‘And what about the odd eleventh?’ Fayza eyed Aman, who was really tired of this line of conversation. He already knew his Tapasvi parent—none other than his actual father. No matter how much anyone denied it, he had surely been in the valley.

‘And this Mahayatra business?’ Ujal asked. ‘You say it is to get Madhu. But what is it exactly? Why can’t the villagers get it themselves?’

‘Madhu, or the Himalayan bee’s honey, is nearly impossible to locate. It is found at the ridges of the high cliffs, and only the Eka can sniff out the location of the beehives. So, through the Gift of Instinct, eventually, when the time comes, you all must retrieve it for the sake of the Kalpavriksha’s health. Don’t take this task lightly, for many of the older Mahayatras,’ he paused to look at Idhika, ‘have seen horrible conclusions to their journeys. Of course, I could also tell you legendary tales of the successful ones . . . But the most important thing is that if you succeed in the Mahayatra, you’ll be rewarded with a lifetime in Vanyasa, and permission to bring in one plain dweller.’

All this information was not easy to digest. They resumed walking in silence. Light gave way to darkness, and the tweeting of birds to the chirp of crickets. The landscape had thrown on an ominous cloak—and the nascent moon could do little to light their path. Every now and then, their ears caught a sudden shuffling on the forest floor, and once their eyes got used to the darkness, they could see squirrels and other creatures scampering down the hill.

Finally, after they had walked riverwards for a couple of hours, the Varunasmati flowed in front of them like a large blue snake, violently bisecting the path ahead. They stood before its might, clueless, since wading the stream wasn’t an option. Any grumbling of their stomachs was muffled in the gurgling of the waters.

‘What’s that?’ Aman asked, pointing. Not too far across the river, against the black clouds and between the trees, rose a thin grey jet of smoke.

‘That,’ Acharya Ashwini said with certainty, ‘is our destination. The sparrow’s flight allowed me to view it. Had it not been for the smoke, I would have never caught on to Prithvi’s trail.’

They began searching for a way past the body of water in front of them. A little over an hour of walking upstream was what it took to find the narrows in the Varunasmati. There, a large tree trunk had decayed and fallen over the river’s breadth at an awkward angle. It acted as a bridge over the heavy water that ran downhill, but it looked too frail to support their weight.

Before anyone could say a word, Aman uncharacteristically stepped up, his head held high and overconfidence in his stance. Frogs leapt out of his way from thickets of tall grass. He propelled himself on to the log.

Aman instantly regretted it: the tree dipped deeper into the river than he had anticipated—and the log was set loose. He had only just managed to step back to the banks before the trunk escaped down the river’s path. Genius move! Aman cursed inwardly. The log spun uncontrollably—its edges chipping off—until it jammed itself somewhere downstream between a collection of rocks. And this time, it looked perfectly stable.