The river became a battlefield. Ropes snapped under invisible pressure; Raju’s boat rocked like a leaf. The second anaconda, driven by hunger or desperation, lunged for the nearest warm mass: Raju. In a flash, coils wrapped around him. Aarav leapt, his camera forgotten, and hacked at the coils with a machete. Meera administered what sedative she could into the larger snake’s flank. The creature’s eyes, brilliant and terrible, fixed on her for a second that felt like an eternity—an intelligence older than any courtroom law—and then sloooowly it began to loosen.