Aman stopped his rant, but he knew he was right. The valley’s magic, love and loss, all of it had done nothing. He was still the same person, reserved as he had always been, carefully weighing each word before he uttered it. He was unable to simply tell Idhika that this loser didn’t want to die.

The Souls walked all day. Their feet found slow relief when small patches of grass started to sprout in their snow-laden path. Aman knew the general direction in which to head, but seldom did he know the exact road, which often meant they were blocked by boulders, or sometimes forced to turn around from dead ends.

‘Where to now?’ Payal snapped. ‘Eka?’ The group waited for Aman to catch up.

Aman pointed south, his arm slanted up.

‘So after walking downhill all day, we have to start climbing again?’ Payal asked.

It was Aarti who spotted it. Tracing Aman’s finger, she looked far away, between the layers of blue hills, where between them towered an odd peak. It was shaped like a thumb, topped with a dash of snow. And below, the Souls could see the ravine path circling up that mountain. That was the route they had to take.

Aman, Idhika, Aarti, Payal, Savitri and Jagrav trudged on for a few more hours under the last rays of westering Aditya, the sun god, until they arrived at the foot of the final mountain, the top of which was shaped like a thumb. As they mounted, the path thinned, until there was no possible way forward. So they took to the steep hillside and ascended as fast as they could to the summit.

After covering the final stretch, Idhika eventually lent her hand and helped Aman crest the very top of the thumb.

The wind whistled in his ears. It seemed like he was on top of the world. He walked to the edge and looked down at the deep canyon spread out before him, split by a rushing river. And there it was. A few hundred metres below his feet, jutting out of the stone in the vertical fall of the mountain, a thick branch with a wide crown and many leaves. Scared of getting swept away by the wind, Aman stepped back but could still make out what looked like large golden fruits hanging off the branch. ‘They’re huge,’ he said, ‘the honeycombs.’

The Souls set down their bags and joined Aman to look on in amazement. The bees danced in an intricate pattern around the four hives stuck to the sturdy branch. Quickly, but with care, the Souls carefully cleaned the kamandalus in preparation for storing the Madhu.

The sky had changed colour to the dark of an early night. It was time and Aman knew it. He only hoped for some strength. The leader of the Mahayatra wasn’t supposed to feel this way, but again, he didn’t know the first thing about it. He had been an odd backbencher in school; and then the odd eleventh recruit in the valley; and finally, the odd inexperienced leader to the Souls—without training or any time to process the responsibility. He was just a glorified Eka with an ill-fated destiny. And when he died, no one would remember his sacrifice—not even the people of the valley, let alone the world outside.