Page 40 of Her Soul for a Crown

I am sorry, Anula. I am sorry I did not answer. It is my fault.

The words pulsed with every heartbeat, every step Anula took through the palace. A lump stuck in her throat. How long had she wished to hear those words? To know she hadn’t failed her family?

“Are you all right, my raejina consort?” Bithul asked, forever at her heels.

It is my fault.

“No,” she spat at them both.

Vengeance is not important, Anula. Justice is.

Auntie Nirma had drilled it every morning and every night.

Because what had happened was not Anula’s fault for being unworthy of a blessing or for offering too little.

It wasn’t even the Heavens’ fault for abandoning the kingdom and its people, for caring but not enough.

She didn’t need the Blood Yakka’s apology.

Didn’t need to know that he cared now. And she absolutely didn’t need to know why.

Raja Mahakuli Mahatissa, Commander Dilshan, Prophet Ayaan.

It was their fault.

And the reason she was in the palace. Robe billowing, Anula sped toward the kitchen. It was time. It had to be. The tovil must be performed. But she skidded to a halt. The palace was teeming with courtiers, celebrating with drinks, and lifting thanks to the Heavens.

“News just arrived: Thanks to the ministers’ and Dilshan’s strategy, the army took out a large force of Polonnaruwa’s military yesterday. They saved a village. A host of courtier sons were part of the effort,” Bithul whispered.

Red sky. Red hands. Red water.

Look away.

But she hadn’t.

Her eyes had remained open. Found Amma, battered and bruised, tied to a pyre made from the wood of their home. The baby’s bulge bent to one side. Blood dripped as flame caught.

Her only mother, her only sibling. Never to hold or hug or kiss. Never to wake together, play together, live together.

Never to be with her again.

“See? They do not need me to be the commander,” Bithul said. “Commander Dilshan is doing good work.”

But what of the red sky? The red hands?

Anula swallowed the last image of her Amma and spun. “Don’t follow me.”

***

Fingers tripped across sapphires, found the vials, and ripped open the largest.

Mahakuli Mahatissa had escaped justice; the rest would not.

Anula slammed open the door. Gauzy, sheer fabrics billowed in the morning breeze. Smoke snaked around figurines of the Heavens.

Prophet Ayaan startled out of his meditation. “Raejina Con—”

Anula lunged, crashing into the man and pinning his arms to the floor with her knees.

She pressed one hand against his chest, lifted the vial above his face with the other.

Though he was frail, she wasn’t much stronger.

But in the Age of Usurpers, one only needed to be intelligent enough to dance around them, dominate them, rule them.

Surprise gave her the upper hand; fear did the rest.

“Don’t. Move,” she commanded, low and severe. “See the vial? I shake it and the contents spill, eating your flesh before you can wipe it away.”

The prophet whimpered. “What are you doing?”

“Why did you set fire to Eppawala?”

“I do not know what you speak of.”

“Come now, Prophet, you’re not that old.” She hissed, “Is twelve years long enough for you to forget murdering a village of innocents?”

Prophet Ayaan paled. “I do not know of what you speak.”

Anula shifted. A drop of the poison splashed onto the prophet’s neck. It sizzled.

“Ouch!”

“Oops.” Anula tutted. “My arm is getting tired. Best hurry with the truth.”

“I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“You’re being called for justice, to stand trial for your actions.”

“What?” Sweat beaded on his brow. “I am the prophet. My actions are dictated by the Heavens. They are always just.”

Anula bared her teeth. “Tell that to the villagers of Eppawala. I’ll show you to their graves.”

Heart hammering beneath her palm, Prophet Ayaan flicked his eyes from her to the vial. She tilted it again, a bubble leaning over the lip.

“Wait! Wait!” he screamed. “Lord Wessamony decreed it!”

Anula blanched.

“It was part of the bargain,” he rushed to say. “I beseeched the Heavens for favor. Lord Wessamony answered. The village of Eppawala was to be turned over in search of a relic. Once found, Raja Mahakuli Mahatissa would have the throne for fifty years.”

The words spun webs in Anula’s mind. “Lord Wessamony doesn’t make bargains.”

“Of course he does, he’s the Lord of the Second Heavens!” Prophet Ayaan screeched.

If that were true…

But what if it were a lie?

“Why make a bargain for someone else?”

“I am the prophet, granted position by a raja. We had an understanding.”

Anula pursed her lips, taken back to that night, to the conversation between Dilshan and his soldier. “And the commander?”

“Titles mean nothing without the power of a raja behind them. We needed him as much as he needed the raja.”

The truth of it skittered across her arms, shook the vial in her hand. The man beneath her whimpered again. She narrowed her eyes. “The raja didn’t hold the throne for fifty years, yet Eppawala burned.”

Tears leaked down his cheeks. “It was part of the raja’s bargain with Lord Wessamony, I suppose to rid himself of his greatest threat. That was Dilshan’s doing. I know nothing of it, only that we were meant to find the relic and did not. So the bargain was void.”

A buzzing began low in Anula’s ears.

The edges of her vision tinted red.

Lord Wessamony.

The relic.

A crack of a whip. A Yakka torn in half. Banishment and masked women. The story of Fate and Destiny and the Bone Blade’s true power. Else you will be the Yakkas’ tormentor. For eternity.

Was this the Blood Yakka’s unfinished business?

“You see, my raejina consort.” Prophet Ayaan slowly pushed the vial away. “I have nothing to stand trial for. I was merely servicing my raja, the Kingdom of Anuradhapura, and the Heavens themselves. I am innocent of wrongdoing.”

Look away.

The buzz built and rose. And all Anula could see was a village of friends falling. Thaththa crashing to his knees. Amma and baby swallowed by smoke. Auntie Nirma guttering in her arms. All her loved ones snuffed out of existence, out of her life, as though they were merely candle flame.

“No,” Anula asserted. “You chose to let people suffer. For that, you will meet justice.”

Wrenching from his grip, Anula slammed the vial against his forehead. Glass and poison cut deep. His scream filled the morning air as it burned through his flesh, ate at his eyes, leaked into his mouth.

He choked, once.

Mahakuli Mahatissa.

Twice.

Prophet Ayaan.

His tongue turned to liquid.

Commander Dilshan.

And drowned him.

Lord Wessamony.

Anula touched a hand to her necklace, finally looking away. To the door and the hall that would take her to the Bone Blade and Blood Yakka.

Toward vengeance on the Heavens.