Page 12 of Her Soul for a Crown

The ruby silk draped perfectly over Anula’s body.

The wedding mehendhi encased her arms in intricate patterns, from fingertips to elbows.

The jewel-encrusted hatte clung heavily; the bell earrings pulled at her ears, the thick chain stretching to her hoop nose ring.

A large headpiece dangled down to her brow, the diamonds fanning widely.

The weight pressed against her, but did nothing to block the frenzied thoughts spinning in her mind.

If you do this right, songs will be sung about you.

And if I do it wrong?

A pyre will be built instead.

Cursed Yakkas, she couldn’t think about that. Not an hour before she wed her parents’ murderer. Not on the day the entire plan hinged on.

To settle her nerves, she had made a tincture, but it tasted awful without tea. Gold and ruby bangles clinked as she turned the corner into the kitchen, then skidded to a halt. Two maids embraced in the dark of the hall.

Kissing.

The pair split quickly, cheeks flushing, Premala’s the brightest.

“Ah.” Anula smiled, grateful for the distraction. “So this was who you met in the gardens.”

The other maid shrieked and fled, a flower dropping to the ground.

“U-um,” Premala stammered, rooted in place. “Sure. I mean yes—she had the mangoes—” She broke off and bowed so deeply, she nearly tumbled over.

Anula wondered if she was even capable of not acting suspicious. As for the other maid, perhaps she was part of it, their embrace a farce to cover the trade of information. Though it hadn’t looked false.

“Please, my raejina—my almost raejina, don’t tell.”

“Calm down.” Anula waved her off and plucked the flower. Pink nelum. She handed it to Premala, whose face matched the color perfectly. “Just don’t lie to me next time.”

“Next time?” she squealed.

“I seem to have a knack for catching you doing things you aren’t supposed to be doing,” Anula said, heading into the kitchen. “Eventually, I’ll want the truth. That’s how secrets work between friends.”

“Friends?” The squeal came again.

Allies. Unless the truth of Premala landed her on the wrong list. But Anula couldn’t explain that. The girl would probably start hyperventilating.

“Would you make me tea? I didn’t sleep a wink last night. And I believe there’s a big event happening in my life soon. Don’t want to look peaky.”

Premala bit her lip, dancing on her tiptoes to the kettle. “Yes, um, but…I’m new, and…my family isn’t well-known. My father’s a fisherman and—”

“Is that why you came here, to send money back home?” Anula’s attention caught.

“Um, partly,” Premala said, setting the water to boil and readying the tea leaves. “Though my father hates to accept it.”

“Why?”

“He says it’s not right, a daughter having to feed the family when he’s perfectly able. If it weren’t for the Polonnaruwans, he wouldn’t need help. But they’ve taken over our village, and they tax every fisherman, every morning.”

Anula pressed a hand to her necklace. “They’ve occupied your home?”

Premala’s head hung low. “Eighty percent of his catch, that’s the tax. He barely has any left to eat, let alone trade. He only complies for the sake of my brothers and sister. I don’t know what they’d do to them otherwise.”

Heat rose quickly in Anula, burning up the fear that had tried to tangle in her veins. This was why she was here, why she risked songs and pyres. People shouldn’t have to choose between starving and being killed. Or worse, turned traitor.

Anula paused. Plenty had chosen the third option; Auntie Nirma wrote their names on lists, sent missives with updates. Would she find Premala’s one day?

“So, you see,” Premala said, “I’m the lowest of the caste. We can’t be friends.”

“Do I look like I care about caste?”

Premala’s doe eyes took her in. “You look like you’re about to become the raejina. So yes.”

An ember of tension flickered to life. “Well, I don’t. I do care about tea. And a fish bun, if you have any. Mangoes work, too.” She winked.

“Does the raja like your jests?”

Anula raised a brow.

“Forgive me!” Premala spun back to the kettle, knocking over not one but two platters of rice and curry.

She wasn’t a thief, and from the looks of it, she wasn’t trained to be a maid either. Who was she?

“What are you doing?” A voice rang out. “I told you to bring the food to the palace. Great Divinities, what have you done? No, don’t spill that!”

But Premala had already dropped the tea leaves and fumbled the boiling water. The kettle bounced on the table and crashed into a bowl of seeni sambal. Water drowned the onions and dried fish.

“You worthless thing!” the cook yelled, her skin flaming red from wrist to forehead. “Get to the palace and do as I told!”

“Yes, right away.” Premala nodded, lip trembling.

“I requested tea from her,” Anula asserted.

The woman yelped in surprise before falling into a deep bow. “Forgive me, my—”

“Do you scream at all your maids?”

The cook straightened, shame coloring her face.

“Do you enjoy watching them cry?” Anula narrowed her eyes at the woman. “Does it make you feel powerful?”

The cook dropped her head.

“Don’t be so rude, girl,” chastised a familiar voice.

Anula spun. Waltzing into the kitchen, in the tightest emerald sari, was Auntie Nirma. “You made it.”

“Of course I did.” She waved her hands at the servants. “Leave us.”

Premala was the first to go, breaking out in nearly a run.

As the kitchen emptied, Auntie Nirma strode closer.

She was such a tiny thing—a head and a half shorter with delicate bone structure any woman would envy—but there was a strength in her stature.

She stopped a mere inch away, never touching.

“You are beautiful, Anula. Radiant as the sun in the driest season.”

“So things shrivel under my glare?”

“Only the weak things.”

A peal of bells chimed, and Anula glanced over her shoulder to the window. The midday sun was high, the heat wafting through. It coiled around her earrings, settled around her shoulders.

A guard rushed in. “There you are. It’s time.”

Anxiety rippled through her. Anula took a steadying breath and repeated her mantra in her head.

“Fear for nothing, Anula,” Auntie Nirma said, heading to the door. “Destiny is on our side today. To ensure it, I’ve bargained the Yakkas for favor.”

Gathering the length of her skirt, Anula shook her head. “How many times do I have to tell you that prayers do nothing?”

“How many times do I have to tell you that you’re wrong?” Auntie Nirma glanced over her shoulder. “Faith starts where strength ends, Anula. No one is above that law of the world. Not even you.”

The walk from the concubine estate to the palace was much the same as before; the only difference was the destination.

They passed door after door, room after room, furnished with cushions and divans, or not furnished at all, depending on the art displayed.

Rooms with only one bronze statue, rooms with only paintings, rooms with mirrors delicately decorated and facing away from one another.

Rooms that whispered, rooms that sang. And a room darker than all others.

Tendrils of smoke curled out like fingers, beckoning. Anula shifted to peer in as they passed. Candles and incense and bloodred petals covered the floor. The palace shrine. Perhaps that was where Auntie Nirma had prayed.

“Ready?” the eldest guard asked.

Before she could answer, they opened a set of carved doors inset with silver and brass ornamentation, and the wedding ceremony began.

It was opulent, to say the least. Blooms of all kinds twisted around pillars, spilled across tables, and hung from the ceiling.

Oil lamps adorned the walls, casting the room in a golden hue, glinting off the gilded throne high on the dais where the raja, in his gemstone-embellished silks, now stood.

Where Anula would one day sit, wearing her own silks, her own gems, with his moonstone crown on her head.

If she pulled this off.

The terrace doors were opened wide, the warmth of the drought coasting along the air, swirling around the courtiers inside.

Anula’s muscles twitched. The room was full.

Palace officials, central administration, the board of ministers, and all their wives were in attendance.

She could name them each, but only one mattered.

In a sea of earth tones, the emerald green of Auntie Nirma’s sari stood stark—a siren calling Anula forward.

Familiar faces fanned around her, those like-minded women proficient in warfare strategies, politics, and diplomacy cultivated over the years to aid her rule.

What would happen to them if she failed? Would they get a pyre, too?

The prophet and the raja waited patiently as she finished her advance. She dropped the hem of her skirt and met Mahakuli Mahatissa’s eyes—drowned in inky blackness. The tincture still held him captive. Tension slipped from her bones. This was going to work.

“The great Raja Mahakuli Mahatissa has decided upon a wife,” Prophet Ayaan began. “May all the prayers of the kingdom bless this union.”

The air caught between Anula’s throat and lungs.

With her focus solely on not retching at the sight of the raja, she’d forgotten she’d see the prophet.

The half-graying, half-balding head of the second man she intended to kill stood before her for the first time.

A long white beard reached to his chest, to a pendant of gold and rubies.

“We thank the Heavenly realms for their protection over the years, continued watchfulness, and a future of ten strong seeds.”