Page 42 of Her Soul for a Crown

“Not now, Anula.” Reeri’s voice was tight and terse.

His shadow curled its edges into a coil, ready to strike. He had been fooled not once but twice on the most important undertaking of his existence. There was no time for Anula’s theatrics. Yet mayhap he had time enough to find the merchant. To thank him for the cursed relic.

“Yes, now ,” Anula demanded, marching forward only to slip on a broken piece of blessed statue.

She canted forward, and Reeri caught her by the elbow. Red flecks dotted her arms and face.

“Is that blood?”

Anula wrenched away. “Why did you destroy a statue?” When none of the Yakkas responded, she turned to Bithul. “What’s happened? Where’s the Bone Blade?”

“It was false, my raejina consort,” Bithul answered gravely.

Anula’s shoulders sank. “No.”

“Yes,” Kama said. “Nevertheless it put on a glorious show before its demise.”

“Why are you standing there?” Anula spun on Reeri. “We need to find the real dagger.”

“I am not merely standing here,” Reeri said betwixt clenched teeth. “You interrupted.”

“Interrupted what, your sulking?”

“I am not sulking.”

“Why do you want the blade?” Bithul asked.

“For her bargain,” Reeri said, but Anula announced louder, “To kill Lord Wessamony.”

The room tilted. Reeri stared at a red fleck on Anula’s cheek. “Say that again?”

Bee-stung lips pulled back in a snarl. “Lord Wessamony must be brought to justice.”

Calu whistled low. “I did not see that coming.”

Reeri’s shadow unraveled. Hope trickled like a river through a mountain pass. “Why?”

Anula raised her chin. “I suspect you know why. He’s a murderer. And you’ve come to kill him, too. Haven’t you?”

All was silent.

Until—

“Of course not,” Bithul insisted. “The Lord of the Second Heavens is no murderer, my raejina consort. Why would the Yakkas…?” His voice trailed as Reeri lifted his gaze. As Calu, Sohon, and Kama regarded him. Truth in their eyes. Bithul shifted. “Why?”

“The memory-nightmares,” Anula said. “I was right. The banishment was not your fault, was it?”

Reeri rankled. “It does not matter.”

“Yes, it does!” Anula snapped. “It matters that the Lord of the Second Heavens, hallowed and worshiped by half the kingdom, cares nothing for any of them. It matters that he deems us worth nothing, that he slaughters us without a second thought. It matters that he’s the reason my village burned and my family was murdered.

It matters who sits on the throne, in the Heavens and on Earth, wielding power over all. ”

In two swift steps, she closed the gap betwixt them, a challenge vibrating. “It matters who stole the lives of your Yakkas, who punishes them beyond death. It matters that you are freed.”

Reeri’s borrowed heart stammered.

“Eppawala burned because of him. Because he sought the Bone Blade. The same relic you seek,” Anula said, her eyes flicking to the others as she pieced it together. “But you aren’t giving it to him, are you? You’re going to use it against him. The same way Fate used it on Destiny.”

“What?” Bithul asked. Anula obligingly told their story. Bithul sucked in a sharp breath. “That can’t be true. The Heavens would have told us.”

“Yet it is, and they did not.” Reeri’s heart railed.

Images of centuries past, of all the humans and bargains made for Wessamony’s search, flashed.

Reeri had known of seekers perishing on their journey.

He had not known of innocents’ deaths, those who had not accepted the challenge of the elevated bargain. Yet if Anula’s words were true…

Wessamony allowed the forfeiture of their lives, batted no lash at their sacrifice, because Reeri had ruined his plans.

More blood stained his hands.

As if he were cursed, as Anula always said.

“You say the stories of old are half-truths.” Anula pulled out one of her lists. At the top was scrawled a new name. “I see the full truth now. Lord Wessamony must be brought to justice, for us and for you. And I’ll be the one to kill him.”

The words stole Reeri’s breath, stole the thoughts and notions he had held of her. Anula was not made only of ire and impatience, walls and wrath. She was not a selfish murderess. She cared for her people; she cared for it all: the kingdom, the cosmos, the Yakkas.

Him.

They were more than not dissimilar.

She was an echo.

“No.” Bithul’s voice cut brisk. “It makes no sense. Why would Lord Wessamony want the Bone Blade?”

Three Yakkas turned to Reeri. Mayhap it was time all the half-truths ended.

“Ascendance,” Reeri said, remembering the conversation overheard with the Divinities.

“Wessamony is the Great Destroyer. His powers imbue pure destruction into the hearts and actions of nature, animal, and human alike. He creates within them a desire, a need, to destroy all in their sight. A monsoon, a lion pride’s attack, a usurper.

Yet Wessamony is bound to the day of equinox, Yala and Maha.

A balance demanded of the cosmos. He tried to circumvent his fetter by creating the Yakkas, but he only became more jealous of the Heavens, then of us.

If he were to wield the Bone Blade, he could expunge the existence of the Divinities, ascend into the First Heavens, unbalance the cosmos, and force it to be undone.

He would watch it burn, then draw from the ashes a new order, in which he was unfettered.

And if it did not disappear, he would wield the blade again and again and again, until the cosmos was created in his likeness, with him at the helm of power. ”

A chill swept through the room.

“That can’t happen.” Anula leveled a stare. A decree as much as a demand.

“I know.”

Bee-stung lips pursed, eyes narrowed, as if she could force herself to see beyond the face Reeri stole. Beneath the skin to the shadow. Reeri willed her to do it—to see what was hidden in plain sight. “Your unfinished business is not only to avenge the Yakkas.”

Reeri dipped his chin. “It is to save them from eternal purgatory and a future where Wessamony has no bounds. You are saving your kingdom—”

“From eternal purgatory,” she finished. “Human, and now Heavenly.”

Truth resonated deep into his shadow and echoed in his soul.

He startled. He had not experienced this aspect of life before—had not known that he could.

“The Maha Equinox is nigh.” Calu spoke into the heady silence. “Wessamony will descend in less than a fortnight.”

“And you need a human to wield the Bone Blade,” Bithul whispered.

“She is already our tether,” Sohon added.

“Mayhap that is the problem,” Kama said.

Anula frowned. “Why would that be a problem?”

“It is not.” The words tumbled from Reeri’s lips. So too the promise. He would not, could not, mar her as planned. Not his echo. He would find another way.

Kama cocked her head. Anula spoke, glancing from one Yakka to another. “So we have a deal, then? Together we find the relic, before the Maha Equinox, and I’ll wield the Bone Blade and kill Wessamony.”

“You wish to make a new bargain?” Reeri asked.

“No.” Anula held out her hand. “A human deal.”

His heart pinched. “Do you trust my word so little?”

“Do you know me so little? If I distrusted you, I’d find the relic myself. I only ally with those I believe in.”

Ally.

Is that what they were?

Yet as he reached out his hand to graze her fingers, she pulled back.

“One more thing. You must promise to take a tincture I give you.”

“Do you always poison your allies?”

“Not poison. A tincture. To fight off the dreams.” She huffed.

“I can’t stand looking at those bags under your eyes.

You won’t guilt me into staying up all night to keep them away either.

I can’t afford to lose sleep. Do you know what stories they’ll tell if the first raejina looks haggard in all her portraits? ”

“All right,” Reeri said, soul stirring. She had noticed his lack of sleep, the reason behind it. Mayhap she would soon see him. “Tinctures for the death of Wessamony.”

Anula smiled, not sardonically, but with purpose and passion. She grasped his hand, their palms warm and firm, intentions clear. Each an echo of the other.

Both no longer alone.