Meena took a step forward. Then she froze. A pained hiss escaped her, through tightly clenched teeth.
“Take it off,” Priya said urgently. “Meena, right now, while you still can.”
But Meena did not take it off. She breathed in and out, in and out, hunched forward with pain. When she raised her head, the skin between the bands of wood was mottled, pinched. The wood stood out against it, having taken on the pearly, varnished sheen of bones boiled clean of flesh.
Meena had chosen her path—chosen to fling herself into the hands of death. Priya would not do the same.
She ran.
She didn’t make it very far—barely even turned her body toward the door of the triveni—before she felt a blow to her back that knocked the air from her lungs and threw her to the floor. Her hands slammed into stone. Pain jarred through her. She heaved herself onto her knees, struggling to get back to her feet.
Meena shoved her back down with the efficient application of an elbow to the spine. Priya twisted onto her side, thinking of shoving Meena’s weight off her, or—no. That would fail. Slight as Meena was, she had a mask of sacred wood on her, and Priya could feel the new strength of Meena’s hands already as she pinned Priya down against the stone, panting behind her mask, her eyes wild.
Instead Priya grasped for Meena’s throat, trying to cut off her air long enough for Priya to slip out from under her. She managed to get her hands on Meena’s skin, digging her nails into the tendons there—even as Meena ground her knuckles into Priya’s shoulders, her knee into her stomach. Priya gritted her teeth, tightened her hand, and—
Meena pinned her hands to the floor.
“Stay,” commanded Meena, and Priya tried to wrench her hands free, tried to twist to the side, but Meena simply tightened her grip until Priya’s hands felt as if they were on fire, the bones of her wrists grinding painfully.
“You feel it, don’t you?” said Meena. She pressed her hands down harder and Priya gasped. “I’ve tasted the deathless waters. I have its gifts.”
“Then you shouldn’t need me,” Priya forced out, turning her cheek down against the stone, letting her body go limp. She tried to look as if she’d given up the fight. Let Meena believe she’d won. After all, in that moment—her hands pinning Priya’s shoulders, grinding her bones down, knees in Priya’s gut—she was the victor.
Meena had realized it too. And that knowledge seemed to soften her. She leaned down closer—close enough for Priya to smell her skin: the rotten, cooked smoke of it.
“I’ve only had a taste,” Meena confessed. “And not from the source. Only—a mouthful from a vial. No more. And it’s not…” Her grip spasmed. Her skin was burning hot. “It’s not enough.”
Priya tried to twist free again. She could not.
“Tell me the way,” Meena said heavily. “I don’t have long.”
“The mask is killing you, Meena.”
“It’s making me as strong as I need to be.” Her words were confident enough. But Meena’s eyes were red, and barely blinked. She knew what she was becoming. “The deathless waters are killing me with hunger. The mask is killing me with power. And I—don’t care.” There was a hitch in her voice. “But I need answers. For the sake of Ahiranya, and the others like me who want to save it. I need to know the way.”
“I don’t know the way, you idiot. You—sniveling child. You called me a temple daughter. You know what I am. Did you never think to question my motives for coming here, as I should have questioned yours?” Priya craned her neck, lifting her head one bare, painful increment. “I can hardly remember anything. Oh, I passed through the waters, I am once-born, but when I watched my siblings and elders burn, I lost everything. I’m damaged goods. My mind—” Priya cut herself off, afraid she would do something ridiculous like laugh at the dying woman above her who seemed liable to break Priya’s wrists. “I can’t help you. I’ve been trying to remember myself—I came here and I thought, I’ll try. But now perhaps I never will because of your foolhardiness. The only people who can show you the way now are all dead.”
“No.” Meena’s voice trembled like a flame. Her eyes were wild. “No, no!”
Meena’s grip had eased, just a little. She was distracted. Priya took her chance.
She slammed her own head against Meena’s, hard enough for her skull to rattle and her skin to burn from the heat of the sacred wood. In the moment it took for Meena to recover from the shock of it, Priya managed to reach one hand up and wrench at the mask.