Page 61 of Her Soul for a Crown
Dropping Malika’s hands, she moved, outrage simmering like water in a pot. Bithul and Sohon kept their distance. They dared not ask what was wrong or whether her visits to vendors and low words were for the Bone Blade.
They weren’t. No longer did she search for a familiar face. Any would do. Any that looked as if they dealt with secrets. Any that looked like they’d move mountains for coin.
She whispered for a way to break a bargain, for a relic that had the power. But every stall, every vendor, every foreign merchant answered the same.
***
Night darkened the sky as Anula stomped into the bedchamber.
The Blood Yakka rubbed his face, looking tired and beaten. He lay on the bed and growled at the ceiling. “The mural is mocking me.”
“Good. Someone should.” It was acidic and honest.
He grimaced. “I take it time with Sohon did not warm you to us.”
She stared at the damned bed, at the space that would span between them and invite the curiosity that crept into her thoughts and made her want for the Yakka to rub her arm again. She wondered what he looked like beneath the stolen body; if a gentle touch would undo him, like a normal man, or if they could go on until the Heavens ended; if he really could make the cosmos explode between her legs. If he ever thought about trying.
She clenched her teeth.Cursed tether.“Don’t act like you care about anything but your precious relic and unfinished business.”
“I do care,” he rebuffed.
She laughed mirthlessly.
He stood as if to fight. “Despite the half-truths the stories of old fed you, I am not a lion always out for a kill.”
Anula narrowed her eyes. “And what do you care for? Devotion? Worship? Another statue made in your likeness?”
“I care for suffering.” A flush crept into his cheeks. “I do what I can to protect my patrons from it, mayhap through vengeance, or healing, or a peaceful passing. Do not tell me whether I care for you or anyone else when I—”
“You don’t like seeing us suffer?” Anula paused, catching on his defenses.
He puffed out his chest. “No, of course not.”
The idea pinched her heart. Amma and Auntie Nirma had believed that. They’d believed that between the death and the blood was a being ready to save them, bless them, and keep them. The Blood Yakka believed the story he told, too, if the flared nostrils and pulsating vein in his neck told her anything. Sohon’s words came back to her. Was this a story untold or unremembered?
She could see it, almost. Like a shadow in the dark. But—ifAmma and Auntie Nirma were right, then why had they not been saved?
“Prove it,” she growled. A challenge and a threat.
“What?”
“Prove it,” she repeated, fingering her necklace. His eyes tracked them.
If what he believed was true, then she didn’t need to break the bargain. She had plenty of leverage to work with—an entire kingdom’s worth.
“Talk is cheap, Yakka,” she said. “How far are you willing to go to save a man from suffering?”
His brows furrowed.
“How long can you stand to watch? That’s what Wessamony does to you, isn’t it? Makes you watch the suffering. It’s what haunts you at night.” A wave of adrenaline spiked her senses, and she leaned closer, whispering, “If you care about our suffering, if your only job is to protect, then what would you do to save someone? Would you hand over a crown?”
The Blood Yakka stiffened, catching sight of a lion emerging from the bush, out for the kill.
24
“What are you doing?” Reeri’s words were deep and quaking.
The fault lies entirely with you.
