Page 110 of Her Soul for a Crown
Confusion cleared, the darkness receding like the tide at night.
“Protect them. Save them,” she said. “That’s what we do.”
Fear had stolen her sight for long enough. Anula would be no usurper.
Power and hatred would not be her legacy.
40
His name on her lips—the sound was more beautiful than any birdsong, more satisfying than any mango; it surpassed any experience he had of life thus far.
For it was not merely hearing his name that roused his shadow, but hearingAnulasay his name that stirred his soul.
He watched her now, in fitful sleep—the weight of duty and the lives of her people pulling her under—and wondered why she had said it, what it meant, or if it meant nothing at all. Yet…she had kissed him—a true kiss, not the press of her lips to inflict poison and pain. And he could not deny he wanted more.
More connection, more time, to see if she was the elusive soul that communed with his. Reeri shook off the thought, for he could not havemore.
Not after her prayer to save her family had fallen on his inattentive ears. Not while she was his tether, his soul offering. Not while he kept the full truth of what he would do with that offering to himself. For true communion had no half-truths.
Reeri reached out between them, stopped shy of touching her.No longer did she curl up at the edge of the bed but centered herself in the middle. He swallowed hard. She deserved to know the truth of what was coming, of how he might fail her once again. But if he spoke it, would she recoil from him as she had before?
Worse, would she flee?
***
“You are the damnation of your brethren,” Wessamony seethed. A gleam, red as fire, in his eyes. A curled smile on his lips. “You are the ruination of all my plans for the ascendence of the Second Heavens. You deserve this and more.”
A whip cracked, high and sharp.
It came away with strips of shadow, the edges frayed and dissolving.
Reeri arced the whip back once again, red eyes on the rent shadows of Sohon, Kama, and Calu.
Thunder shook the bed. Reeri jolted awake, sheets clinging with sweat. A crack of lightning lit the expanse of the raja’s chamber, casting dark phantoms about the room.
The fault lies with you, Reeri, they whispered with the storm.Never forget that.
A soft touch trailed over his fingers, and he flinched.
“It’s me,” Anula said softly through the strobing tempest. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She had not seen, her tincture potent and true—able to keep the nightmares from each other, but unable to rid them altogether. Yet she had asked the question she had forever refused. His shadow ached for her arms around him.
Never before had he spoken of a nightmare. Never before her had he shared the visions that stalked him. Never before had he wanted to. Feared to. Dared to.
“Yes.” His voice cracked.
Anula scooted closer, narrowing the distance. Still, too much remained.
“How did it happen? I want the truth.” Golden starlit eyes flicked to his, and she held him firm. “Please.”
The warmth in her voice, in her gaze, was a hook on a fishing line. It caught him swiftly.
“Wessamony gave the Yakkas a fetter to keep us in our shrines,” he began, then left out no horror. He laid bare his scheme for the Yakkas’ slow freedom. She had heard as much already; so too had she seen. Yet those were half-truths. Here, he gave it in full, hoping it gained him a step closer to true communion.
“One day, when we were celebrating Ratti’s successful matchmaking, she was taken. Women in masks wielded the power to break our bargains, tear our connections, even rip us into the air and send us back to our shrines. Yet we were many and they were few—fewer still, as the people who paid for curses did not reap the benefit of their enemy’s suffering. They turned on the Kattadiya, killed almost all of them. Those remaining called upon the Lord of the Second Heavens at the start of the Maha Equinox, gave evidence, and argued their case. If he agreed with them, I do not know. I only know of his anger at my finding the loophole. I had ruined his plans of ascension, embarrassed him in the Heavens. So he reduced the Yakkas to shadow and pain. You have seen the rest.” Reeri took a breath. “It is my fault. Wessamony spoke the truth. And if I fail them again, I will forever be their tormentor. Their pain, my fault for eternity.”
“Is that why you want to kill him, to redeem yourself?” she asked, no hint of sarcasm, no measure of derision.
