Page 102 of Her Soul for a Crown
“What was it?”
Dread coiled tight around Reeri’s throat, as he saw the trajectory of Wessamony’s questions. Calu flickered a pitiful gaze to Reeri. “A handcrafted rice bowl, made of his brother’s teeth.”
The pieces fell into place. The words Calu had cried in the hallway the other day surfaced. No one was offering and time was slipping by. But Calu had already received his essence offering. Or had he not? Reeri shivered as he remembered Calu’s empty neckline. The mangled pendant was gone. This was what he had been trying to tell him; this was what he truly feared—because without his essence offering, their plan could not succeed.
“Then that”—Wessamony’s voice rattled Reeri’s bones—“be your punishment. You turned brother against brother. So, too, you will turn against your clan.”
Wessamony snapped his fingers. Ratti flew from an antechamber, shadow as pristine as the first day she had been created. She landed at Calu’s feet, fear bright in her eyes as the first day she had been destroyed.
“No.” Calu’s voice cracked. “Please.”
Ratti swallowed hard and whispered, “It is all right.”
It was not.
The wrongness writhed. Reeri stepped betwixt the two. “I will do it.”
“A great leader bears all faults.” A smile sounded in Wessamony’s words. “You have learned that lesson, at least.”
“Yes, my Lord.” Reeri grit his teeth.
“You are aware that, ultimately, his failure is your fault.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
Calu cried, “No. I—”
Reeri pushed him away. Thiswashis fault. He had promised redemption and delivered a false relic. In this, Reeri could rectify his failing and save Calu when before he could not have. He would do this, because he loved him.
“I am sorry,” Reeri whispered to Ratti, then closed his eyes and placed his hand on her shadow mouth.
He could almost smell her spring-flower scent, could almost feel the tiny hairs on her cheek, as he had the last time he had touched her face. Back when they had bodies and lives, when they felt and dreamed and embraced. Before they had been reduced to shadow and pain.
Now her edges danced anxiously. Reeri sharpened his shadow fingers to claws and ripped. With a wail, Ratti’s jaw tore away. Shadow teeth shattered in the air. Her lips dissolved into nothing at all. Her cry spiraled around him, squeezing tight as a vise until he could not breathe—his head swimming in her tears, stomach plummeting in her pain.
Reeri backed away, gagging. When would he stop being the source of their suffering?
Wessamony chuckled low, tossing the tooth-crafted bowl to Calu. “Consider it a reminder to never cross me again, lest you be forced to unwind yourbrethren’smind.”
Calu’s shadow shivered.
Reeri swallowed back the nausea, his voice quavering. “It is done, my Lord. May we return to our search?”
Wessamony leaned forward, watched the movement of his mouth, as if waiting to see him retch, wanting to feel the agony it cost Reeri to inflict pain. “You have three days afore the Maha Equinox, afore I return you to the aether.”
“I am aware, my Lord,” Reeri said betwixt clenched teeth. He would not choke or stammer. He would not give him the satisfaction.
“Yet, it would seem, they are not.” Wessamony pointed at the others. They gazed at one another in question.
If dread had more than fingers, its hand would be around Reeri’s neck.
“Did he not tell you?” Enjoyment deepened Wessamony’s voice. “He bargained for your final deaths. To be your eternal tormentor. How was your first taste, Reeri?”
His breath came in swift bursts and he closed his eyes.
“Do you hunger for more?”
Reeri gagged. Once.
