Page 103 of Her Soul for a Crown
Twice.
Thrice.
***
A slap woke him.
“Reeri? Reeri, are you all right?” Calu’s voice swam into existence.
He blinked.
A sigh blew through his hair. “He is alive,” Sohon said. The three of them leaned over the body of Raja Vatuka, who lay prostrate on the stone floor outside the bathing pool, half submerged in a puddle of rainwater.
“I am sorry,” Calu said, lip quivering as he helped Reeri to sit.“Are you all right?”
“Fine.” Reeri coughed, but it turned into a heave, and now with a form and a full stomach, he retched. Ratti’s teeth shattered in his eyes like sunbursts.
Calu rubbed his back. “My first essence offering…it disappeared, the bargain somehow voided. I could not find another to offer, and rumors began to spread that my bargains break, and—I did not know what to do. Without mine, we would fail—I would fail Ratti—it would be my fault. O mighty Heavens, I will be the reason our brethren are never freed, because I am a wretch, a monster, every foul thing the humans have ever said about me—”
“No.” Reeri coughed again, the taste of iron bright on his tongue. “If we fail, it will not be your fault.”
Calu blanched. “What?”
Reeri struggled to sit up, but focused on his brother. “I would never blame you for another person’s decision. If they do not offer, we will face that together.”
Calu sniffled. “I am sorry.”
“Forcing people to offer to you will not gain you trust or connection, and Ratti would not thank you for saving her that way.”
Calu pulled him into another embrace, clung tight as a tear escaped. Reeri held him, as Ratti would have done.
“Is what Wessamony said true?” Sohon asked quietly. “Did you bargain our deaths?”
Bile rose in Reeri’s throat. Mayhap he would retch again. “Yes.”
“Why did you not tell us?”
Reeri scowled. “To protect you. If I did fail again, at least you would have enjoyed this half-life.”
“Again?” Kama asked.
“You did not have to bear that alone,” Calu said. “We can help.”
Reeri wiped his face, hand shaking. Ratti’s ruined face flashedin his mind. This was what happened when Reeri accepted help.
“I have it under control. The Bone Blade is near. I did not lie about that.” He stood. Swayed. Calu caught his arm. Mayhap Anula had something in her necklace…a tincture to take this taste away, a poison to corrupt the memory.
“Should we worry about the voiding of our bargains?” Sohon asked.
“It is puzzling,” Kama said. “Unless the Kat—”
“Do not speak their name.” Reeri grunted. Wessamony himself could have broken the bargain, to ensure they knew their place or simply to play with his toys. “Time is running out. Let us focus.”
He swooned to the side. Again, Calu caught him.
“He needs Anula and the tether’s healing. We must take him to their bedchamber,” Kama said.
Calu hefted him up and began to walk, but just as a blackness started at the corners of Reeri’s vision, he said, “The man I unwound was a treasure seeker.”
