Page 57 of Her Soul for a Crown

The palace halls welcomed them with the all too familiar high-pitched horror of Anula’s people. Gooseflesh prickled her skin.

“Reeri,” she breathed, stashing the blade in a hidden pocket, as she, the Yakkas, and Bithul were marched to the throne room.

The usually pristine floors were slick and painted red as half the palace guards took orders from the Polonnaruwans and felled their one-time brothers in arms. The courtiers’ cries pealed from the inner city, shaking the latticed windows, as they fled in every direction only to be caught by soldiers beating iron swords against chest plates, triumph on their faces, bloodlust in their eyes.

Look away.

Anula’s mouth dried. “Reeri.”

“It will be all right,” he said, voice tight. Dread trickled between his words, dripped down Anula’s spine.

Dying orange light streaked across a range of storm clouds as the invaders pushed Anula and the others onto the throne room terrace. Heat pressed a heavy hand, and thunder roiled a threat as day turned to night.

“I hereby take this land for Polonnaruwa,” a man with a spiked crown proclaimed over the chaos of the inner city. “For the prince they killed and for my father, Raja Nihal!”

With a flick of his sword, the banner of Anuradhapura cut in two, crumpling to the blood-soaked ground, where her kingdom’s outnumbered army lay dead or dying—Dilshan’s true influence on the war.

Anula flinched. The cheer of at least two hundred enemy soldiers skittered up her arms and coiled a hand around her throat.

Boom.

It squeezed tight as a drumbeat of war echoed from her memory, bringing forth elephants trampling the palace gate and stupas standing silent.

Boom.

It squeezed tighter still, fixing her eyes on the rising smoke of burning homes, the crimson glow of her nightmares.

Red sky, red dirt.

“Reeri,” she choked.

“It will be all right. I am here.” He reached for her, only to be wrenched away by the soldier behind him.

Anula’s breath strangled in her throat. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

The Maha Equinox was the threat, with Wessamony’s descent approaching as fast as the rising moon and the Kattadiya breathing down her neck.

Polonnaruwa wasn’t meant to attack and slaughter again.

“Anula.” Reeri’s voice was far away. “Look at me.”

But she couldn’t. There was only now and then and all the death between.

“Look at me, Anula,” Reeri shouted, grounding her to his voice, his face, his words. “I will not leave you. Ever.”

A breath rattled through her, and she took a step closer, to feel the warmth of his promise. But the soldiers held her firm and pushed Reeri toward the man with the crown.

“Welcome, Raja Vatuka.” The Prince of Polonnaruwa’s voice pulled Anula’s attention.

The thirst in his eyes struck alarm bells.

“Join me in witnessing the end of your kingdom. For too long, Anuradhapura has celebrated their small victory over Polonnaruwa, and my brother’s murder has gone unanswered.

I told my father for years that we must respond, yet he did nothing.

Little did I know the poetry he planned.

For as you celebrated, you let your guard down.

You gathered for your festival, opening highways and relaxing borders.

It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? A kingdom too busy patting itself on the back to notice the ambush filtering around them, inside them? ”

A wave of knowing spiked her senses. The prince was building to something. “Reeri,” she warned, wriggling hard against her binding.

Reeri shook his head, mouthed that it would be all right, but she saw it in the uptick of the prince’s lips. Usurpers were great at one thing and one thing only: taking the lives of others.

The prince loosed his sword. “It would have been sweeter to kill the man responsible, but you will do.”

“No!” Anula shouted as sharp iron buried into Reeri’s gut. He grunted and fell. The prince wrenched back, swung the sword across his neck. Fisting the dead raja’s hair, the prince tossed the head over the railing and onto the courtyard below.

A shadow made of edges exploded above the terrace. Dark, insubstantial features sharpened into a chin and cheekbones.

Saffron eyes flashed open.

“Reeri!” Anula screamed. Please , the words stifled in her throat, come back . She couldn’t face this, not again, not alone, not without him. Yet the shadow dove and disappeared in the distance, and blood bubbled through her and the Yakkas’ mehendhi.

The prince stumbled back. “Great gods and monsters, they’re all cursed. Burn them! Now!”

“Reeri!” she begged a final time.