“Tell me the truth.”
Priya felt Meena’s hand dig in tighter and tighter.
She forced words out through a mouth pressed tight by Meena’s grip.
“Meena.Stop.”
Meena’s nails dug in harder.
When Meena did not stop, Priya did the only sensible thing she could and stomped down on the other woman’s foot. Heel first, the full weight of her body behind it. Meena gave a shriek, her grip slipping, and Priya grabbed the hand still latched to her face. She dug her own nails into Meena’s wrist and wrenched herself free.
She could have yelled for help, then. But Meena was panting before her, a crown mask clutched in her hands, and she had called Priya a temple daughter. Fear left Priya’s lungs airless. She thought of her brother, his eyes terror-wide in yellow firelight. She thought of darkness, and water, and his voice in her ears.
Don’t cry. Oh, Pri, don’t cry. Just show me the way.
Meena raised the mask.
“Meena,” Priya said sharply. “Meena, do not do it.Do not.”
“I’ll risk anything. I’ll do anything,” Meena said, voice taut with fear and despair—and something else too. Something poisonous. “I have no choice. I can’t go back without an answer. So tell me now.Please.”
“I’m being honest with you.I don’t know.”
In the silence that followed, Priya heard a distant roar of thunder.
“This was your choice,” said Meena. Her lower lip was trembling. “I hope you know that.”
She placed the mask over her face.
Priya stood still, cold except for the place where the bead warmed her wrist. She watched the crown mask press against Meena’s skin. In the spaces between the bands of wood, she watched Meena’s skin flush instantly, suffused with heat. Meena gave a gasp and raised her head; in the dim light her face was like a lamp, glowing from a deep light within as the strength of the sacred wood poured through her.
Meena took a step forward. Then she froze. A pained hiss escaped her, through tightly clenched teeth.
“Take it off,” Priya said urgently. “Meena, right now, while you still can.”
But Meena did not take it off. She breathed in and out, in and out, hunched forward with pain. When she raised her head, the skin between the bands of wood was mottled, pinched. The wood stood out against it, having taken on the pearly, varnished sheen of bones boiled clean of flesh.
Meena had chosen her path—chosen to fling herself into the hands of death. Priya would not do the same.
She ran.
She didn’t make it very far—barely even turned her body toward the door of the triveni—before she felt a blow to her back that knocked the air from her lungs and threw her to the floor. Her hands slammed into stone. Pain jarred through her. She heaved herself onto her knees, struggling to get back to her feet.
Meena shoved her back down with the efficient application of an elbow to the spine. Priya twisted onto her side, thinking of shoving Meena’s weight off her, or—no. That would fail. Slight as Meena was, she had a mask of sacred wood on her, and Priya could feel the new strength of Meena’s hands already as she pinned Priya down against the stone, panting behind her mask, her eyes wild.
Instead Priya grasped for Meena’s throat, trying to cut off her air long enough for Priya to slip out from under her. She managed to get her hands on Meena’s skin, digging her nails into the tendons there—even as Meena ground her knuckles into Priya’s shoulders, her knee into her stomach. Priya gritted her teeth, tightened her hand, and—
Meena pinned her hands to the floor.
“Stay,” commanded Meena, and Priya tried to wrench her hands free, tried to twist to the side, but Meena simply tightened her grip until Priya’s hands felt as if they were on fire, the bones of her wrists grinding painfully.
“You feel it, don’t you?” said Meena. She pressed her hands down harder and Priya gasped. “I’ve tasted the deathless waters. I have its gifts.”
“Then you shouldn’t need me,” Priya forced out, turning her cheek down against the stone, letting her body go limp. She tried to look as if she’d given up the fight. Let Meena believe she’d won. After all, in that moment—her hands pinning Priya’s shoulders, grinding her bones down, knees in Priya’s gut—shewasthe victor.
Meena had realized it too. And that knowledge seemed to soften her. She leaned down closer—close enough for Priya to smell her skin: the rotten, cooked smoke of it.
“I’ve only had a taste,” Meena confessed. “And not from the source. Only—a mouthful from a vial. No more. And it’s not…” Her grip spasmed. Her skin was burning hot. “It’s not enough.”
