Page 27 of Her Soul for a Crown

The sun glistened bright, the click, tick, buzz of insects swelling in the heat. A breeze ruffled the flowers hanging from the terrace and the bushes peppering the Pleasure Gardens below. Humidity was a mere memory of the last monsoon season. Time was still on Reeri’s side.

“We came across the tether earlier,” Sohon said, as he and Kama edged onto the terrace. “She looked quite displeased.”

“Sour,” Kama clarified.

The memory-nightmare surfaced in Reeri’s mind. He wondered at the detail.

“Have you not bedded her?” Calu jerked an elbow in Reeri’s side.

Caress her . He imagined his hand on her thigh, slowly running its length, his thumb teasing circles higher and higher.

He imagined her hips bucking, wild abandon taking over them both, marking their connection, their communion—a facet of life Reeri had yet to experience, despite Kama’s and Ratti’s great efforts.

He had never found the one who sparked his desire, who prodded at what Calu called his “walls,” who brazenly sauntered into his thoughts and dropped her robe—

O Heavens, what was he, an adolescent?

Reeri bristled at the unbidden image, missing the tendrils of his shadow, how they lashed and struck and all would back away, even his thoughts.

It would not be right, the two of them, for a myriad of reasons: that the body he inhabited belonged to another and was not his to do with as he pleased ranked first; second, he could not experience any such part of life before his brethren were free and could do the same.

Palming the balcony’s rail, he said, “Might we stay on task for once? It is time for the next phase: gathering our essence offerings for the soul sacrifice.”

“Question,” Calu said. “How is it time when the relic is not yet found?”

“We must complete the soul sacrifice immediately before we wield the Bone Blade,” Reeri explained. “There is no telling what the Heavens or cosmos will do when we kill Wessamony. If our brethren are not freed first, they may never be freed.”

“Why do we not do that now, then, instead of in tandem?” Calu asked.

Reeri raised a brow. “You think Wessamony will allow us to steal back the Yakkas?”

“Ah, the Bone Blade is our protection, as well as our final freedom.”

Reeri nodded.

“I understand how the relic will work,” Sohon said. The Yakka of Graveyards and Memories closed a gold-lettered book—the prophet’s journal of visions that he was meant to skim for clues. “But how are we to use a soul?”

“We cleave it,” Kama responded, leaning far over the terrace edge, craning her neck to watch two lovers amid the flowers. “She is the ox pulling the cart. Yet it is the driver who steers.”

“Our souls are tethered to hers,” Reeri clarified. “We must only take control.”

Kama twirled around, tripped two fingers across Sohon’s chest. “Yank the tether, wrench and wring. Hollow her out and to Earth our brethren bring.”

A chill crept up Reeri’s shadow. She was not wrong.

Just as Lord Wessamony could use a soul to create a new being, Reeri could use it to save his brethren, trading its freedom for the freedom of another.

Each of them would pull the tether until Anula’s soul shattered.

Then they would send the pieces with their true essence offerings to the cosmos in exchange for the sundered souls of the Yakkas, akin to humans offering to the Heavens. Balance would still be kept.

Kama whispered her song again, starry-eyed and swooning. “Love is such a tragedy, and sacrifice the ultimate beauty. All the great stories have both, do they not, Sohon?”

“Please keep me out of this,” he murmured, cracking open the book again.

Reeri craned his neck. If only a clue could be found. Yet, instead of neatly transcribed notes, a drawing of a landscape and a wedding peeked out. Reeri plucked it from his hands.

“Hey!”

“We are racing against time and you read folktales?”

“Oh!” Calu bent forward. “Does it have a gruesome ending?”

“It is a story of love.” Kama’s eyes widened. “The prophet writes in his spare time.”

Reeri imagined tendrils snapping. “Does everyone have the attention span of a mosquito?”

“Calm down,” Calu said, lifting the book out of Reeri’s grasp and holding it high over a jumping Sohon. “We are well aware of what is at stake. We need only a few moments to blow off steam. You should try it sometime, mayhap unclench those tight—”

“Do not finish that sentence,” Reeri growled. He squeezed the railing, eyes on blue skies. “Please, focus.”

“I was going to say shoulders,” Calu said, as though it were true. “But since you asked so nicely… An offering of our truest essence is a rare find. Elevated bargains will be required.”

“Yes.” Reeri let out a breath. “Yet if made properly, we can have them by week’s end.”

“Easy for you to say—yours is a mere vial of blood.” Sohon snatched back the book, scrutinizing it as if Calu’s hands were made of fire. “Do you know what it takes to convince someone to write down their secrets?”

Calu scoffed. “A piece of paper with words? That is nothing compared to a product of an unsound mind. Most people do not want to relinquish control of their minds even for a moment, let alone long enough to create an offering by their own hand.”

The three gazed at Kama, appraising the Yakka of Lust. Blood was one thing, as easily given as it was taken. A cut on the finger and Reeri would have his essence. Yet Kama…

Round eyes, nearly as large as her true self’s, flitted betwixt them. “Do you think mine to be the hardest?”

“Not many are comfortable carving hearts from living men,” Reeri said.

She smiled, sharp and spritely. “No, only those with a great passion. Ah, I wonder which human burns with it.”

Bloodlust, vengeance, fury. Reeri could think of one.

***

The breeze played with wisps of Anula’s hair as Reeri entered the bedchamber. She had not stayed with him at either shrine, nor had she ventured far enough for the tether to do more than quaver. Mayhap she had learned her lesson.

A maid plated the low table with Suwandel rice, jackfruit curry, seeni sambal, and plenty of ripe mangoes. Anula smiled at her, sweet and sincere. It did not falter as she turned it on him. Caution rippled. Those lips were liars. He had seen how they killed.

“Hungry?” she asked, pouring them each palm wine.

“What is this?”

“My peace offering. You were right, we’re in this together. Let me help.”

Crossing his legs, he sat. Though the words were right, his intuition flared.

Yet that may not be fair. He and Anula had certain similarities.

Perhaps she had seen the error in her ways and now resolved to locate the relic.

The faster she found it, the faster she gained her crown and, he mused, the faster she avenged her dead and protected those in her dreams.

“Tell me why you’re so intent on finding the Bone Blade in the shrines.” She picked at the food. “Nothing the prophet told us leads there.”

This was how it should have been from the start. Though Anula did not need to know details of how her offering would be used, he must be forthright about finding the relic or risk time running out.

Reeri took a sip of wine. “The stories of old are half-truths. You must see betwixt the lies.”

Fate, Destiny, he explained it all, including what he believed was the Divinities’ riddle. The Heavens loved wordplay.

“And the shrines?” she asked, opening another bottle of palm wine.

A flush crept over Reeri’s cheeks. He had not felt the warm touch of wine in centuries. It did not sting with the heat of the sun like his hands had when he had touched her—a sensation he would not mind feeling again.

O Heavens. He washed down the thoughts with the rest of his wine and moved on. “The stupas are large and obtrusive. One cannot look at the Kingdom of Anuradhapura without seeing them. The Bone Blade is there, hidden in plain sight.”

She twirled her glass. “Sounds more like it’d be in the city. In a market, where hundreds of wares are sold and displayed. Plenty gets overlooked there.”

Heat flashed up Reeri’s neck. A city, where people lived, bartered, squirreled away secrets and treasures. Anything could be within a city. He frowned. “A city is a very large place to search.”

Anula smiled, cunning and sharp. “Yes, it is. Good thing you have me on your side.”

His shadow shifted. Sweat broke out on his brow as it furrowed. “Why do I sense a ‘but’ coming?”

She laughed, light as a breeze, and winked. “Don’t worry, I have an excellent one.”

Reeri’s nostrils flared, pulse hammering. Mayhap he had judged her wrong. Again.

“ But what if I weren’t on your side? What do you think could happen then?”

The room tilted. He had drunk too much wine for this. Even his shadow tremored. “You said you wanted to help.”

“I didn’t say who.”

The edges of his vision blurred. Alarm bells pealed in his mind. “What did you do?”

Anula snaked out a hand, caught him by the chin. “Your eyes are glazing over. Is your heart racing? Soon it will stop. Unless I’m on your side.”

“O Heav—” A cough shook Reeri’s ribs.

“Complete the bargain and I’ll give you the remedy.”

A vial sparkled in her hand. The world darkened around it. He reached out to grasp only air.

“ Ah-ah. First, complete the bargain.”

Words shriveled as his tongue thickened.

“Do it, Blood Yakka.” Anula’s voice rushed, somewhere in the distance. “Come on. Don’t die like this. Complete the bargain!”

A wheeze and another cough.

“Yakka?” Her voice pitched.

Blood squeezed from his lungs as he hacked. It speckled the food, the wine. Convulsions shook him like a rockslide.

“Yakka!”

Blood burst.

Reeri choked.

His heart thump, thumped—

And ceased.