Page 22 of Her Soul for a Crown
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A wail stretched into the nothingness of the aether.
It would be a cry, if shadows could shed tears.
Reeri dropped his latest shadow offering and coiled around Kama. “Are you all right?”
She wiped the depthless sockets of her eyes, stared at the dryness of her shadow hands. “Just checking.”
Reeri frowned and shifted away from her, catching another offering. He had no time for Kama’s dramatics.
She appeared an inch from his face. “Do you think I should cry? That the humans want for me to despond over them and the intercession I cannot provide against unrequited love?”
“I think they should try harder to find the relic if they care about their star-crossed love,” Reeri said. That was what he would do, if he had found the one with whom his soul communed. But that was another facet of life he had been denied.
He leaned away from Kama to scan the new offering. He searched the words but found no footing. He tossed it on top of the ever-growing pile floating languidly about his lower form. The tower mocked him. It sneered at his scheme.
“What about you, Sohon?” Kama flitted across the nothingness, poked the shadow curled around himself. “Do you pity the dead whose loved ones refused to work harder for one of your memory books?”
Sohon’s shadows writhed, a serpent ready to strike. “I do not pity the dead. They do not have to deal with you.”
“Such callous Yakkas.” Kama tutted.
“Says the Yakka responsible for heartbreak,” Calu said, his shadows swirling as he came near.
Kama stuck out a twirling black tongue. “I care greatly for heartbreak. It is dark and beautiful and so sharply bitter, one cannot help but feel alive. It is a gift.”
Reeri snorted. “You sound likehim.”
“Should I not? We are made in his image.”
The lip of Reeri’s shadow curled. Indeed, they were made in Wessamony’s image, to do Wessamony’s bidding, to ensure Wessamony’s ascendance. It was not grace that preserved Reeri and the others. It was not mercy that had driven their Lord to offer atonement. It was greed.
Wessamony knew exactly what he was doing when he chose the four of them. The Yakkas of the heart, mind, memory, and blood. For what bargains were made out of passion? Those that brought heartache, insanity, torment, and pain.
Those that promised revenge.
Desiring its bittersweet taste, offerers used to agree to any term and feat. Yet even humans recognized a lost cause eventually.
Wessamony had taken a page from Reeri’s book: for a bargain to be complete, the offerer must also seek the Bone Blade relic. In the beginning, they only needed to uncover information. Wessamony descended twice a year, on the Maha and Yala Equinox, and investigated himself, distrusting that a human would find such power and readily hand it over. Yet, as the decades gathered and nodagger was found, the parameters changed. Information was not good enough; they must bring proof. When that too failed him, he demanded they search. Find but not touch the relic.
Many humans attempted it. Many humans did not survive. Decades piled into a century, and on the cusp of two, the humans’ wariness won out. Nearly a year had gone by since Calu found the last willing offerer. The number of rejected bargains far outweighed the accepted. It was a wonder anyone continued to pray at all, leaving Wessamony with nothing save his fear.
“What are you brooding about over there, No Yakka?” Calu asked.
“I do not brood.” Reeri grimaced.
“‘Brooding’ is your middle name.”
“That makes no—”
“He is stacking offerings,” Kama interrupted. “Mayhap to smother himself with.”
“Why is it that the Yakka of Lust is so preoccupied with death?” Reeri asked.
“He is deflecting.” Sohon unraveled from his tight coil and joined the others. “He is hiding something.”
“I am not.”
