Kali had often wondered what rain sounded like on the surface above her old den. She had felt it through the stone for centuries, a faint patter that reached her resting place long before the water found its way down.
She heard it clearly in the next chamber.
One drop struck a broad leaf. Another fell into a pool between the roots of a tree. She could follow the water through the soil, past a seam of pale limestone, all the way to the discolored patch on her cavern ceiling that none of her servants had ever managed to mend.
Kali laughed softly. All these years, and the damned leak came from a hollow beneath a tree.
She could fix it from here.
That understanding came so naturally that she nearly did. Only when she reached for the stone did she notice the fine gold threads curled around her fingers. They led to a shallow basin in the center of the chamber. Within it rested the inheritance she had come so far to find.
