Page 128 of Her Soul for a Crown
“We?” Premala squeaked. “What, like a truce, until Anula and the relic are safe?”
“Until my Yakkas are safe, too,” he bargained.
“And then we…what?”
“Then together, we face Wessamony,” Reeri said, seeing the shadow of the girl within, the one Anula must have seen. The one who was not dissimilar to either of them. “Together, we save the Heavens and the Earth.”
Slowly, the girl nodded. “What do you need from me?”
47
The courtyard sharpened into focus as the tether suddenly soothed.
Smoke choked the courtiers’ houses, flushing out any who tried to hide. Wood creaked and fire popped. War elephants trumpeted, a brass noise vibrating beneath Anula’s feet.
But Reeri had found a new body.
Anula’s pulse thundered, not because the soldiers pushed her and the Yakkas toward the pyre erected outside the administration building, but because she didn’t know whether Reeri was safe or captured again. Was he the man fighting a soldier with only a cut of wood, or the man climbing the rubble of the gate to flee to the outer city?
No, Reeri wouldn’t run away. He’d promised.
Minister, courtier, servant—she searched every soot-stained face. There were a hundred of them at any given time, at least another hundred family members. Auntie Nirma had made her memorize them all, yet Anula recognized none. She saw only cries for help, mirrored images of that terrible night. She swallowed the bile that crept up her throat and tripped as the soldiers shoved heragainst a pile of wood, spreading the Yakkas on either side.
It was only then that her attention shifted, grounding her to what was about to happen, with or without Reeri. The air in her lungs crushed out as the soldiers cinched thick rope tightly around her entire upper body, binding her to the wood at her back. Her stomach plummeted.
She blinked and a baby’s bones cracked.Anula!
She blinked and Amma’s face fractured in flame.Anula!
She blinked and she was fatherless, motherless, powerless. Anuradhapura would burn like Eppawala, with her standing watch, again.
“Anula!” Calu’s voice snatched her from the nightmare. “Not to create a panic, but may I remind everyone that we will return to the aether if Anula dies?”
Thunder clouds roiled. The light beyond them was nearly gone; the equinox was only a few hours away.Thrice-cursed blessings. Even if Reeri was safe now, he wouldn’t be soon. Not if she died here. Wessamony would come for the relic, and if she and the others were gone, if Reeri met him with empty hands—
“No,” she asserted. She slammed the word into her spiraling thoughts, crumpled her fear in her fist, and threw it into the torch’s fire. Anuradhapura wouldn’t be the same as Eppawala. It wouldn’t burn, and her Yakkas wouldn’t be taken, because she was not the same as she had been before.
She strained a hand toward her pocket, where she’d hidden the Bone Blade, but the ropes were too tight. “Do something, Calu!”
“You do something!”
“And which of my cosmos-given powers should I use? The one that doesn’t exist or the one that doesn’t exist?”
“I will not break taboo twice.” A shiver racked Calu. It spread across the rope, shuddering up Anula’s spine.
If the Yakkas would not—could not act, and she couldn’t reachthe blade, then how did they get free?
“I won’t let you die,” Bithul growled, straining against the ropes. But not a hair split from the cords, and before he came up with another plan, the soldiers added another fifteen people to their group and brought the torches near. Anula’s breath stalled.
If you do this right, songs will be sung about you.
And if I do it wrong?
A pyre will be built instead.
48
The deeper into the caves they traveled, the slicker Reeri’s palms grew. Though a human bargain with the Kattadiya was not the best plan, it would have to do. For his family. For Anula.
