Page 48 of Her Soul for a Crown

The breeze played with Reeri’s hair as he bathed beneath the stars. It curled the tips, drew gooseflesh across his neck. Mayhap, though, that came from the image dancing through his mind instead.

Eight days they had spent in the archives.

Eight days reading, much to Sohon’s pleasure, scouring each page for a hint to where to search.

Eight days sitting alongside Anula, noticing the delicate bones beneath her mehendhi hands, the way she sighed when the person of whom she read found a happy moment, and, moreover, noticing the change in her curses.

No longer was it a cursed Yakka, but cursed blessings.

He had scooted closer to her the day before, and she had let her hair fall on his shoulder.

It smelled of jasmine. He wondered at the feel of it betwixt his fingers.

Mayhap he could know—after the relic was found and used, once he had a body and a life.

If Anula allowed it, he could live in the inner city.

They could remain…connected. She had said that her auntie had taught her of allies.

He could show her how good an ally he could be, how she would want for nothing.

She would tremble only under his thumb as he swept it over her cheeks, down her neck, trailing it with his nose.

Nuzzling, brushing lips over her softness.

She had said she begged on her knees for one thing only.

O Heavens. He would give it to her every time.

Anything she requested. Anywhere she demanded.

A drop of water landed on Reeri’s face. Not from the pool lapping at his waist but from the sky above. The rain fell on his shoulders. Reeri stilled. The season was turning, signaling the equinox mere days away. He opened a palm, let it fill with water.

Mighty Heavens, what was he doing, wasting time in the bath, dreaming of a life that could possibly never be, dreaming of—

It started at his navel, a force binding and confining. Just as it was in his memory. Reeri’s heart beat swiftly. This was not the tether.

It was his Lord.

***

When the Second Heavens called, there was nothing a Yakka could do.

Fire and brimstone reflected off the smooth ivory floor.

Reeri coughed against a heap of broken statue, his head swimming from being ripped out of a body.

Kama and Sohon bent with him. Calu collapsed on his knees.

Reeri fought through the panic. They still had time. They should not have been called.

“You dare disobey my orders once again?” The booming voice of their Lord echoed through the vast chamber.

“Please,” Calu cried.

Dread traced Reeri’s throat.

“Shall I rescind the bargain now?” Lord Wessamony growled, heavenslight illuminating him atop his grand throne. The Great Sword trembled in his hand. “Shall I send you to final death for your repeated insolence?”

Reeri’s head snapped up. “My Lord, there has been no such thing.”

Blue burned the base of Wessamony’s horns. “Do you think me blind?”

“No, my Lord.” Reeri’s mind raced. Only they knew of the soul sacrifice, the purpose behind it.

Anula would not be so daft as to tell the one she had marked for death.

There was no other reason for Wessamony to believe they had tricked him or acted against the terms of their bargain.

There were not even Kattadiya left to call upon him once more.

They were dead and buried by their own people.

“Please. We are close. I feel it in my soul.”

Wessamony smoldered. “You feel the call of the Bone Blade?”

“It is close.” It was not a lie. Residing in the kingdom brought them closer than they had been in the aether.

Wessamony reclined back, regarding them. It took one flick of Reeri’s gaze to see the line of Yakkas missing. A sight Reeri had never seen. His stomach twisted.

“Our bargain stands,” Wessamony declared. “Yet this cannot go unpunished.”

“What cannot?”

A wicked smile spread. “Calu, my son. Tell them.”

Reeri’s mouth dried as he turned to face Calu.

A shiver raked Calu’s shadow. He did not look up, nor meet their gazes. “I unwound the mind of a human. Without a bargain.”

Kama sucked in a sharp breath. The edges of Sohon’s specter thrashed.

No. None of them would break taboo, least of all Calu. Unless…had he not said he feared their plan going awry? That Ratti would never return to his side?

An ache swept through Reeri’s shadow. Calu believed Reeri had already failed him. Again.

Calu bowed. “I accept full responsibility for my actions, my Lord. I deserve punishment.”

“Indeed, you do.” Wessamony held up a hand. “Yet tell me, what action did you take on the human?”

“I unwound his mind, my Lord, and gave him only one thought: to make an offering to me,” he whispered.

“Did he?”

Calu nodded, grim and haunted.

“What was it?”

Dread coiled tight around Reeri’s throat, as he saw the trajectory of Wessamony’s questions. Calu flickered a pitiful gaze to Reeri. “A handcrafted rice bowl, made of his brother’s teeth.”

The pieces fell into place. The words Calu had cried in the hallway the other day surfaced.

No one was offering and time was slipping by.

But Calu had already received his essence offering.

Or had he not? Reeri shivered as he remembered Calu’s empty neckline.

The mangled pendant was gone. This was what he had been trying to tell him; this was what he truly feared—because without his essence offering, their plan could not succeed.

“Then that”—Wessamony’s voice rattled Reeri’s bones—“be your punishment. You turned brother against brother. So, too, you will turn against your clan.”

Wessamony snapped his fingers. Ratti flew from an antechamber, shadow as pristine as the first day she had been created. She landed at Calu’s feet, fear bright in her eyes as the first day she had been destroyed.

“No.” Calu’s voice cracked. “Please.”

Ratti swallowed hard and whispered, “It is all right.”

It was not.

The wrongness writhed. Reeri stepped betwixt the two. “I will do it.”

“A great leader bears all faults.” A smile sounded in Wessamony’s words. “You have learned that lesson, at least.”

“Yes, my Lord.” Reeri grit his teeth.

“You are aware that, ultimately, his failure is your fault.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

Calu cried, “No. I—”

Reeri pushed him away. This was his fault. He had promised redemption and delivered a false relic. In this, Reeri could rectify his failing and save Calu when before he could not have. He would do this, because he loved him.

“I am sorry,” Reeri whispered to Ratti, then closed his eyes and placed his hand on her shadow mouth.

He could almost smell her spring-flower scent, could almost feel the tiny hairs on her cheek, as he had the last time he had touched her face. Back when they had bodies and lives, when they felt and dreamed and embraced. Before they had been reduced to shadow and pain.

Now her edges danced anxiously. Reeri sharpened his shadow fingers to claws and ripped.

With a wail, Ratti’s jaw tore away. Shadow teeth shattered in the air.

Her lips dissolved into nothing at all. Her cry spiraled around him, squeezing tight as a vise until he could not breathe—his head swimming in her tears, stomach plummeting in her pain.

Reeri backed away, gagging. When would he stop being the source of their suffering?

Wessamony chuckled low, tossing the tooth-crafted bowl to Calu. “Consider it a reminder to never cross me again, lest you be forced to unwind your brethren’s mind.”

Calu’s shadow shivered.

Reeri swallowed back the nausea, his voice quavering. “It is done, my Lord. May we return to our search?”

Wessamony leaned forward, watched the movement of his mouth, as if waiting to see him retch, wanting to feel the agony it cost Reeri to inflict pain. “You have three days afore the Maha Equinox, afore I return you to the aether.”

“I am aware, my Lord,” Reeri said betwixt clenched teeth. He would not choke or stammer. He would not give him the satisfaction.

“Yet, it would seem, they are not.” Wessamony pointed at the others. They gazed at one another in question.

If dread had more than fingers, its hand would be around Reeri’s neck.

“Did he not tell you?” Enjoyment deepened Wessamony’s voice. “He bargained for your final deaths. To be your eternal tormentor. How was your first taste, Reeri?”

His breath came in swift bursts and he closed his eyes.

“Do you hunger for more?”

Reeri gagged. Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

***

A slap woke him.

“Reeri? Reeri, are you all right?” Calu’s voice swam into existence.

He blinked.

A sigh blew through his hair. “He is alive,” Sohon said. The three of them leaned over the body of Raja Vatuka, who lay prostrate on the stone floor outside the bathing pool, half submerged in a puddle of rainwater.

“I am sorry,” Calu said, lip quivering as he helped Reeri to sit. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” Reeri coughed, but it turned into a heave, and now with a form and a full stomach, he retched. Ratti’s teeth shattered in his eyes like sunbursts.

Calu rubbed his back. “My first essence offering…it disappeared, the bargain somehow voided. I could not find another to offer, and rumors began to spread that my bargains break, and—I did not know what to do. Without mine, we would fail—I would fail Ratti—it would be my fault. O mighty Heavens, I will be the reason our brethren are never freed, because I am a wretch, a monster, every foul thing the humans have ever said about me—”

“No.” Reeri coughed again, the taste of iron bright on his tongue. “If we fail, it will not be your fault.”

Calu blanched. “What?”

Reeri struggled to sit up, but focused on his brother. “I would never blame you for another person’s decision. If they do not offer, we will face that together.”

Calu sniffled. “I am sorry.”

“Forcing people to offer to you will not gain you trust or connection, and Ratti would not thank you for saving her that way.”

Calu pulled him into another embrace, clung tight as a tear escaped. Reeri held him, as Ratti would have done.

“Is what Wessamony said true?” Sohon asked quietly. “Did you bargain our deaths?”

Bile rose in Reeri’s throat. Mayhap he would retch again. “Yes.”

“Why did you not tell us?”

Reeri scowled. “To protect you. If I did fail again, at least you would have enjoyed this half-life.”

“Again?” Kama asked.

“You did not have to bear that alone,” Calu said. “We can help.”

Reeri wiped his face, hand shaking. Ratti’s ruined face flashed in his mind. This was what happened when Reeri accepted help.

“I have it under control. The Bone Blade is near. I did not lie about that.” He stood. Swayed. Calu caught his arm. Mayhap Anula had something in her necklace…a tincture to take this taste away, a poison to corrupt the memory.

“Should we worry about the voiding of our bargains?” Sohon asked.

“It is puzzling,” Kama said. “Unless the Kat—”

“Do not speak their name.” Reeri grunted. Wessamony himself could have broken the bargain, to ensure they knew their place or simply to play with his toys. “Time is running out. Let us focus.”

He swooned to the side. Again, Calu caught him.

“He needs Anula and the tether’s healing. We must take him to their bedchamber,” Kama said.

Calu hefted him up and began to walk, but just as a blackness started at the corners of Reeri’s vision, he said, “The man I unwound was a treasure seeker.”

Reeri pulled them to a pause.

“I saw it in his mind. He and his brother came to the palace, the in-between, for a reason. They called it the place where the Heavens’ love is visible to mankind.”

“And where the relics were cast down,” Reeri murmured, remembering the Divinities’ riddle. “Where all eyes were on them yet no one could see.”

A tremor racked Reeri, the darkness sweeping over him, and he fell into Calu’s arms. Yet, as oblivion took over, he knew. He had been right: the Bone Blade was hiding in plain sight, precisely where he had never thought to look.

The palace.