Page 69 of Her Soul for a Crown

Everyone moved at once, blinking as if waking from a nightmare.

The amphitheater looked as if it were newly carved, the stone tiers sparkling in the torches’ flames. Only the people were caked in dirt and sweat, smelling sharp as an onion.

“What happened?” a woman at the edge of the pit asked. Her eyes crossed in confusion, taking in the room, the people, and the three men beside her. Horror-struck, the woman who’d once held Kama checked on her son and husband, the adviser’s family rousing from their deep sleep.

Bithul rushed to her side. “It’s all right. You are safe now.”

“No,” said the last man Reeri had inhabited. He touched his bare chest. “Something is missing.”

His proclamation echoed in the cavern of Anula’s heart, reverberated off the empty space where once there had been a tether. She had no sense of how far away the Yakkas were or if they were in danger. She couldn’t even tell if they were alive.

“Did I save them?” Anula asked Fate, pulse quickening. If Reeri didn’t make it, if cutting the Hand of Death hadn’t worked… She grasped Fate’s arm. “Why didn’t the Divinities use the relic to revive Destiny?”

Fate eyed her with the vastness of a thousand stars.

A chill slid down her spine. “Does the relic not work that way on Heavenly beings?” It had been created by humans, intended to be used on humans. Perhaps—

“There is much unknown of the cosmos.”

Anula bristled. “That’s why I’m asking you.”

“The cosmos is constantly changing,” Fate said, looking out and far away, as though they could see it all unfolding. “It has changed again, made anew.”

Anula fingered her empty collarbone and whispered, “Are they alive?”

Fate turned instead to Premala. “The change, too, is in you. It is in all of us.”

Anula tracked Premala’s steps, how she and Sandani held each other tight. Anula didn’t need a tether to feel the promise made. Premala pulled the acolyte’s chin close and pressed her kiss firmly.

It pinched at Anula. She knew she wasn’t going to be given an answer but that she’d have to find it, somehow, someday. And she would. Reeri might have said it first, but she refused to leave him, too.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “For killing you.”

Premala laughed, as if she hadn’t died and returned. “I’m sorry I nearly killed you, too.”

“Please.” A voice rasped. Anula’s head snapped up. Coiled around herself in a corner, Hashini held on to the last shred of life. Poison ate at her lips, as it surely did at her heart. She reached out to her acolytes. “Help.”

No one moved. Actions spoke louder than words and hers had sacrificed one of them. To her, they were replaceable, their lives meaningless and sisterhood a farce. She didn’t deserve the Kattadiya.

Anula stepped between Hashini and Premala, but the young woman grabbed her arm. Hands entwined, she and Sandani strode forward.

“Please,” Hashini murmured again.

“I’m sorry,” Premala said, stern and steady, “but my guruthuma taught me that Kattadiya do not act for themselves, only for the protection of others.”

What was left of Hashini’s lips quivered, until she choked. Purple veins turned into a purple face as the poison stole her last breath. Premala turned away, her doe eyes meeting Anula’s. Not wide with fear, but knowing. Seeing. “Thank you.”

Anula raised a brow. “What are friends for?”

This time, she didn’t squeak.

***

“What do we do now?” Bithul asked, eyeing the amphitheater’s now-open door and darkness beyond.

Everyone else eyed Anula.

Even Fate. A smirk played on their lips, puckered like a fish, and Anula briefly wondered if the Makara had existed first or if Fate had, if one had always been both, or if banishment had melded them together.

“Yes,” the fallen Divinity said. “Will you act again?”

“As my curves would suggest, I am not the raja,” Anula said, tugging at her sari, brushing away the image of the last one’s face. “I hold no power. Without a husband, I’m not even a consort. Besides, there’s a foreign prince on the throne, and you said I couldn’t go back any further.”

“Action must not always initiate from the same place. You need not the Bone Blade. You have far greater powers at your disposal.” Fate nodded to all gathered.

“There is a hand of death hovering over your kingdom. Will you not stop the usurper and save your people? Is that not the path you chose long ago?”

Anula narrowed her eyes. “I would ask how you knew, but it seems you’re not particularly fond of answers.”

Fate’s braid flicked like the tail of a fish. “Revelations are more useful than answers.”

Anula snorted, but Bithul caught her eye. She knew his question without him asking.

Despite herself, Reeri’s shadow face flashed in her mind.

The ache echoed hollowly. A great chasm into which she could easily fall, as she had once before.

Clenching a fist, she drew herself back.

She wouldn’t fall again, but she would survive again.

Her path was not laid out before her, but chosen.

The answer was as simple as it was difficult: she’d search for Reeri, for years if she must, but right now, it was the lives of those in her kingdom that were most important.

Less than a hundred were safely in the caves.

They could flee, but to where, another kingdom?

That still left the majority of her people behind.

If she were the raejina, if Auntie Nirma’s plan had unfolded without a hitch and she held the throne, she would fight back.

End the Age of Usurpers and finish the war with Polonnaruwa once and for all.

But it hadn’t. She didn’t.

Besides… “We aren’t a large enough army here to win against them.”

“Anuradhapura has never had a large army.” Bithul grunted. “Yet we have still prevailed.”

“How?” Premala asked.

Again, Anula’s fingers flashed to her throat. To the space where vials of tinctures and poisons had once hung. “Usurpers prize physical prowess, but we need only to be intelligent enough to use that against them.”

“What do you have in mind?” Bithul asked.

Anula shook her head. “We would need a way back into the palace without being seen, which we don’t have.”

A collective sigh gripped the room.

“I do.” Clearing his throat, Prophet Revantha emerged from the back, round-faced and unwrinkled, holding aloft his pendant of gold and rubies.

“The key,” Fate lilted. “You have guarded it well these past centuries.”

Prophet Revantha took the stairs. “Yes, my great Divinity. The order has kept their task well. It has been passed down to every prophet, as instructed.”

“Mind sharing why with the rest of us?” Anula asked.

“Of course, my apologies. The pendant unlocks the doors inside the blessed paintings, the ones the Divinities closed after so many people lost their way in the cosmos when venturing to walk between them.”

“The stories of old were true,” Bithul breathed.

Half-true, Anula corrected silently.

“But if you unlock the doors for us to pass between paintings, what will stop us from being lost now?”

“He’s the prophet,” Premala said. “You can lead us through, can’t you?”

Prophet Revantha rubbed his neck. “It is true that I see the cosmos when I meditate—it’s what we are taught and why we’re chosen as acolytes. Yet, despite years of trial, none have been able to map it. The cosmos is vast and ever-changing. Even the prophets are warned against walking.”

Anula shut her eyes. Perhaps it was too dangerous for all of them to go through, but perhaps not for one. After all, it was she who knew where the ingredients were hidden in the raja’s chamber, she who knew how to mix and serve. Perhaps only she must take the risk and act.

“I will lead you through,” Fate said. Anula blanched.

“Then it’s settled.” Bithul clapped his hands. “We take back the throne, take back our kingdom.”

Sandani tugged on Premala’s arm. “The Kattadiya will be needed, to help those injured.”

“But we have no guruthuma.”

Sandani leveled a gaze.

Premala squeaked. “Me?”

“You saved me at the expense of yourself.” Sandani turned to the others. “What more could we want from a guruthuma?”

“But…”

“Guruthuma Premala,” one Kattadiya said. Then another, and another.

“Kattadiya do not act for themselves,” Sandani quoted. “Only for the protection of others. You are a true Kattadiya. A true guruthuma.”

Flushed, Premala’s hands twitched, her lips slid between her teeth—but instead of the wringing and biting, she squared her shoulders and took a breath.

“Thank you for choosing me, for always accepting me, even when I couldn’t.

I will always choose you, too, along with our people, the way Guruthuma Thilini taught.

” She turned to Anula. “We’re with you, Raejina Consort. ”

Anula scoffed. “First of all, friends refer to each other by first names. Second, I am no longer a consort.” She ignored the squeeze that brought to her heart.

“No,” Premala agreed. “You’re going to be the first raejina.”

“No,” Anula snapped. She rubbed her eyes, then softened her voice. “I don’t want it.”

“A wise leader knows when to share the brunt of a burden,” Fate said. “I never said you must act alone, Anula. Share your vision and your dream.”

“But you said only I can accomplish my dreams.”

“Only you can spark the flame of your dreams, yet it takes a village to see them through.”

The words settled warmly on Anula’s arms, like a blanket on the coolest nights. And yet an itch bloomed. At her wrists first, then all the way up her neck. She was Anula of Anuradhapura. This was her kingdom. These were her people.

And that was important.

“I want to help,” she said. “But I won’t be another usurper. That Age ends now. A new Age begins.”

“Then go as a soldier,” Bithul said. “Fight for your kingdom, as I will.”

The guards exchanged glances, moved to flank their trainer. In unison, they said, “As we will.”

The Kattadiya picked up the anthem, Premala the loudest, and with all the people free from capture cantillating last, an army amassed. It lifted Anula, buoyed her soul, and she remembered who she wanted to be, who she wanted to be that person for, and what she could do.

An army needed weapons.

Her weapons.

Anula nodded, turning to Fate. “Let’s begin.”