Page 35 of Her Soul for a Crown

Humidity choked the night air. A lone drop of sweat inched its way down Anula’s back as she watched the Yakkas share a large banana leaf of delicacies, celebrating. All except for the Blood Yakka.

The edges of his mouth tucked into a frown.

Anula moved from one vendor to the next, barely taking notice of their wares.

She should be celebrating along with them, happy that their unfinished business would soon come to a close.

A revelation had occurred to her last night: if his memory-nightmares were to be believed, she and the Blood Yakka were both survivors of a gruesome attack, both driven by the common purpose of defending others.

Perhaps he was here to save others from the same fate. Or he was here for vengeance.

A tightness twisted her gut. Still, if the Blood Yakka cared enough to return to save his patrons, why not save Amma? Perhaps he hadn’t cared for Anula. It wasn’t as though she’d been a true believer, even as a child.

She shook the thoughts away. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the crown and her bargain. Things that couldn’t be had until the Blood Yakka completed his task. So, again, she should be celebrating, as should he. Perhaps they shared the same worry: What if the relic was false?

As if hearing her thoughts, the Blood Yakka glanced up, gaze fraught.

It sent a chill down her bones in the same way his nightmares had.

Anula broke the connection, walking a short distance away, touching porcelain miniatures of each of the Yakkas.

She picked up the one of him. Long, sharp teeth dripped with red paint, but all she could see was fear. All she could hear was his agony.

The odds that Nuwan had the most sought-after relic in the history of the kingdom were small. If only she could—

“Follow me,” a voice whispered in Anula’s ear. “If you want to break a bargain.”

A body brushed past, the head hidden beneath a saaluwa. Anula’s pulse spiked. She glanced over her shoulder, at the Yakkas still carrying on, and back to the figure fading into the crowd. She didn’t need to break it anymore, did she? If the relic was real.

But if it wasn’t…

Anula looked sidelong at the Blood Yakka, picked up the corner of her sari, and rushed after the mysterious woman.

She would venture only a short way. If the tether began its murderous assault, she’d return, before any of the Yakkas could come find her.

Rounding the corner, she slammed into the woman.

Premala’s doe eyes glistened in the night.

The tension in Anula’s shoulders eased. “I knew you were up to something.”

Premala bit her lip. “We’re not supposed to talk. Just follow me.”

Paved stone turned to packed dirt as the kitchen maid, who was not a kitchen maid, wound out of the night market and through the tight maze of alleyways to a small home.

Anula took a step inside, the tether stretching an inch too far.

The feel of wading through paddy fields returned.

She checked her arms, the skin solid and whole, for now.

“Cursed with an unsound mind,” Premala whispered, snatching Anula’s attention. “By the Yakka Calu.”

A circle of candles lit the home. Four people huddled in a close ring around a man prostrate on the floor, muttering nonsensical words.

A finger of dread curled around Anula’s throat.

Her and Calu’s conversation surfaced, along with a mangled elephant pendant and a bargainer named Kushal.

Was this who he had prayed for Calu to curse?

“We must sit in the—”

A drum trounced as Premala tripped over it.

“Careful!” came a sharp voice. Anula jumped, not at the voice, but at the mask it hid behind.

Same as the ones from the Blood Yakka’s memory-nightmare.

Made of wood and painted in reds, whites, and blacks, its eyes were dark pits, and its mouth opened in a ghastly snarl. Thick strings of beads hung from the top, down past the woman’s shoulders.

“A-apologies.”

“Sit and hush,” she commanded. “It’s beginning.”

Premala immediately folded on the ground, tugging at Anula’s arm.

She met the maid on the floor, trepidation fluttering in her stomach.

Chimes rang softly through the circle as the woman in the mask made her way to the center.

Bells laced the edges of her sari and the sleeves of her hatte.

She placed offerings around the man’s body. A hush fell over the circle.

Boom.

A drumbeat sounded. A yak berayuh, a two-ended drum, sat between another masked woman’s crossed legs. Her hand pounded out a slow rhythm. Anula swallowed, sweat beading on her brow.

The first woman tapped her foot to the beat, leaned into the sound with her hips. The bells chimed along her sari, and in a low voice she said, “Oh, great Yakka Calu, hear me now, I offer you these first fruits of the fields.”

Boom.

“Ohng Hreeng.” She chanted.

Boom.

“Ohng Hreeng.” It quaked in Anula’s chest.

Boom .

“Ohng Hreeng.” The sound of the Blood Yakka’s nightmare.

She stamped and twirled, jumped and spun, ever to the beating of the drum.

She blurred around the circle, never pausing, never breaking, her chanting ceaseless.

The music of her body rose up into the night.

The candle smoke swirled, staining the air gray, its tendrils seeking out the edges of the circle. The light flickered. Once, twice—

The drum beat quicker. The chant hastened.

The masked woman’s breath became low and ragged.

The veil of smoke stung Anula’s eyes, burned her lungs.

Her pulse hissed, quickening to the clatter of the drum, faster and faster.

Her mind spun along with the woman’s sari, the bells catching her eyes, echoing in her ears, dizzying her senses.

A shadow lifted through the fog, thin and incorporeal with saffron eyes.

But these were diluted and sheer, as though a mere shade. The indention of a signet ring, not the ring itself.

“The mark of a Yakka’s curse,” Premala whispered, transfixed. “They wrap themselves around a person, like a blanket smothering them. We have to tear them off.”

“Tear?”

The masked woman danced faster, her chant rising higher and feet landing heavier. The words bellowed into the night, careening into the specter flowing from the man’s body, pulling it this way and that. A banner rippling in a monsoon.

The shadow wailed as its darkness leeched out, its edges twisting up to the sky.

The light snuffed out.

The drum hushed.

The woman fell silent.

An itch skittered up Anula’s marking. The candles abruptly flickered back to life, and the room awoke, smokeless. The man stood, tenderly touching his head.

“Bless you.” He embraced the masked woman. “Bless you, bless you.”

The curse was gone. His mind was sound.

What had they done?

The four people in the circle cried in celebration, thanking the woman, offering her food and palm wine. A place to stay the night. A place to stay forever.

Mouth dry, Anula turned to Premala, the urge to scratch her mehendhi building. It nagged at her to move, to return to Reeri and the others, but she had to know. “Who are you?”

“What do you know of the Kattadiya?” Premala asked in a low voice.

“The what?” Sweat gathered on Anula’s brow. The tether hummed, displeased.

“The who,” Premala corrected reverently.

“The Kattadiya were chosen by the First Heavens to defend against the Yakkas of Lord Wessamony, ruler of the Second Heavens. The Kattadiya were given knowledge and power, a tradition to expel the Yakkas’ curses from humans.

They were the only defense the people had, back when the Yakkas walked the Earth.

They were the ones who eventually called down Lord Wessamony, appealed for the banishment he finally gave in punishment for their wickedness. ”

The Blood Yakka’s nightmare flashed. “They’re not in the stories of old.”

Premala leaned closer. “That’s because the Kattadiya were nearly killed off, not by a usurper, but by the people. They didn’t want anyone healing those they had paid to curse. So the surviving Kattadiya disappeared. Only the trusted could find them.”

Mere weeks ago Anula had thought she knew the truth of the Heavens, the truth of the lies. Did she know nothing? She swallowed. Was all that the Blood Yakka told her true?

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Kattadiya do not act for themselves, only for the protection of others.” A voice drew near.

The woman unmasked herself. Gray-streaked hair was wrapped tightly in a knot, and fine lines pinched her narrowed eyes.

“I am Guruthuma Hashini of the Kattadiya. If you are amenable, we can help you break your bargain.”

Anula’s arm stung. She slapped a hand over it, willing her skin to stay in place a little while longer. “How? What was that?”

What had the Yakkas endured?

“It is called a tovil ceremony, and it’s the only way to control a Yakka,” the guruthuma said. “We will help you, on one condition.”

Anxiety rippled. At the sweat now streaming down her back, the pain sizzling up her arm like slow streaks of lightning, or the way the guruthuma’s eyes bore into hers, she couldn’t tell. She mustered a scoff. “To break a bargain, I have to make another one?”

“It’s not like that,” Premala blurted.

“Quiet, acolyte,” Guruthuma Hashini snapped. “She is allowed her questions. We come to you only because of your desperation in the market. Do you no longer wish to break your bargain? Does it not strangle and weigh heavy on your soul? Is it not the reason for your…discomfort now?”

The air in the room dried in Anula’s lungs. How did she know? A piece of her skin flaked off. She caught it before the others saw. “What do you want?”

“It’s simple,” Hashini said. “We want your commitment to completing the tovil ceremony. We will teach you, if you promise to let us perform it and be rid of the Yakka curse you bargained upon yourself.”

Anula breathed heavy, clenching her teeth as a pain as sharp and bright as a sword dipped in fire sliced down her arm.

Warm stickiness flowed between her fingers.

She stood quickly, shuffling to the door.

This was madness. She didn’t need to get involved with a woman who believed she was ordained by the First Heavens.

With the masked people of a Yakka’s nightmares.

Did she?

The Blood Yakka was on the cusp of finishing his business. She would have the crown and throne, the names on her list, and true justice any day now…unless the relic was false.

Her pulse tripped over itself.

“Raejina Consort?” Premala asked, cocking her head. “You don’t have to be frightened. We’re here to help. No one has to know you are with us.”

“I’m not worried about what people think,” Anula said, minding racing, blood trickling faster. She backed into the night, closer to the Yakkas.

Perhaps she did need this, if only to threaten them.

Clearly the Blood Yakka knew of the masked men—women.

Clearly, he feared them. If she agreed, she’d have a second plan if the relic failed.

And if it did complete the bargain, the Kattadiya would have what they wanted—her freedom. There was nothing to lose.

“I’ll do it,” she spat, sweat soaking her upper lip. “I accept your deal.”

“Excellent.” Guruthuma Hashini smiled. “Premala will collect you when it is time.”

The words wrapped around Anula’s arms, squeezed tight, as her skin flaked off and she fled the Kattadiya.