Page 13 of Her Soul for a Crown

His voice scraped up Anula’s back, nipping at her neck.

He was so near. All she had to do was touch her necklace once and two names would meet justice.

Three if the commander was here, too. Her eyes flashed over Mahakuli Mahatissa’s shoulder.

Was Commander Dilshan watching in the safety of the crowd, hiding as though he were in the jungle?

But her gaze only found Auntie Nirma, the woman who’d finished raising her. She dipped her head in encouragement.

Anula’s heart squeezed. It shouldn’t be Auntie Nirma.

Amma and Thaththa should be there, dipping their heads and smiling wide.

Not the ministers or the courtiers or the prophet or the raja.

It shouldn’t have been in the palace or with a raja.

A simple village ceremony, with simple silks and simple observance, and a man whose touch made her feel safe and at home.

That’s what should have been. What could have been.

Yet it wasn’t.

As if hearing her thoughts, Auntie Nirma smiled, cunning and clever, a reminder that she had let go of that dream to take hold of a better one.

Anula nodded in return. She was focused, ready.

A weapon honed. She didn’t need the Heavens’ pathway or answers to prayers.

Years of hard study would bring Anula their dream of justice.

Auntie Nirma’s face fell suddenly. The women around her murmured, shifting, gazes cutting to the side. One leaned down to whisper in her ear. Her mouth popped open, wide eyes locking on Anula.

The blast of a bullhorn hammered through the throne room.

The doors opened with a clang, and the royal army flooded in. “The gates have been breached! Protect the raja!”

Chaos broke out.

It started with screams—a familiar sound raking down Anula’s bones.

She shuddered as ministers and administration, courtiers and concubines fled.

They surged toward the open doors, bottlenecking, throwing one another to the ground—no lives but their own mattered.

In seconds, their turmoil swallowed the emerald-green sari.

“Auntie!” Anula’s heart lurched. She surged forward, only to be pulled back, a firm hand on her arm.

“Keep her safe,” Mahakuli Mahatissa commanded the soldiers surrounding them. “Is it Polonnaruwa?”

“No, sir,” the soldier answered, taking Anula from him. “An enemy from within.”

“Usurper,” the raja seethed. He pulled a sword from another soldier’s side and dove into the fray. As if a hero.

Anula squirmed, but the soldier held her tight. “We must leave.”

“Absolutely not.”

War cries. Foot soldiers. The beat of a drum.

A nightmare, her nightmare. Men trampled over courtiers, breaking up the throng by throwing people against the wall. They beat iron swords against their chest plates, anger and triumph on their faces, bloodlust in their eyes. The banner of Anuradhapura flew high.

Usurper on the move. Allied with palace traitors and Polonnaruwa Kingdom. Must hurry.

Auntie Nirma’s information had been right. And Anula had not been fast enough. The royal soldiers streamed to meet the usurper’s army. Iron clashed with iron. Blood sprayed across the pristine marble floor.

Red sky. Red hands. Re—

Panic crushed the air in Anula’s lungs. She searched over the heads of the soldiers, past prone, bleeding bodies, but the emerald sari was nowhere in sight. Good. She must have escaped. She was small, nimble, sharp. Perhaps she was halfway through the palace, safe.

“Raja Mahakuli Mahatissa,” a man called out above the noise, sword raised over his head. The usurper, no doubt. “Face me and prove your worth, or die by the hand of a greater man!”

The sea of fighting parted, and the raja stepped forward, swinging his sword.

“No!” Anula burst free of the soldier, reaching for the raja. With Auntie Nirma safe, it was up to her to salvage their plan. If the raja died—

He surged. “This is my kingdom!”

Then he tripped.

Sprawled.

The crown bounced away as he laid bare his neck.

Only for a moment—yet plenty of time for a usurper. They were great at one thing and one thing only: taking the heads of rajas.

Blood squirted from Mahakuli Mahatissa’s throat, gushing over his murderer like a waterfall. A dark mass of flesh flew through the air, thumped against the throne room floor, and rolled toward Anula’s feet.

She looked into the dead eyes of the raja’s crownless head. “Thrice-cursed Yakkas.”

There was a beat, a sound of rushing wind and waves between her ears. A memory of another man, dead at her feet. She shook it away, refocused. She couldn’t become a dead raja’s wife. She’d have to—

“How dare you, Chora Naga.” A voice yelled above the cacophony of fighting.

No. She was supposed to be out of the palace.

The usurper laughed, meeting the fuming gaze of an old woman in an emerald-green sari. “Hello, Nirma.”

Anula blanched. They knew each other.

“We had a deal,” Auntie Nirma said. “You would stand down, and in time, Anula would make you raja.”

Lie. The thought flew through her mind as she recovered. Auntie Nirma’s missive had said Chora Naga was in league with Polonnaruwa. This deal must have been part of her second plan. The one they’d implement for the rival kingdom, once justice was served here. It was surely a ploy.

A failed ploy.

“I got tired of waiting,” Chora Naga yelled. “Besides, the kingdom can’t be ruled by some woman.”

The spear flew from Chora Naga’s arm, sang in the air. The crunch of bone echoed as it cleaved Auntie Nirma’s chest, ribs splintering.

The world tilted.

“Anuradhapura is mine!” Chora Naga screamed. War cries pulsed in Anula’s ears.

“Auntie?” she breathed, tripping to the prone body on the floor. “Auntie? Speak to me.”

Blood bloomed, like a rose among thorns. Like—

Red sky. Red hands. Red water.

Look away.

“Anula, I—I,” she sputtered, hand fluttering at jagged bone.

“I’m here,” Anula choked. “It’s going to be fine.”

Keranu. Hemlock. Thel endaru. She mentally raced through the poisons and tinctures in her necklace. Which one would sustain Auntie Nirma long enough to escape? To find help, medicine and cloth and thread and—

“Yakkas,” Auntie Nirma wheezed. A feeble hand lifted, aiming to cup Anula’s face. It fell before arrival.

“What?”

But Auntie Nirma didn’t respond. Blood stained her teeth. A coldness hardened her eyes. Anula’s lungs seized.

She knew that look. Saw it in every face she’d ever loved, every face she’d ever lost. It haunted her dreams, hounded her thoughts. And even when her vision filled and swam with tears, she could not unsee it.

It was the only thing left for her when all else was torn away.