“You have me. You don’t need them.”
“You are still imperfect,” he said.
“I’m growing stronger,” Priya said hotly. “I’ve reached for Mani Ara. I have her power, I’ve learned the names of your kin—”
“Names are nothing.” His head turned, with a creak and whisper of wood. “We have always had many temple elders. Never only one. You cannot be alone.”
“The mask-keepers are once-born and twice-born,” she said immediately. “They’re enough.”
“They will pass through the waters again. But children are needed. Children are easier to shape and hollow,” he said, and the rage swelled in her like fire. She wrestled to control it.
“I won’t let them become temple children,” Priya said tightly. “I won’t let them suffer like I did. Like Ashok did.”
The yaksa didn’t flinch.
“And yet you must,” he said. “It is our will.”
“I am Mani Ara’s hands. If you go against me, you go against her.”
Those words were a mistake.
He moved, sudden and swift. In the blink of an eye he’d risen from the bower and grasped her by both wrists. His touch was unyielding, his mouth a bristle of thorns. And yet his voice came from him too human. It had a human’s cruelty in it.
“Mani Ara,” he said, “would forgive me for breaking her hand.” A twist, a tightening, of his grip at her wrists. She didn’t flinch. She’d suffered worse. “Mani Ara would make a better hand. Mani Ara would feel no pain,” he continued. “You would, Priya.”
You’re only flesh.
She understood the message clearly.
“Don’t try to frighten me,” she said. “I know my value.”
“Do you?”
“I know I’m needed. You won’t break what you need.”
His grip tightened. She ground her teeth to stop crying out, and tasted blood.
“You can’t break me like that,” she forced out. “Ashok tried. Itdidn’t work.”
He released her. Her wrists were already purpling. She ignored the throbbing pain.
“They have been given to me by their families,” he said, face blank and inhuman again, the cruelty leached from it. “I will raise them to be temple elders. They will grow strong and hollow, and they will pass through the waters. This is decided, Priya. It cannot be changed.”
“Give them to me,” she said.
“Your task is to reach for Mani Ara.”
“Temple children should be raised by temple elders,” Priya insisted. “Byme. It’s my right. I’ll train them, rear them.”Protect them from the kind of pain you and your kin could inflict on them. Give them someone to defend them.“You can’t possibly want to raise them yourself, yaksa.”
“I raised the first temple children,” he said. “And many after.”
“Human children are—they’remessy. They scream, they cry, they fight, they die.” She saw him flinch at that, or thought she did. “Give them to me,” she urged. “I’ll shape them so well. I know what it takes to be strong.”
Silence. Then he said, “I will, if you perform one act for me. One test.”
“Anything.”
“You named my kin,” he said. “Avan Ara. Vata Ara. You called them. Knew them. Tell me my name, Elder Priya.”
