Page 63 of Her Soul for a Crown

A wind kicked up inside the amphitheater. It swept the skirts of the Kattadiya as they huddled closer together, bells and beads chiming. It whirled around the broken and bleeding, slamming closed the door to their only escape. The lock clicked in place.

The Maha Equinox had begun. Anula’s heart skipped a beat.

Lord Wessamony was everything the stories of old described and more.

Blue flames blazed up his twisted horns, sharp teeth were set in a snarl, and sharper nails dug into the hilt of the Great Sword—the one the stories said was pure gold, as long as three men stacked together, and blessed to do Wessamony’s biding.

It glowed, chasing shadows into tight corners.

The Lord of the Second Heavens snarled. Depthless eyes took in the people, the Kattadiya, and found them all lacking.

The relic burned at Anula’s hip. With a snap of his fingers, Reeri lifted out of the pit, flew into the air, and slammed against a wall.

Kama, Calu, and Sohon followed, their two essence offerings falling from her grip to the ground, shattering the bowl.

The Great Sword flashed out of Wessamony’s hand and slid beneath the Yakkas’ necks, trapping them against the stone wall.

He stepped lightly toward them, a heart squelching apart beneath his feet.

The Lord darkened. “Where be my Bone Blade?”

“My Lord,” Reeri breathed. Anula didn’t need to touch him to see the fear in his eyes or hear it shake his words. “We nearly—”

The sword pressed closer. Blood welled in a thin line along their throats. Anula flinched.

It was happening again. Her loved ones were being threatened. But the relic burned once more at her hip, a reminder that she was no longer that little girl. She swallowed the fear, imagining taking Reeri’s, too, and stepped forward. “Murderer!”

“Anula,” Reeri warned.

He should have known better. When had she ever heeded him before? She took another step toward the Lord of destruction. “Murderer.”

Wessamony turned, flames flickering up his horns like the tail of an irritated jungle cat. “Ah, the one who offered a soul. Leave, child, else I take that offering to the grave.”

His voice, at once booming and stern, also held the sounds of the cosmos, a tone that reverberated in her chest. It warned that he was not human, that he was not safe. Still, she clenched a fist and raised her chin. For Auntie Nirma. For Thaththa. For Amma.

For Anuradhapura.

“Why burn Eppawala? You had plenty of people willing to search for the relic before. You didn’t have to kill the entire village,” she accused.

“Anula, no,” Reeri rasped, cutting his throat deeper on the blade.

Wessamony narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?”

“Did the cosmos deny you a heart and a memory?”

A whisper began behind her. Guruthuma Hashini quickly prayed to her Divinities, one name after another spilling from her lips.

Wessamony frowned. Wind swept through the chamber like the wave of a monsoon, toppling the guruthuma over and scaring the Kattadiya into silence. “Why does the soul offering care for a village long ago destroyed?”

Trepidation chilled Anula’s spine. Perhaps Reeri was right.

Perhaps she shouldn’t do this. She should throw him the relic and run.

If she wasn’t ready for a crown, she couldn’t possibly be ready to set a Heavenly being to trial, force his confession, and mete out his punishment.

She had no idea what the relic would do or whether Wessamony could fight back, let alone whether he would allow her to live long enough to hear his guilt.

But the sound of a door rattling, of her people desperately trying to escape another tyrant, pulled her from her doubts. She glanced at Bithul, forever at the ready behind her, and at Reeri, his promise to never leave her threatened.

The choice was simple. She had already made it, for the dead and for all those still living and yet to live. “I care because Eppawala and all her people were mine.”

“You survived.” A wicked smile spread, sharp teeth glinting in the Great Sword’s light. “Yet you offer your soul. What a waste.”

“Nothing is wasted when you seek your dreams, and I have long dreamed of this moment. Why kill all those innocents? You searched for the relic before, with only the seeker’s death.”

His horns burned blue. “Do not dare to think you know my ways.”

“Then tell me.”

“A bargain is a bargain. You know that full well. The seeker wanted to destroy the Polonnaruwans.”

She narrowed her eyes. “The village didn’t have to die to do that.”

Wessamony laughed darkly. “Violence takes whomever it wishes. Have you not noticed how it waits beneath the surface of all men? A mere whisper of fear and they turn feral. Anuradhapura feared Polonnaruwa, how their lives would change if their laws and faiths and families were taken from them. Kill before killed, is it not the balance of nature? All I did was strike a bargain and utter a whisper. Men did the rest, as they always do.”

Anula clenched a fist. Like Prophet Ayaan, he didn’t lie, but he wasn’t absolved either. Wessamony had been designed to destroy, yet he acted not out of balance, merely out of willful, sadistic, selfish choice.

“All that, and you still didn’t find the relic,” Anula pressed. “Was it worth it?”

A smirk grew. “Nothing is wasted when you seek your dreams.” He towered over her. One sharp nail lifted the edge of her necklace. “Is that not right, Raejina of Poisons?”

Anula’s chest rose and fell quickly. She didn’t dare blink. Wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“It is beautiful, is it not, man’s undying hatred for one another? Their unquenchable thirst for dominance? They are the reason the Bone Blade is hidden so well.”

The relic burned under Anula’s sari. This was it, her moment of vengeance, justice for the cosmos.

He was so near—she only had to take it out and slash it across his being.

As Fate had done to Destiny. Her fingers wrapped around the hilt, and with a deep breath, she returned Wessamony’s wicked smile. “I think you mean was .”

Thrusting it between them, heavensong erupted in the amphitheater, a multitude of voices in chorus. A collective gasp echoed on the stairs. It nearly caught Anula’s breath.

“You found it,” Wessamony hissed, horns glowing brightest blue.

“Let the Yakkas go.”

“Hand me the blade,” Wessamony said, reaching, “and your bargain shall be complete. You have done well, seeker.”

“Let the Yakkas go,” she repeated. “All of them.”

“Anula,” Reeri rasped another warning.

“He will not heed you,” Kama said.

“Use it,” Sohon quavered.

“What about the other Yakkas? Your essence—”

“Too late!”

Wessamony’s flames flared. “Hand it to me now, soul offering, else all those in this room shall perish in a bloodshed more terrifying than your village’s.”

Anula shifted, placing herself between the murderous Lord and her people, including the Kattadiya.

“I am the Lord of the Second Heavens. You shall obey me!”

Anula raised her chin. “I am Anula of Anuradhapura. I obey no one.”

Lips curling over long, sharp teeth, Wessamony growled, “Then you will be their demise.”

A sharp-nailed finger pointed behind her.

Anula whirled to find Wessamony’s target.

Hashini startled, twisted quickly, and wrenched a girl in front of her.

“Sandani!” Premala grabbed hold of her hand, flung her backward, and took her place. Right in front of the guruthuma.

The snap of fingers came first.

Then everything went white and silent and still.

Only a deep anger stirred inside Anula. It burned, rising like heat in a room, until a hatred so red rumbled in her chest. She sneered at the face in front of her, disgusted with their vileness, their presence, their mere existence.

They were not worthy of being there; they were not worthy of life.

The kingdom shouldn’t have to bear the burden that was them .

Anula wouldn’t allow it. She picked up a rock and swung, slamming it into their head, again, again, again—

A laugh boomed.

The world returned.

And beneath Anula’s final blow, Premala’s skull shattered.

“No.” Anula’s voice broke. Premala slumped into the pit.

Anula’s stomach lurched. What had she done? What had happened? Acid burned up her throat. It was as though her thoughts had been poisoned against Premala and her will bent to a dark force… Anula dropped the stone, a chill racking her bones, vomit filling her mouth.

“You shall have one chance more.” Wessamony smirked. “Hand over the relic, or kill all you care for.”

She choked back bile—red sky, red hands, red—

“Anula!” Reeri’s voice ripped her back. Cursed blessings, how were they to survive this?

Wessamony’s fingers came together.

“No!” she shouted, fisted the relic, and ran away.

Wessamony laughed again. “You think you can escape me? Fine, let us play. Mayhap after your people have turned on you, you will no longer wish to save them.” He pointed to a group of people on the stairs in front of her. “Bring me the Bone Blade.”

Snap.

Kattadiya and refugees stiffened. Their eyes clouded over, white as cow’s milk.

Their heads cracked in her direction, and silently, they lunged.

Hands latched on to the hem of Anula’s sari and the clasp of her necklace; they hooked around her legs and thighs, twisted in her hair.

They yanked and threw her backward. She slammed into a jagged rock, and the blade flew out of her grip.

It clattered onto Hashini’s foot. She smiled, lifting it to the cave ceiling.