Page 6 of Her Soul for a Crown
Blood flowed across the island as if it were the Malvathu River, and the binding loosened.
He ate curry in the market, rode elephants into the bush, climbed trees around the shrines.
In time, he even ran. Jungle cats and blue magpies at his heels, sand sifting betwixt his toes, he ran to the ocean and back, finding each of the Yakka’s shrines.
Calu Cumara Dewatawa, Maha Sohon, Anjenam Dewi, Wewulun, Baddracali, Bodrima, Gopolu, Bhooto Sanni, Morottoo, Bahirawa, the Riddhi, six sisters of the Yakkas of Love, and a hundred more, each held fast within their wooden walls.
Kama leaned against her doorway, poking the eye of a long-dead fish. “You are their favorite now.”
“Have they lost their appetite for desire?” he asked.
“Who can think of love when they are consumed with death?”
The realization crept through Reeri like vines. The offerings had bought him freedom at the expense of the freedom of all others.
The thought sat sourly in his chest.
He snapped to his nearest shrine; a man lay prostrate before him with a large bowl of aromatic red Suwandel rice. “Great Blood Yakka, hear my prayer. Please heal my wife from the stomach disease cursed upon her. I offer my entire harvest of rice.”
“No,” Reeri said, an idea forming.
The man looked up. “Great Yakka, please—”
“You seek mercy and healing for your wife?” The loophole solidified in his mind. “Your compassion must also extend to your neighbor. Pray to the Yakkas of Love that he find romance—then you may return for your bargain.”
“Yes, great Blood Yakka. Thank you.” The man rushed out of the shrine, bowing repeatedly, nearly tripping on his sarong in his haste to find Kama’s shrine.
Reeri did not stop there.
A woman came next.
“No.”
“But—”
“You seek vengeance in the form of festering sores? Then you must also pray to Calu. Return when that bargain is complete, and you may give your offering.”
So it went. Reeri demanded bargains from the other Yakkas. For what was freedom if he was alone?
Years passed before the bindings of every Yakka loosened and fell. In total, they had three days. Three glorious days communing with the Earth and humans, beginning their experience of life together as one, as they were meant to be—or so Reeri thought.
It was late in the night when the thunder came.
It shook the earth, and Reeri’s binding drew taut.
With an earsplitting strike, Lord Wessamony descended upon the beach as the Maha Equinox began.
Two twisting horns curved on either side of the Lord’s head.
Sharp teeth hung over bloodred lips, and sharper nails clutched around the Great Sword, golden and bright.
Their creator had finally come to see them.
Yet the violence in his gaze suggested it was not for pleasantries.
The Yakkas fell to their knees in reverence, but the Lord roared. “What horror has been unleashed here?”
A shiver shook through the Yakkas. Not a word was uttered.
“Why are the humans trembling before the Heavens?”
Only silence met him.
“Answer me! Why have you left your shrines and destroyed the balance I created?”
That piqued Reeri’s ears. “Destroyed? My Lord, we have kept the balance and, in doing so, were granted leave of the shrines.”
The Lord darkened. “Who granted you this?”
Reeri tensed. In all his musings, he had not questioned it. “No one, my Lord. I found that with more bargains came more freedom. I encouraged the humans to offer to all.”
“ You ,” the Lord fumed. “You dare break my law and grant power to yourself and others? You dare steal authority from me?”
Reeri’s heart beat swiftly. “I did not intend—”
“You have disobeyed your creator, ruined, mayhap for all time, my plans for the Second Heavens, and led your clan astray!”
Dread trickled down Reeri’s spine. “I apologize, my Lord. I did not know.”
The shackle fell off. A collective gasp rose up on the Yakkas’ lips. Then lightning struck; screams filled the air as the blitz rained down. With the flick of the Lord’s wrist, the Great Sword swung. It sliced and shredded, cut and carved.
Pain lanced up Reeri’s spine; a cry bubbled across his tongue.
“Disobedience demands discipline!” Lord Wessamony thundered.
Bloody sores pulsed along Reeri’s arms, up his neck, and down his abdomen. Pure destruction festered him from the inside out.
“My eyes!” Baddracali screamed, white and black melting from her sockets.
“Stop!” Calu yelled, teeth falling from his mouth.
“Calu!” Ratti shouted, the Great Sword chopping a thigh, bone splintering with a crack.
“No!” Calu reached out, his fingertips an inch from hers when the Great Sword swung wide, severing them from the joint. They thudded to the ground.
“Please!” Reeri bellowed. “They did not know. It is not their fault!”
As quickly as it had begun, it halted.
The Great Sword snicked back into Lord Wessamony’s hand. “And yet that does not rectify the wrong, does it, Reeri?”
He shivered as the breeze touched his flayed skin. “No, my Lord.”
“You have ruined it all, Reeri.”
He bowed his head. “Yes, my Lord.”
“For that, I hereby banish the Yakkas from the Earth.”
As one, they rose into the sky.
“Damnation is your punishment. Your place is in my court, in eternal purgatory,” Lord Wessamony judged. “This, Reeri, is your penalty: to watch as they suffer for your actions.”
Breath stalled in Reeri’s lungs. “Please—”
“Yet I am not without mercy!” the Lord boomed. “Atonement is also yours. Your place shall be the shadowlands, your powers bound by my decree, until you find the relic I seek and repair the wreckage you have wrought of my plans. Do you accept these terms?”
“Please, Reeri,” Ratti sobbed. “Help us.”
O Heavens. What had he done?
“Yes, my Lord!”
“Then so shall it be.” Lord Wessamony nodded. “For my sake, I grant three of your clan as aid.”
With another flick of his wrist, the Lord let loose his power, and in a blink, the Yakkas’ bodies fell to the jungle floor.
Yet they did not. Phantoms now, they rose into the Second Heavens.
All but Reeri, Calu, Kama, and Sohon. They stopped in the gray-black aether betwixt the Earth and Heavens. Into the nothingness.
Reeri touched his shadow face, only for his fingers to slip through vapor.
“Purgatory will end when you present me the Bone Blade.” Lord Wessamony’s voice echoed, the sounds of torment and torture rising from his faraway court. “The fault lies entirely with you, Reeri. Never forget that.”