Page 52 of Her Soul for a Crown

The emerald silk sari hugged tightly to Anula’s curves.

The weight of the bell earrings and nath nose ring grounded her to the marble floors of the bedchamber.

She tucked her sari tighter at her hip, like a soldier cinching armor.

Reeri’s face swam before her, along with the gap she’d dared to close, her lips parting.

Cursed blessings, she had nearly kissed him. Again.

But she hadn’t been the only one leaning in, and he hadn’t said no. Simply that they couldn’t. Not as things stood now. He wanted her, too, wanted to live a dream—with her. And what a beautiful dream it had been.

Footsteps echoed down the hall. Anula’s heart choked.

She wasn’t ready to see Reeri again and face the onslaught of want.

The passion he sparked raged rather than burned.

If her and Auntie Nirma’s determination were a fire, this was an inferno: all-consuming and all-powerful.

It made sense now, why her parents had touched so much throughout the day.

The sound became louder, pulling her from her thoughts and stealing her breath. It rounded the corner—with Bithul’s face. Anula sighed, slumping against the wall and fanning herself with a hand as sweat streaked down her sides.

“Apologies, my raejina consort, I’ve had the windows opened since the storm, but the heat won’t improve until the wind returns,” Bithul said, moisture beading along his brows as he mistook the reason for Anula’s perspiration.

A heavy blanket of humidity had descended on the heels of the rain, a sure sign a monsoon would make landfall soon. Another marker of the Maha season, of the equinox and Lord Wessamony’s return.

One day.

One day was all that they had left, and she had tried to kiss a Yakka. She still wanted to.

Anula shook out her hands. “Let’s hope it breaks before the festival tomorrow, or else the city will smell like it’s been fried in elephant dung.”

Bithul grunted, his anxiety as obvious as his sweat stains. “We’ve emptied the palace, which was not as easy to do as it is to say. With the Festival of the Cosmos looming, half the kingdom is trying to speak with a blessed gift. Are you ready to meet with the others and begin the search?”

“Almost,” Anula said softly. Seeing her guard brought up everything from the other day. How she’d acted, how she’d failed. How she didn’t want to anymore.

Bithul began, “Is there something I can—”

“You were right,” she said, pride trickling sourly down her throat. She swallowed. “We all have a choice to make, about what’s most important.”

“What did you decide?”

“Same as you: people. The ones who are alive, not the dead.”

Bithul’s shoulders softened. “Then you may be our greatest raejina yet.”

Anula scoffed. “Perhaps I’ll be the greatest farmer’s wife instead.”

“You no longer want the crown?”

Anula pushed off the wall, glanced at the portraits of rulers past, at consorts and wives and the court that surrounded them.

Paintings of villages with their harvesters and seamstresses.

Fishermen on stilts in shallow waters, far from the reach of the Makara. “I don’t know what my path is anymore.”

Bithul nodded. “When your heart is right, the path becomes clearer, easier to face.”

“Smoother?”

“Heavens no. But you do become stronger.”

A moment passed, heavy but not burdened, as if Anula had found someone to share the weight. Perhaps she had found more than an ally.

They entered the throne room to the sounds of panic.

“My books!” Sohon shouted, one arm reaching for the servants carrying out stacks of manuscripts.

“Since your memory books are no longer required,” Reeri said, “I thought it was time they were bound and safely sent to their final destinations, or properly cataloged in the archives for those books that no longer have a home.”

Sohon paused in midair, gaping at Reeri. They all did.

Reeri’s brow furrowed. “Is this not what you wish for your books, Sohon?”

“Yes,” he said incredulously. “Thank you.”

Calu rubbed his face. “Who are you, and what has brought on the No Yakka’s demise?”

Kama giggled, threw a knowing smirk at Anula. “One’s heart opens in many ways, when one unlocks the door.”

Anula felt herself flush.

Reeri ignored the comment. “There is no time left for jests. The Maha Equinox will strike in one day, and we must find the Bone Blade hidden somewhere in this vast palace.”

“It is here? Should we not have heard it by now?” Sohon asked.

“I thought so, at first, but then I realized that we are not our true selves. Human senses dull our hearing, so the call will not be the same as in the Heavens. Calu’s cursed blade should not have sounded that way to the human ear, and the Divinities knew that. Another trick to hide it.”

“How are we to find it then?”

“It will sing when it is used. Like a statue or a painting, it will come to life with interaction, I believe.”

“How can you be sure it is here? Would a human not have found it by now? So many dwell in this place.” Calu shifted worriedly.

“The Divinities ‘cast all relics down to earth, to where all eyes were on them but none could see them.’ They created the in-between, the palace, a place for humans to witness the love of the Heavens.”

“People come here to look, but not to see,” Anula said, her gaze finally finding his. “They never tried to find it here.”

A moment passed between them, as if they could also now see.

“Exactly,” Reeri said. “Each of us will search a section of the palace: Sohon south, Kama east, Calu north, and I west. Interact with every blessed gift—leave no surface untouched.”

“And my offering?” Calu asked, pulling a small yellowed rice bowl from a pocket. Its sheen was odd. “Should I find another?”

“It exists,” Kama said. “Is it not still an offering?”

“It has no bargain,” Sohon said pointedly. “The cosmos might not accept it.”

Reeri glanced again at Anula, his jaw feathering. “There are many loopholes in the laws of the cosmos. Mayhap this will be one. Search for the relic, but check the shrines as you do so. If you find a new essence offering, take it, but if not, we will make do with what we have.”

The Yakkas nodded in agreement.

“What about me?” Anula asked. “You didn’t say where I should search.”

Reeri held the door open. “I assumed you would aid me. If you would rather not…”

“Together is fine.” She slid quickly through the throne room’s door.

She didn’t miss the red tint that warmed Reeri’s cheeks as she passed. Nor the smirk on Kama’s lips, nor the frown on Calu’s mouth.

Nor the way Reeri’s blush sparked her own.

***

“Two stars traverse the cosmos, fiery and fast, hurling toward each other, and upon their kiss—”

“Not this one,” Anula said, walking away before the foot-tall elephant statue finished speaking, before it could put any more ideas into her head. And before Reeri could catch up to her and she could feel his heat. Her hands—her lips—couldn’t be trusted.

“Do you not wish to know the rest of your fortune?” Reeri asked wryly.

“Who said it was a fortune teller? Perhaps it’s a storyteller, its aim to scare me, or worse, put me to sleep.”

“You do not seem to enjoy the blessed gifts.”

“Oh, did you enjoy nearly being attacked inside a painting? Or do you prefer the blessed bed frame whispering the ways of the gentle touch in your ear each night? Telling you how to caress me, how to feel me, how to warm me with your strong, enormous member.”

Reeri tripped over his own feet.

Cursed blessings . Anula whirled away, continuing down the hall, a flush rushing down her whole body. Not even her words were safe.

She hurried through the gallery, keeping a full length ahead of Reeri, never letting them linger in the same room together for too long.

They had to focus. She touched a plant that danced to the music of the first peoples of the island, but heard no relic calling and saw no bones or blades.

She inspected a painting of bare-chested women braiding one another’s hair, then a stack of pottery that shifted colors with her mood, brightening to a pink aura. She tried not to think what it meant.

But each time she turned to another blessing, she burned hotter, their kiss—his shared daydream—eating her alive.

Her hands, his tongue, the desire she had to hear him groan.

Cursed blessings, cursed paintings, cursed everything .

Hours ticked by, and still, she burned, simmering on the hows and whys, on what had been the rock that started the avalanche.

It’s not like she had known she wanted to kiss him, ever, let alone more than once.

It happened so quickly. One moment she was holding his pallid, prone form, promising to not let him fail his loved ones again, and the next, she saw his shadow.

Saffron eyes and sharp cheekbones. The ghost of his true self.

And for the first time since they’d met in the shrine, she hadn’t felt the need for caution.

Reeri wasn’t untrustworthy or dangerous.

He wasn’t callous or cruel. He was kind.

He was safe. And so she’d wrapped her arms around him, and suddenly—she felt calm, like returning home after a long trip or tucking into a warm bed on a cold night.

She had seen it then, their similarities.

She didn’t know how she’d missed it before.

And now, just as it had then, the desire struck like lightning.

A wanting warmed beneath her sari, to feel the planes of his true chest, to see every dip, every bulge, to watch his muscles flex as he lifted her atop him, to watch his eyes flutter closed in pleasure.

Could she draw out his shadow with a gentle touch and find out?

Perhaps it wasn’t only poisoncraft that brought the true Reeri back.

Perhaps with her tongue, when his knees buckled and she brought him to the edge—

“Anula.”

With a shriek, she spun—

—and crashed right into Reeri.