Page 30 of Her Soul for a Crown

A flaying tended to stick in one’s memory.

Two crawled over Anula’s skin like ants on a hill.

Each step away from the Blood Yakka felt as dangerous as throwing knives.

But the tether stayed calm, even as Anula and her guard moved farther from the palace gate.

Her suspicion had proved correct; the sullen boy at her side was just as good an anchor.

She glanced down at him, a foot shorter and frowning at the bustling market ahead.

Sohon hadn’t volunteered to escort her. Kama had merely flitted off, chasing a couple down the corridor, an auntie bent on matchmaking, the only difference being that she encouraged their wish for a dark, quiet corner.

And the Blood Yakka could go nowhere without Calu, as though they shared an even more demanding tether, which meant she won the company of the one Yakka who sighed more than he breathed.

Silent and stoic, Sohon marched alongside her, scowl deepening as the sounds of haggling drew near.

The outer-city market was larger than the one in the inner city, a place where vendors with less valuable items had a better chance of making their living, where no one questioned quality or authenticity.

It would only get louder the farther they ventured.

She tilted her head, eyeing the mehendhi marking peeking from under his tunic.

Swirls ran along his collarbone, bold lines wrapped around chubby arms. She wondered if there was an animal hidden beneath, like the Blood Yakka’s elephant and her lion; wondered what Kama and Calu’s markings held and whether the tether felt like reins to them as well, restraining and controlling.

“Commission a portrait, it will last longer,” Sohon grouched.

Anula snorted. “In your dreams, Yakka. Speaking of which, why haven’t I seen your nightmares?”

“What?”

“I’ve seen the Blood Yakka’s and he’s seen mine. Why haven’t I seen yours or the others’?”

He huffed. “Ask Reeri.”

“He doesn’t seem to know much.” She raised a brow, glancing at the space between them, at the tether decidedly not trying to kill either of them.

The suggestion of a smile quirked his lips. “Kama was right. It does not matter which of the carts is at the forefront. We are all connected.”

“And the nightmares?”

Sohon shrugged. “Mayhap it is because you bargained with Reeri, not us, or because you are next to him and we are too far away, or it is some sort of balance. Not everything in the cosmos can be explained.”

“Isn’t that the point of the two Heavens, to give answers?” Anula asked, brushing away the chill of the wretched night she’d lost everything, of the resounding no hung high on a pike.

“Whoever sold you that story was a good liar.”

With that, Sohon walked across the paved street and into the outer-city market. Anula blanched. If that night had not been an answer, if her prayer as a child had not been refused…

No. The Yakka was wrong.

“Raejina Consort?” Bithul asked, leaning into her line of sight. “Is everything all right?”

Shaking off the dust of memory, she followed. “It will be.” As soon as she was free of this cage.

That was the reason she’d volunteered to search the outer city. With its small, tight-knit thatched houses and streets roaring with buffalo and oxen, elephants and pheasants, beggars and barterers, it was nearly a shrine on its own. Only more honest.

Here, one received an answer right away. But Anula didn’t intend on wasting her breath on the Bone Blade. If a human couldn’t break a bargain, perhaps a relic could. According to the stories of old, they were mighty powerful. And if the Blood Yakka sought one, perhaps she should, too.

Her eyes swept the vendors, passed curries and sweet treats, passed foreign fabrics and meats, searching for a familiar face. Though Auntie Nirma’s closest confidants had perished in the palace with her, the web was spread wide. Now, if she could only find one willing to help.

A familiar girl rushed past, deftly weaving around bodies.

A basket of candles bounced against her hip as she disappeared down a street.

It wasn’t out of the ordinary to see inner-city servants shopping here, yet there was something about the press of Premala’s lips that sent an alarm bell trilling.

Anula’s gut told her to follow, but she couldn’t.

She needed an ally, not an unknown. The mystery of Premala must wait for another day.

First, the cage and the bargain. Then the crown. Then the rest of her list.

Bithul squeezed her elbow, nodded toward a foreign merchant. “Someone’s been distracted, my raejina consort.”

The small Yakka bent over a rug stacked ten books high, eyes wild. “These are originals, you say, no translation?”

The merchant nodded enthusiastically, showing him pages and pages of text in another language.

Though Anuradhapura had always been a hub for trade in a sea of islands, a surge had begun.

Each year, people from every corner of the kingdom made the journey to the palace to celebrate the Festival of the Cosmos.

It had been Thaththa’s favored time of year.

Not only for the closeness felt to the Heavens, but for meeting those from so far away.

Soon the market would be too thick with bodies for anyone to quickly slip through.

“I have no kahapanas,” Sohon said, checking his pockets.

The merchant snatched the book from his hands. If Anula hadn’t known better, she’d have thought Sohon’s lip quivered.

“Do you need it for the search?” Bithul whispered to the Yakka, pulling out his own coin.

“Why would he need books?” Anula asked. Sohon was the Yakka of Graveyards and Memories. The stories of old spoke of his insatiable desire for entrails, devouring the dead’s flesh to record the memories they held. Or merely for the taste, depending on his mood. “Is he going to eat them?”

The merchant scrambled in front of his horde. “No, no, leave!”

“I do not eat books,” Sohon snapped.

“Do entrails have more spice?” She cocked a smile.

Sohon stormed away.

Anula’s eyes lit up. “Are you embarrassed by your Heavenly powers?”

“No, leave me alone.”

“Ashamed that you eat the dead?”

He spun. “Are you?”

“I don’t—”

“Eat dead animals?”

A cage of chickens squawked. The thump of a cleaver sounded. Her stomach churned. “That’s different.”

“Is it? What is your favored delicacy? Mine is the liver.”

Anula grimaced.

Bithul cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should stay on task. Blessed—my—Sohon, do you need that book to find the relic?”

His shoulders slumped. “No. The call is a feeling. I only wanted the story.”

They continued down the first street, Sohon trailing fingers along tables, touching wares, garnering more than one dirty look until the merchants saw the darkness on his face and recoiled.

Anula sighed. “Why do you care so much for one story? Don’t you have plenty stashed away from bargains?”

Sohon frowned. “Of course not. The memory books I make go directly to the offerers.”

“Then aren’t you tired of stories? You must have written over a thousand.”

“No,” Sohon said quietly. “I do not remember the ones I write.”

“At all?”

He shook his head.

“But isn’t that the point of you? To make a person’s story last for all time?”

“For others. It is called transference. I do not actually think the words; they flow through my hands.”

“How depressing.”

Sohon grunted. A hand lingered on yet another table, on the feathered pens and ink. “Stories are sacred. They hold deep truths. Yet not all stories are told, nor are they all remembered. Like a leaf on the wind, they disappear. And no one cares.”

A shiver swept up Anula’s spine. The stories of old hadn’t forgotten Sohon; at least that’s what she’d thought.

Perhaps, though, they’d forgotten the whole truth.

What would they forget about her? Auntie Nirma had once said that songs would be sung about her, if she did this right.

And if she couldn’t do it, if she did it wrong…

“Anula?” A woman’s voice called out.

She turned to see a friendly face, framed in gray and accented with a purple sari. “Auntie Malika.”

The woman’s smile spread. “It’s good to see you. I haven’t seen anyone since…”

She trailed off, and they both glanced to the ground.

Anula felt the moment Bithul pulled Sohon back, giving her space.

Giving her emotions space. But that’s not why she had searched for an ally.

Even though she questioned whether she could do this, she wasn’t about to give up or prove her own doubts right.

“Auntie,” she said, slipping off gold bangles.

The woman’s eyes flicked to her dark mehendhi.

She could see the question, why it was darker than normal, why it was still on when the wedding had been weeks ago, why another wedding wasn’t being held though the new raja had clearly kept her on as a wife.

“I know it’s not as much as planned, but these are for you. ”

Malika gaped. They’d fetch a few months’ worth of coin. “Thank you, Anula. I mean, my raejina.”

“No, don’t. Not yet. I haven’t completed Auntie Nirma’s plan. And to do that, I need your help. I need information.” Anula lowered her voice, sure that Sohon couldn’t hear, and pressed Malika’s hands in hers. “Do you know of a way to break a bargain with the Yakkas? Perhaps using a relic?”

“No, no, I cannot help.” She shook her head quickly, glancing nervously over her shoulder. “Nirma’s circle is broken. The women are either dead or imprisoned—or simply gone.”

“What?”

“Her nephew found the room and the books. He turned them over to the ministers. Then the Polonnaruwans struck, cutting off river access to Kekirawa. People are fleeing before the fields dry. There are too many enemies, Anula, my raejina consort. You cannot keep going.”

The hair on Anula’s arms rose. All Auntie Nirma had built, all she had dreamed, was gone?

She blinked back tears, but when they cleared, she saw it, shimmering just beneath the hopeful veneer of the outer-city market: stalls filled with entire families, the eldest working hot oil or bundling thatch when they shouldn’t be laboring at all; babies cradled by young siblings; carts filled with the last remnants of a home; burned arms and hollowed cheeks. A people of loss.

Anula’s heart lurched for all the women Auntie Nirma had armed and for the kingdom she’d tried to save against exactly this: ministers who hungered for subservience and men who thirsted for power.

Doubts withered under Anula’s glare. She had no choice; justice must be served. “If I don’t keep going, how will anything change?”

Dropping Malika’s hands, she moved, outrage simmering like water in a pot. Bithul and Sohon kept their distance. They dared not ask what was wrong or whether her visits to vendors and low words were for the Bone Blade.

They weren’t. No longer did she search for a familiar face. Any would do. Any that looked as if they dealt with secrets. Any that looked like they’d move mountains for coin.

She whispered for a way to break a bargain, for a relic that had the power. But every stall, every vendor, every foreign merchant answered the same.

***

Night darkened the sky as Anula stomped into the bedchamber.

The Blood Yakka rubbed his face, looking tired and beaten. He lay on the bed and growled at the ceiling. “The mural is mocking me.”

“Good. Someone should.” It was acidic and honest.

He grimaced. “I take it time with Sohon did not warm you to us.”

She stared at the damned bed, at the space that would span between them and invite the curiosity that crept into her thoughts and made her want for the Yakka to rub her arm again.

She wondered what he looked like beneath the stolen body; if a gentle touch would undo him, like a normal man, or if they could go on until the Heavens ended; if he really could make the cosmos explode between her legs. If he ever thought about trying.

She clenched her teeth. Cursed tether. “Don’t act like you care about anything but your precious relic and unfinished business.”

“I do care,” he rebuffed.

She laughed mirthlessly.

He stood as if to fight. “Despite the half-truths the stories of old fed you, I am not a lion always out for a kill.”

Anula narrowed her eyes. “And what do you care for? Devotion? Worship? Another statue made in your likeness?”

“I care for suffering.” A flush crept into his cheeks. “I do what I can to protect my patrons from it, mayhap through vengeance, or healing, or a peaceful passing. Do not tell me whether I care for you or anyone else when I—”

“You don’t like seeing us suffer?” Anula paused, catching on his defenses.

He puffed out his chest. “No, of course not.”

The idea pinched her heart. Amma and Auntie Nirma had believed that.

They’d believed that between the death and the blood was a being ready to save them, bless them, and keep them.

The Blood Yakka believed the story he told, too, if the flared nostrils and pulsating vein in his neck told her anything.

Sohon’s words came back to her. Was this a story untold or unremembered?

She could see it, almost. Like a shadow in the dark. But—if Amma and Auntie Nirma were right, then why had they not been saved?

“Prove it,” she growled. A challenge and a threat.

“What?”

“Prove it,” she repeated, fingering her necklace. His eyes tracked them.

If what he believed was true, then she didn’t need to break the bargain. She had plenty of leverage to work with—an entire kingdom’s worth.

“Talk is cheap, Yakka,” she said. “How far are you willing to go to save a man from suffering?”

His brows furrowed.

“How long can you stand to watch? That’s what Wessamony does to you, isn’t it?

Makes you watch the suffering. It’s what haunts you at night.

” A wave of adrenaline spiked her senses, and she leaned closer, whispering, “If you care about our suffering, if your only job is to protect, then what would you do to save someone? Would you hand over a crown?”

The Blood Yakka stiffened, catching sight of a lion emerging from the bush, out for the kill.