Page 131 of Her Soul for a Crown
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The sound struck his shadow like lightning. The world shattered, and bile choked up his throat.
“Guruthuma Hashini, please! We’re wasting time. He’s not athreat. He hasn’t done anything to deserve this. He wants what we want: to get the relic and to keep everyone safe.”
“I said silence!”
“But if he could do it without us, he’d never have come here.”
The guruthuma whirled. “You believe his lies.”
“I—I believe he didn’t have to offer to work with us.”
“You have been taken in by them.”
“No.”
The beat cut off. Heaving, Reeri craned his neck to see Premala tossing the drum across the room.
The guruthuma’s anger flared. “Are you a Kattadiya or not?”
The girl flinched.
“Call her, now!” The guruthuma rounded on Reeri.
Yet he dared to not respond and kept his gaze on Premala instead. She was no monster either.
“Save them,” he croaked. “Kill Wessamony.”
“Do not speak to her! For Heavens’ sake, Sandani, fetch the drum!”
Before Sandani could strike another chord and send him into oblivion, Reeri saw a figure wringing her hands.
And slipping out the cave door.
***
The drum beat, the women chanted, and time dragged on. Reeri’s shadow twisted as it broke through skin a sixth, seventh, eighth—
The guruthuma cut the tovil off once again, right on the cusp of freeing him. Sweat slipped down his arms, and as his shadow snapped back inside Darubhatika. He retched.
“You are stubborn, Yakka,” the guruthuma spat.
“You are no Heavenly gift yourself.” His voice was grating and raw.
They had an audience now. The stairs filled with the faithful, dressed in beaded fabrics, ready at the call. Though their numbers had dwindled since he last saw them—a mere forty instead of hundreds—they stood staunchly still, condemning him once again.
The guruthuma scoffed. Reeri eyed her, the way she held her hand out to Sandani, purposeful and just, the way she circled, a smile of satisfaction curling wider with each strike of the drum. It reminded him of someone.
“Did the Divinities grant you this room?”
“I will hear no vitriol from your lips, Yakka. Call Anula.”
“I cannot.” He would not.
A hand swung, a tone echoed, and Reeri’s shadow convulsed. Yet the anger in her eyes flashed anew. Not for Anula or the relic, but from his words.
“They do not know of this place, do they?” he rasped.
