She waded in to her knees.
Behind her, beyond stone, a fire was pulsing, roaring. It would follow her down into the depths beneath the Hirana eventually. It would find her at the deathless waters, and it would kill her. But not yet.
“The waters can heal you?” Malini asked. She felt as if she were begging.
A rasping breath from Priya. Then, “No. I don’t know.”
“They’re your yaksa’s waters. Mani Ara’s. They made you strong before.”
“Yes.”
“Then she will save you,” said Malini decisively. She had to believe it. If she didn’t, then Priya was as good as dead. “And you’ll come back to me. Promise it, Priya.”
“Promise,” Priya echoed. Then her heavy eyes snapped open. “The priests. Where are they?”
Malini shook her head.
“You didn’t bring a priest,” Priya said. “Not one? Malini. We need them. The deathless waters—they need to be destroyed.” Priya’s grip was painful on her arm. “They need to be, or the yaksa will continue changing the world, their magic will…”
“I will make sure the waters die,” Malini promised. “When you return, when you’re safe, I will open the Hirana to the fire and let the waters burn.”
“You—you’ll die—”
“I won’t,” Malini lied. “I won’t, Priya.”
“If Mani Ara comes out of the water wearing my face—Malini, you won’t even know.”
“If Mani Ara comes from the waters wearing your face, I willknow,” said Malini. “Because I know you.” She brushed back Priya’s hair softly from her forehead. “And if she does I will burn us both. I will destroy her with my faith. I promise.”
“No.”
“We leave together, or not at all,” Malini said quietly. “I’ve chosen.”
A rattling breath.
“But you have—no faith. To burn.”
“I have no faith in the mothers,” whispered Malini. “But I have faith in you.”
Malini lowered her into the water. And let go.
BHUMIKA
They climbed the Hirana with the yaksa.
It was a high, unnatural mountain—covered in carvings, serpents and fanged teeth. Bhumika’s body knew it, though, knew how to climb. And absurdly, she felt as if the Hirana knew her in return. It welcomed her as easily as the forest had.
She watched the yaksa as she climbed. The long fronds of his hair. His pale, inhuman eyes.
He wore the face of one of her watchers, though her watcher was just a boy. He wore that face older and harder, wrought strange by wood and leaves. Or perhaps her ghost wore his.
They are both false, she thought.Both echoes of someone I lost.
There were people huddled everywhere, on the Hirana’s zenith. And also four who were not people, but something else entirely.
“Nandi,” the yaksa murmured, gesturing. “Sanjana. Sendhil. Chandni. That is what you called them.”
“Not their true names, then,” Bhumika said in return.
