‘The boy is not going anywhere.’ Each word expelled thick white smoke from his mouth. The hut filled with a milky vapour.

‘But he isn’t one of the Souls,’ she said.

‘He is, Aranyani,’ Sanaka lied.

‘Then who is the boy’s Tapasvi parent?’

‘Nandana let him in, didn’t he?’

Aranyani seemed to be waging an internal battle. ‘We already have ten souls, Sanaka!’

Sanaka avoided the question by placing his chillum on his lips and taking in a lungful of kush. ‘Why scare the child? What did you get from using Nandana so violently?’

‘I fixed his knee, didn’t I?’ Aranyani said. ‘Why are you dodging my question? What is it that you are not telling—’

‘He’s the Eka. I am not blind to this aberration, Aranyani! But with the threat of Chayan looming, when all the Souls have failed Adwaita, the eleventh might be the answer. You know better than anyone that we are useless without a leader for these recruits.’

‘What? Him?!’ Aranyani said, surprised. ‘Sanaka, you continue to forget that we need not bring on this anomaly. We have, every decade, recruited only the nine Souls. Don’t you remember when Kautilya had failed his Adwaita, it was the usual tenth, the Child of the Valley who is always overlooked, who took on the role of the Eka? And since Idhika is immune to Madhu and cannot have her Adwaita, it must be she who takes on the mantle this year. There is no other way!’

‘No other way?’ Sanaka scoffed. ‘Why, of course, there is. The most obvious one. The boy, Aman, must be the Eka. We certainly cannot rule him out until his Adwaita. That’s the only way to know. Your father would have agreed, correct? We need to question rules that have been set in a different time, Aranyani. Perhaps we can recruit more than we always have. I say this, again, because Nandana let him in, and although I do not know his Tapasvi parent here in Shambhala, it doesn’t mean he is unfit for these seven walls.’

It was with much vigour in his dilated pupils that Sanaka tried to sound respectful when he softened his tone and continued, ‘Devi Aranyani, I do really think there’s a chance that this boy could be the one to lead the Mahayatra at the end of the year.’ He picked up a tiny, arrow-shaped leaf from a wooden bowl beside him and popped it into his mouth.

‘Then I must see the boy for myself. I, not Chitra, will conduct his Adwaita, to be sure.’

Sanaka smiled as he exhaled. ‘You’ll see.’

He suddenly realized the gamble he’d taken. But in that moment what mattered more was that the ritual had been respected.

6

Prithvi, Ujal and Fayza

Archery requires thumbs. But when Prithvi took her position, her back unbending and eyes fixed on the target, she pulled the string with only her index and middle fingers. The teer-kaman, her bow and arrow, was a part of her as much as any other limb, and she found comfort in the thought that it would be cremated with her. It was the way of her people. As was living life with a severed right thumb—an ode to their ancestor, Ekalavya.