Page 59 of Her Soul for a Crown
The suggestion of a smile quirked his lips. “Kama was right. It does not matter which of the carts is at the forefront. We are all connected.”
“And the nightmares?”
Sohon shrugged. “Mayhap it is because you bargained with Reeri, not us, or because you are next to him and we are too far away, or it is some sort of balance. Not everything in the cosmos can be explained.”
“Isn’t that the point of the two Heavens, to give answers?” Anula asked, brushing away the chill of the wretched night she’d lost everything, of the resoundingnohung high on a pike.
“Whoever sold you that story was a good liar.”
With that, Sohon walked across the paved street and into the outer-city market. Anula blanched. If that night had not been an answer, if her prayer as a child had not been refused…
No. The Yakka was wrong.
“Raejina Consort?” Bithul asked, leaning into her line of sight. “Is everything all right?”
Shaking off the dust of memory, she followed. “It will be.” As soon as she was free of this cage.
That was the reason she’d volunteered to search the outer city. With its small, tight-knit thatched houses and streets roaring with buffalo and oxen, elephants and pheasants, beggars and barterers, it was nearly a shrine on its own. Only more honest.
Here, one received an answer right away. But Anula didn’t intend on wasting her breath on the Bone Blade. If a human couldn’t break a bargain, perhaps a relic could. According to the stories of old, they were mighty powerful. And if the Blood Yakka sought one, perhaps she should, too.
Her eyes swept the vendors, passed curries and sweet treats, passed foreign fabrics and meats, searching for a familiar face. Though Auntie Nirma’s closest confidants had perished in the palace with her, the web was spread wide. Now, if she could only find one willing to help.
A familiar girl rushed past, deftly weaving around bodies. A basket of candles bounced against her hip as she disappeared down a street. It wasn’t out of the ordinary to see inner-city servants shopping here, yet there was something about the press of Premala’s lips that sent an alarm bell trilling. Anula’s gut told her to follow, but she couldn’t. She needed an ally, not an unknown. The mystery of Premala must wait for another day. First, the cage and the bargain. Then the crown. Then the rest of her list.
Bithul squeezed her elbow, nodded toward a foreign merchant. “Someone’s been distracted, my raejina consort.”
The small Yakka bent over a rug stacked ten books high, eyes wild. “These are originals, you say, no translation?”
The merchant nodded enthusiastically, showing him pagesand pages of text in another language. Though Anuradhapura had always been a hub for trade in a sea of islands, a surge had begun. Each year, people from every corner of the kingdom made the journey to the palace to celebrate the Festival of the Cosmos. It had been Thaththa’s favored time of year. Not only for the closeness felt to the Heavens, but for meeting those from so far away. Soon the market would be too thick with bodies for anyone to quickly slip through.
“I have no kahapanas,” Sohon said, checking his pockets.
The merchant snatched the book from his hands. If Anula hadn’t known better, she’d have thought Sohon’s lip quivered.
“Do you need it for the search?” Bithul whispered to the Yakka, pulling out his own coin.
“Why would he need books?” Anula asked. Sohon was the Yakka of Graveyards and Memories. The stories of old spoke of his insatiable desire for entrails, devouring the dead’s flesh to record the memories they held. Or merely for the taste, depending on his mood. “Is he going to eat them?”
The merchant scrambled in front of his horde. “No, no, leave!”
“I do not eat books,” Sohon snapped.
“Do entrails have more spice?” She cocked a smile.
Sohon stormed away.
Anula’s eyes lit up. “Are you embarrassed by your Heavenly powers?”
“No, leave me alone.”
“Ashamed that you eat the dead?”
He spun. “Are you?”
“I don’t—”
“Eat dead animals?”
