Page 5 of Her Soul for a Crown
The relic? But it has been lost for centuries. They say those who seek it never return.
“Your request is grand. So too must be your offering.”
Yes, of course, but—
“Enough of this!” Wessamony growled. His lips curled back in disdain, baring sharp teeth. One wave of his hand and the Great Sword swung, cutting through the shadow bowl, severing Reeri’s connection. “You bring me worthless offerings from spineless humans!”
“I tried to—”
“Try? You are not trying! You are failing! Have you no care for your souls, for the souls of those you have damned? Mayhap you wisheternaldamnation on your clan! Mayhap I should send the rest there, too!”
Reeri clenched a fist. “No.”
The sound of the sword came first. The sight came second. Reeri did not think—he moved, launching himself in front of Kama and closing his eyes against the sharpness. Yet it never came.
A scream pealed instead.
Reeri’s head snapped up and to the south wall, where hundreds of Yakkas in varying states of suffering stood chained. The Great Sword was as long as three human men, golden as the sun, and quick as lightning. With a twang, it sliced through one of the Yakkas’ shadow shoulders. Her cry echoed off the marble floor.
The Great Sword swung back again, catching Ratti on her other shoulder, then her chest, her arms, her abdomen, shredding her shadow. Each one of her screams tore through Reeri’s shadow heart. For though they could not taste or smell, the Yakkas could feel the lash of a whip, the cut of a blade, the undoing of their existence.
“Please,” he murmured.
“You are the damnation of your brethren,” Wessamony seethed. A gleam, red as fire in his eyes, a curled smile on his lip. “You are the ruination of all my plans for the ascendence of the Second Heavens. You deserve this and more.”
Reeri glanced behind him. Calu’s shadow hand twirled tightly around Kama’s. The three of them braced against the pain of watching their sister’s death. Again.
“Yes, my Lord.” It slid from Reeri’s lips, low and broken.
“Have I been gracious, granting you a chance of atonement?”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“Do you want redemption?”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“What, then, shall you do?”
Dissent.
The word spilled unbidden in his mind, like the agony bubbling on Ratti’s lips. Ratti, the sister who loved to hug him, who grounded Kama in reality, who knew how to make Sohon smile, who coaxed Calu out of his shell. Ratti, the oldest of the Yakka sisters, with the purest heart.
Riot.
It burned down his throat.
Revolt.
It kindled in his heart.
“What will you do to redeem their souls, Reeri?” Wessamony boomed. “What will you do to return to your bodies?”
Reeri watched Ratti shiver as her shadow knit back together. Within an hour, she would be ready to die a thousandth time.
“I will find the dagger.”
Wessamony nodded, appeased. The Great Sword flew to his hand, pristine, as if the torture it doled out was insignificant. “May it be the only bargain any of you make before the Maha Equinox.”
