Page 56 of Her Soul for a Crown

They came from all sides, as if the walls were blessed paintings they’d stepped through. Bells and beads announced their attack.

“No!” Anula shouted.

Sandani rushed forward with the drums, followed by another three. The Kattadiya surrounded them before she saw the two who mattered. In masks with teeth the length of their arms, Premala and Guruthuma Hashini danced closer, chanting to the rhythm.

“Ohng Hreeng.”

Boom.

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

Boom .

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

Boom .

The sound of hers.

The Yakkas bent over, coughing and hacking. Dark red mehendhi swirled at Sohon’s neck, bit at Kama’s hands. Calu tore at his clothing. Reeri wheezed, clutched his chest, and collapsed.

“No!” Anula shouted again. The markings shriveled on her skin, cracking like dirt in a drought. “Reeri!”

“Ohng Hreeng.” The Kattadiya closed in.

Calu lifted his sword and struck a drum. The blade shattered to the floor.

“Your weapons are of no use against the First Heavens.” The guruthuma’s voice came from behind the hideous mask, its lips red and dripping. Anula wondered if the blood was real.

Boom.

If it was hers.

“Ohng Hreeng.”

The Kattadiya formed a tight circle, beads ringing as Premala and the guruthuma danced, wild and rough, their footfalls echoing through the stone caves.

“Don’t—” Anula choked. The mehendhi netting on her arms blazed, searing into her skin.

“The blade.” Sohon coughed. “Finish it. Call Wessamony.”

“That blade is nothing but a forgery, a bone meant to trick greedy seekers,” the guruthuma sneered. “You think we would allow a relic to fall to the hands of the Yakkas?”

The drum beat faster, sending Anula’s pulse racing, her mind tripping.

“First we will be rid of the Blood Yakka, leader of all Yakkas. Take him to the center of the circle, Anula,” Guruthuma Hashini commanded.

The words moved her without consent. Anula reached for Reeri. Their mehendhi blazed deep red, as though the blood beneath boiled.

No. Her hand shook. He had stopped for her, when he believed the blade real.

Thrown away his plans and protected her soul.

He cared for her, wanted to be with her, no matter the consequence for himself or his family.

And she wanted that, too. Wanted the dream her parents had inspired—with him.

She wouldn’t give him to the Kattadiya. Anula curled her fingers against the oath’s power, one at a time, refusing to touch Reeri.

“Now!” the guruthuma yelled. “In the name of the blood oath sworn to the First Heavens.”

But instead of forcing Anula’s hand to move faster, it stilled.

A chill cooled her from the inside out, and a bright light erupted, blasting through the tunnels, catching every shadow and devouring them whole. From fingertip to ankle, every detail of Anula’s mehendhi glowed.

Not saffron. But white, with heavenslight.

The drumbeat faltered. Premala tripped. And the Kattadiya fell silent.

The Yakkas rose tall. Reeri reached out to her, the elephant on his chest shining.

“How?”

“We have a bargain.” Reeri’s voice pealed, vibrant and true. “Your oath belongs to me.”

Relief settled like a balm. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she knew Amma and Auntie Nirma hadn’t put their faith in a lie. She took his hand and squeezed tight. “Thank the cursed Heavens.”

Fingers tripping over sapphires, Anula plucked out two and threw them at Premala’s feet, where they shattered, smoked, and mixed into a rose-scented cloud upon the floor.

“Run!” she commanded the Yakkas, pushing Bithul ahead. For though the vials were not deadly on their own, together they made a poisonous gas.

Much like her and Reeri.

The caves didn’t have tunnels—those were straight with beginnings and ends.

These were crooked, unlit, and unfinished.

Arms sprouted at various connection points, some leading to dead ends and others disappearing forever around corners, a labyrinth beneath the Pleasure Gardens.

If they weren’t careful, they’d get lost and become easy prey.

“So, the relic was never down here?” Calu asked.

“Of course it is.” Anula huffed, turning another corner to find another split in the path. She chose the left for no other reason than that it felt closer.

“Then why are we not searching for it?”

“Perhaps we worry about that after we’ve escaped.” Bithul grunted.

“We need the—”

“I know,” Anula snapped. “But they want to kill you, and you’re no good to me dead.”

“How considerate,” Reeri scoffed.

“You know what I mean.” Anula glanced at their hands, still entwined. He hadn’t let go. Neither had she.

Fear trickled in the back of her mind. If she got them to safety, Wessamony was still a threat. The Maha Equinox would strike tonight, and Reeri would be taken, forced to torture his family for all eternity, or until Wessamony destroyed the cosmos.

“Wait.” She paused. “Calu’s right. We can’t leave. We have to finish this, before the day is done.”

“It may already be too late,” Sohon said, looking back the way they had come. “My essence offering was taken and the others—”

“Are right here,” Kama said, pulling hers and Calu’s from her sari.

“We are not sacrificing Anula’s soul.” Reeri squeezed her hand.

“Nor are we sacrificing Reeri’s,” Calu pressed.

“What about Wessamony’s soul?” Sohon asked. “We are going to kill him anyway. I cannot think of a more poetic trade.”

“Does he have a soul?” Calu scoffed.

“Oh yes.” Kama smiled. “It is the darkness of the cosmos, the space between spaces, the chasm in our hearts, the—”

“We get it,” Sohon said.

“It’s worth a try,” Anula said, squeezing Reeri’s hand back, remembering the first promise she had made to him.

“Then do you know where the true relic lies?” Calu asked.

“No.”

“Do you know where we are?”

“Also no.”

But she didn’t have to.

An idea formed quickly, and she tugged Reeri to the wall. She squinted in the darkness, yet even without light, she saw her. Guruthuma Thilini slunk around the corner, danced to Anula, and offered her palm, as if she had been following. As if she had been waiting for this moment all along.

Anula placed her hand atop the portrait’s and said, “I need the Bone Blade to save the Heavens and the Earth.”

Thilini smiled.

And sprinted.

Anula had never seen the door before, yet Thilini insisted. Cracking it open revealed not the flowers and thorns of the Pleasure Gardens but a pristine marble floor. The sound of courtiers and guards arguing over their right of entrance hung heavy on the air.

“We’ve already searched the palace,” Anula whispered.

Thilini shook her head, pointed down the hall, her finger bending with the curve of the doorway and aimed at the raja’s bedchamber. They hadn’t searched there. Perhaps they should have—after all, it was known to hold the best of the blessed gifts, one chatty bed frame excluded.

Calu whistled low as they entered. “There are a lot of gifts to check.”

“Less than an entire city,” Sohon said, flicking over candles and upending vases.

“Mayhap it is in one of these,” Kama said, poking at a gilt bird flitting across a mirror frame.

“Or there is another portrait in here that we are meant to find and she will guide us on to the next place,” Calu said.

“There are no Kattadiya portraits in the palace,” Anula said, then paused. “Why can I say their name now?”

“Reeri invoked the power of the bargain,” Kama said, trying to catch a bulbul. “It severed the connection between you and them. You are free. If you do not count us.”

Before, the words might have chilled Anula, sent tremors down her spine or along her arms. Now, there was only a sense of safety. Like a net, or hands to catch her, hold her, keep her safe. Keep her at home.

“Not a portrait, but Kattadiya art all the same,” Reeri said, voice solemn.

He pointed to the relief on the ceiling, where Yakkas and Divinities lounged on a bed of clouds, emulating the idea of a peaceful, coexistent cosmos.

The sun and stars beamed upon their faces, caring eyes turned toward Earth.

It swirled with the same colors as Thilini, shimmered with the same glaze.

The edges of faces dull and soft, the pigment artistically faded.

It was as if the mural had been painted by the same hand. The hand of the Divinities.

“I knew it was mocking me,” Reeri growled.

Anula craned her neck. If a portrait knew of this painting, so did the Kattadiya. But why would—

Premala’s task.

It clicked, faster than a cart to a horse. The acolytes were placed inside the palace to keep an eye on the relics. Not the blessed gifts, nor the courtiers making bargains, but on the hiding place of the relics.

Where they could be looked upon and not seen.

“Hold this,” Anula said, grabbing a gilt chair and thrusting it on top of a divan.

Reeri held the back as she climbed, reaching an arm into the air. Her fingers brushed the mural, and a soft breeze fluttered through the depiction of the Heavens. Come and see , it sang to her.

Anula rose on her toes and pressed her fingers more firmly. “I’m trying to save souls.” She spoke to it. “I need the Bone Blade.”

The clouds rippled, and the crowd of Divinities stirred. A being with grayed tresses emerged from the back, wearing a lotus crown shining with heavenslight. They plucked it off and pulled out a small blade no larger than their hand.

Anula pressed her fingers harder, until ceiling gave way to canvas. Her hand became one with the painting. She wrapped it around a cool, smooth hilt and pulled back—both her hand and the Bone Blade solidifying.

She dropped to the floor as the relic shone bright with heavenslight, rang clear and soft with heavensong. It vibrated through the room, quaking Anula’s bones, filling her lungs.

“It is beautiful,” Kama breathed.

“It’s—it’s—” Bithul stammered.

“Real,” Reeri said, touching it gently. “I can see what fate it has in store.”

“What’s that?” Anula asked, meeting his gaze. Saffron flickered.

“Freedom for all.”

Hope swelled in Anula’s chest, swam through the room, and crested in each Yakka’s heart—

Boom.

It crashed to the floor as the chamber door flew open. Not with the beats and chants of the Kattadiya—

“For Polonnaruwa!”

—but with the cries of war.