Page 77 of Her Soul for a Crown

Epilogue

Anula hunched over the wide table, slipped the list out of the seam of her sari, and held it over the candle flame.

There was no hidden message, no last words from Auntie Nirma, yet Anula watched as their list burned, the edges curling in on themselves, darkening and dissolving, a weight along with it.

She dropped the ash in a small bowl, stirred the mortar and pestle next to it, and poured in the liquid she’d had delivered to her chambers—the raejina’s chambers—after the coronation celebration.

The midnight moon was hidden beneath the monsoon mist, and flame light flickered throughout the room, casting shadows on the remnants of the blessed gifts.

“What are you going to do with that?” a voice breathed.

Anula suffocated a sigh, regretting salvaging one blessed gift in particular.

“Are you going to use it on someone? Another enemy?” the blessed gift of Raejina Devi Dunni asked.

“No,” Anula answered as politely as she could.

The gift hadn’t stopped speaking since Anula had her fixed and reunited her with her beloved raja.

Luckily, one of the blessed gifts that had been recovered could mend all things, including the wood of a bed frame.

The story of Anula’s courageous victory spread fast through the palace, not on the lips of servants but of blessed gifts.

So, too, did her crowning. And when the reassembled gift returned, Raejina Devi Dunni introduced herself and promptly decided to never close her mouth again.

“Then what are you making? You are the Raejina of Poisons, are you not?”

“A woman can be more than one thing, don’t you think?” Anula responded, glancing at the journal’s hiding spot. For the first time in hours, the gift quieted.

A bubble of liquid popped from the bowl, and a tendril of smoke rose like a viper striking.

Anula slipped out the last thing she’d hidden in the seam of her sari for safekeeping.

The ivory of the Bone Blade gleamed. There was no heavenslight, no heavensong, as if it were resting.

As if it knew it had completed its purpose.

And it had. Just as the list had. Just as the bargain had.

A new age had begun, and with it, a new vision. Anula lifted the blade above the smoke and dropped it into the bowl. It hissed as it died, bones creaking and cracking, dissolving in the tincture one splinter at a time, until not even ash remained. Only peace.

“You are right,” Raejina Devi Dunni whispered. “You are more than I think you are. But I believe you are more than you think you are, too. Do not worry my raejina, your loveliness and bravery will bring a husband’s warmth to your bed.”

“I don’t need a husband for that.”

“But you want one.”

Anula growled. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to break the frame again. Throw the pieces in the fire or the Kuttam Pokuna bathhouse—

Thump.

Anula jolted. A bound book landed unassumingly next to the bowl. The title, scrawled in gold script, read Rise of the Raejina .

“Sohon wanted you to have the first edition,” Reeri said, smile reaching saffron eyes. “A coronation gift.”

“You didn’t disappear.” She stood, taking him in again, as if she hadn’t danced with him for hours at the celebration.

Reeri planted a kiss on her forehead. “Never.”

His words, his touch, soaked into her. The rain’s final arrival in a drought. “Aren’t memory books written about the dead? Don’t tell me you’ve come to warn me that I’m about to die. I’m not a fan of spoiled endings.”

The Blood Yakka chuckled. “It is merely volume one. Your story has yet to finish.”

“Among other things,” Anula murmured, teasing the edge of his tunic, remembering how they’d started the day—or had tried to.

He touched her long earrings, fingers grazing her neck. A light kiss followed.

Anula shivered. “Are you here only to deliver my book?”

He met her gaze. “No.”

She shifted, an invitation in her hips, a challenge in her eye. “Then are you here to pray?”

She slowly licked his lips.

“To watch me get on my knees?”

She nipped his ear.

“To hear me beg?”

Reeri trembled.

Anula grabbed his hardness. Saffron eyes flashed.

He growled low. “I am here because I love you.”

“Why?”

His lips found hers, hand twisting into her hair. “You are beautiful, body and soul.”

“Is that all?”

“No.” He softened their kiss and deepened it.

The aching in her core flamed bright. A want, a need, a calling of something more blessed than a relic.

Anula pushed into him, backing him into the bed and tipping him over the edge.

She pulled off his sarong and tore off her sari, then crawled on top, wrapping over him like a gift.

He stood at attention for her, and she lifted her hips, sinking down the length of him.

Reeri rumbled from his depths, a thrum threading from his body to hers, a spark igniting the vastness within, twining around and through her very soul.

His breath became her breath. His rhythm, hers.

His heart, his soul, his love and want and need, hers.

The moon, the stars, the sun flickered in and out, the entire cosmos colliding.

“That is why,” he breathed. “You are my echo. The one with whom my soul communes.”

Anula’s soul fluttered, swelled…

“Mine,” he rasped.

And she crescendoed.

Their forms moved in tandem. Slow at first, teasing the flames, kindling the fire faster and faster still. Anula’s nails dug into Reeri’s shoulders. His hand squeezed her seat. And she rode him hard.

“Reeri,” she moaned, arching sharply, her breasts bared to the moonless night. His grip tightened as his hips jerked.

“Reeri,” she begged.

His whole body hitched.

“Reeri!”

Anula ground against him, and the water tanks broke free. Their heads tipped back, veins popping, pleasure beating, their souls shivering as the wave crested and crashed—

“Reeri,” Anula gasped, the fire drenched as the waves rippled upon her shore, and she collapsed.

A cheer rose up from the bed frame. “That’s my girl,” blessed Raejina Devi Dunni said. Anula chuckled. Perhaps she would keep the gift after all.

Saffron eyes snapped open as red tendrils swirled across Reeri’s chest and twirled around her fingers, up her hands, and along her arms.

“Our marking,” she breathed. “Did we just make a bargain?”

“No.” Reeri blushed. “It is a marking from the cosmos. A sign of our connection, our communion. It is a gift.”

He didn’t need to say the last part. Anula ran a finger along the elephant face on her palm. The same one etched on his chest.

“Do you want me to take it away? I can, if you wish.”

“No,” she said quickly, feeling the warmth of the marking, and the meaning. “I want it.”

Reeri cupped her face and brought her in for a deep kiss. “I love you.”

Anula stared into saffron eyes, a handsome face, and a kind soul. “I love you, too,” she whispered. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Reeri let out a laugh, bright and joyful as heavensong.

There were so many ways to stop a heart…

But only one that made Anula’s soar.