throne, reaching across the astral for a hip that recedes like water.

  He is twenty-nine years old, reborn, and learning that to sit on Satan's seat is not to rule it.

  It is to be ruled.